Tom Clancy's The Division BETA PS4 Review

Tom Clancy's The Division BETA PS4 Review

Released by Ubisoft
Platform: PS4

An open world, a world in chaos and a world into which you are thrown.

The Tom Clancy Division Beta went live over the weekend and offered up some idea of what to expect when the game finally hits release in March this year.

First glimpsed over a year ago, the game was delayed which was a shame given the promise that the demos I'd witnessed showed.

Loosely, you play an agent in a group known as The Division, which is activated once a devastating pandemic sweeps through NYC on Black Friday and the world starts to collapse. Chaos envelops society and without food or water, it's every man or woman for themselves. And that's where you come in - activated from your apparently sleeper cell status, it's up to you to try and restore some calm and investigate the source of the virus.

The first thing about Tom Clancy's The Division is how wonderfully realised the environment is. From a snow covered New York City that glistens with both wonder and menace, the rendering is nothing short of perfection as you hurtle around trying to achieve main game missions or play side quests which pop up without warning.

Missions initially include setting up a base camp to ensure you have somewhere to call your own, but you're faced with looters determined to take you out at any turn and who, in the desperate throes of survival, will do anything to get by.

Combat's a little trickier too, if you're used to simply going hurtling, all guns blazing. The game is predominantly based on cover tactics and requires you to utilise all of this and protect yourself. The problem is that pressing X all the way down will guarantee you go toward a cover-based spot, but removing that halfway through, will see your player stop, stand up and get blasted or beaten. I get that it's a commitment thing, but the lack of being able to commit simply by tapping a button is a frustration, particularly if you're trying to launch directly into an attack after.

Loot collection is a little more difficult as well if combat is underway and you have to really clear the enemies away before stopping to snoop, a touch which if you're trying to gear up while in combat is another source of frustration.

Shooting takes some learning too, bizarrely. It's not just point and press - aiming carefully will do more damage than blasting blindly and blazing. That makes sense but when you're overwhelmed with combatants, it makes a showdown a little trickier and needs you to strategise rather than go nuts.

That said, The Division is quite eminently playable.

Wandering around the city proves to be fertile ground with other side missions and jobs needing doing prior to following the main narrative. While areas of the game were locked off because of the BETA and needing higher XP to get to them, there are signs there will be much to do in the whole game and enough to suck your time up.

The map's rendering is nicely done too. Calling up the map overlays the whole thing over your current environment and means you can see how far you have to go and what's around you. This AR approach to a game map is a clever and inspiring touch that makes you feel connected to the world and immersed within the quest.

There wasn't time to check out the online component of the game within the Dark Zone, a quarantined area where others can join or fight against you (my money's on a little less collaboration when push comes to shove in the game's release) but the promise of Tom Clancy's The Division shows the open world premise holds up.

While there are hints that repetition of mission could become an issue, a BETA is only a taster and while record numbers signed up for this test, it doesn't look like the online game fell over at all.

Tom Clancy's The Division BETA offered up some tantalising hints of what's ahead - meshing the very best of shooters with Watch_Dogs ethics and outright chaos, it looks like the March release of this game will see the wait and anticipation finally realised and the appetite satiated.

LEGO Star Wars The Force Awakens trailer

LEGO Star Wars The Force Awakens trailer

WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT, TT GAMES,

THE LEGO GROUP AND LUCASFILM ANNOUNCE

LEGO® STAR WARS™: THE FORCE AWAKENS™

The No. 1 LEGO® Videogame Franchise Triumphantly Returns with an

In-Depth Journey Through the Latest Star Wars Blockbuster

Experience Exclusive New Story Content from Star Wars Universe that

Provides Deeper Insights into the Film’s Most Memorable Moments, while Allowing Players to Build, Battle and Fly Through the Galaxy Like Never Before ______________________________________________________________________________

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, TT Games, The LEGO Group and Lucasfilm today announced LEGO® Star Wars™: The Force Awakens™, marking the triumphant return of the No. 1 LEGO videogame franchise, allowing players to relive the epic action from the blockbuster film in a fun-filled, humorous way that only a LEGO game can offer. Launching on June 29, 2016 in Australia and New Zealand, the game will introduce brand new gameplay mechanics to build, battle and fly through the galaxy like never before, as well as new story content exploring the time between Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, providing additional insight about the new movie and its characters.

LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens, developed by TT Games and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, will be available for PlayStation®4 and PlayStation®3 computer entertainment systems, PlayStation®Vita handheld entertainment system, Xbox One, Xbox 360, the Wii U™ system from Nintendo, the Nintendo 3DS™ family of systems and Windows PC.

“We’re extremely proud of the LEGO Star Wars videogames, truly an incredible franchise that has sold more than 33 million copies and helped ignite a passion for numerous fun-filled LEGO games enjoyed by countless gamers around the world,” said Tom Stone, Managing Director, TT Games. “LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be pushing the series forward with innovative new gameplay mechanics, while also exploring new parts of the universe that are sure to excite and delight both LEGO and Star Warsfans, as well as newcomers to our games.”

“We are thrilled to be bringing back the LEGO Star Wars videogame franchise, which kicked off such a beloved series of LEGO titles more than a decade ago,” said Ada Duan, Vice President, Digital Business & Franchise Management, Lucasfilm. “LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens allows players to experience the new film in a unique way that only TT Games can provide, combining signature humor with epic Star Wars action. With exclusive story content exploring new details about the movie and its characters, it’s a perfect fit for fans young and old.”

“We are delighted to return to the Star Wars Universe and continue the journey with the franchise that started it all for LEGO videogames.” said Niels Jørgensen, Vice President, Digital Games for the LEGO Group. “LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens will offer an amazing gaming experience covering not only the movie but also exclusive content with all the fun and humor you would expect from a LEGO game, while delivering the epic Star Wars adventure fans expect”

LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens takes players deeper into the new film than any other game with all of the heroic characters from the movie, including Rey, Finn, Poe Dameron, Han Solo, Chewbacca, C-3PO, and BB-8, as well as Kylo Ren, General Hux and Captain Phasma, while also exploring iconic Star Wars locales, such as Jakku and Starkiller Base.

This action-packed adventure introduces new gameplay features, including the enhanced “Multi-Builds” system, where players can choose from multiple building options to advance the game. Gamers will be able to engage in intense new Blaster Battles for the first time, utilizing surrounding environments to drive back the First Order. Fans can also experience the thrill of high-speed flight gameplay through arena-based battles and dogfights in space, while utilizing a multitude of vehicles along the way, including the legendary Millennium Falcon.

PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 players will have access to exclusive downloadable content, the Droid Character Pack and the Phantom Limb Level Pack. For information on LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens, visit the PlayStation Blog.

Steve Jobs: Film Review

Steve Jobs: Film Review

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Jeff Daniels, Seth Rogen
Director: Danny Boyle

There's just something about Steve Jobs that continues to fascinate.

Books and an Ashton Kutcher movie and a planned Alex Gibney doco, the well is yet to dry up.

127 Hours and Slumdog Millionaire Director Danny Boyle is the latest to fall under his thrall in the slightly unusual bio-pic about the man, based on Walter Isaacson's biography.

Centring around three product launches in Jobs' life the film throws as much personal drama backstage as the kitchen sink will allow.

Beginning in 1984 with the Apple Macintosh's launch, then spiralling to 1988's ill-fated NeXT computer launch and ending up in 1998's unveiling of the iMac, it centres more around the arrogance of Steve Jobs and his treatment of those around him in what is essentially a three-act play with as much hubris as you'd expect from a Shakespeare play.

With a terrific score from Daniel Pemberton, this essentially stage set piece works very well for its first 2 sections before tying everything up neatly in a syrupy sentimental bow that appears to betray everything which went before. 

When it boils down to it, Danny Boyle's Steve Jobs is more about the pivotal relationship between Jobs and his daughter Lisa through the launches and very little else. Sure, other dramas such as Voice demos failing and Wozniak's quest for recognition for the Apple 2 team come and go but they all swirl around the vortex at the centre of Jobs' life.

Fassbender's never anything short of commanding as Jobs

He makes sure that the arrogance and seething inability to act like a human are front and centre of this portrayal. There's never anything less than an unlikeable man on the screen - and despite Rogen's humanising Wozniak trying to get him to see the bigger picture and focus on the people, Fassbender's Jobs is an aloof dictator, caught up in his own delusions of grandeur and single-mindedly determined to get to his destination or ensure his machinations are personally successful. 

Which is potentially why the third act's resolution during the iMac launch jars so badly as it races to ensure a happier ending - bizarrely, his arc is never earned and despite the performance of all involved, never one that calls for cinematic closure. (One of Steve Jobs' more pressing problems is the fact the film feels cold and emotionally aloof).

Winslet's empathetic as Joanna, his much-maligned work wife and effective spin doctor; Daniels is nothing more than an impressive analyst of Jobs' behaviour as the CEO of Apple John Sculley who appears from time to time and Rogen throws some dramatic weight behind Wozniak and gets to the nub of the apparent love and daily frustration with the man (in fact, it's never looked like a truer fraternal relationship than on this screen).

While Sorkin's trademark dialogue is in place (and lots of walking and talking), it never feels as fully accomplished as perhaps it might and if anything, suffers from an over-polish and the fact situations have to manifest themselves at the most inopportune moments. This is not always a film that feels like anything more than a hyper-real collision of coincidence, a coming together of events for dramatic gain rather than naturalistic purposes.

And yet, there are moments when the human condition comes to the fore and events play out in those traditional Sorkin tropes - a major downfall of a character is choreographed to soaring scores and constant rain; it's unmistakably and undeniably a Sorkin joint from beginning to end. (And having written Mark Zuckerberg in the Social Network, his second look at a major character from the zeitgeist).

As Jobs himself remarks, "I play the orchestra" and it's a role that Danny Boyle fulfills admirably as the director in this movie. Events naturally build to a crescendo of chaos, a whirlwind of melodrama and a discourse of dialogue, but Boyle elegantly manipulates them all into place to ensure the biopic is elevated from the usual fare.

The Transporter Refueled - DVD Review

The Transporter Refueled - DVD Review

Rating: M
Released by Roadshow Home Ent


The Transporter is synonymous with Jason Statham.

His relative charm and charisma, plus his utter dedication to kicking some serious bottom, meant that you were able to forgive the wildly ludicrous plots on offer and set your brain in neutral until the end.

Sadly, there's nary a Stath in sight in this attempt to restart the franchise - instead it falls toGame of Thrones' Daario Naharis aka Ed Skrein to suit up and fill his shoes. Skrein (soon to be seen in Deadpool) plays Frank, back in 2010, who finds himself caught up in a revenge plot on the French Riviera. That's been kicked off by four prostitutes who kidnap Frank's dad to help him bring down a Russian gang boss who once forced them into his employment.

And that's really it for plot.

But you've never come to a Transporter film for a cerebral offering - it's about the fights, the action and the car chases.

So, it's sad to say that Delamarre brings absolutely nothing new to the table, but employs every cliche in the book to bring it all to life.

With parts resembling an extended advert for an Audi, complete with slow-mo shots of the pristine vehicle, and with such a predilection with Skrein's suit, it's nothing short of cliched and soulless. It doesn't help that Skrein's relatively charisma-free, delivering his whispered Cockney lines through sunken cheeks and reverting to smirking (and at times, looking like Nicholas Hoult's older, more stubbly brother).

The whole thing resembles something short of a mess too, with only a smattering of fight scenes giving you something to amuse - Skrein channels Jackie Chan at one point using a series of drawers to vex some assailants; it's the only real scene that shows any kind of creative flair as it treads through its ludicrously logic free scenario for its fights. Equally, a sequence where the car takes out fire hydrants in a pivoting circle to maximum effect is crisply executed - unlike the rest where the camera swoops in, swirls around and pulls out again (but only after the Audi's been caught in all its glory).

There's an attempt to set up some kind of father / son bonding with Frank Sr spending most of the film jibing his son as Junior and trying to channel a Harrison Ford / Sean Connery in Indiana Jones vibe, but it's flat in its delivery and tedious in its continuing execution (though fans of the series may claim giving Frank some more backstory helps flesh him out).

The problem with the Transporter Refuelled is that it's yet another soulless reboot, that feels formulaic and is going through the motions. Granted, some teen boys may enjoy the shots of scantily clad women gyrating for their Russian mobster bosses, but this cacophony of fast cuts and slow mo shots loses its charm within 15 minutes.

There's one moment in the film where Martin says "Pretty soon, they won't need people like me" - I'd politely suggest that based on the utterly pointless reboot, The Transporter Refuelled has already outlived its use - and needs to be permanently shelved because right now, it's running on empty.

Rating:

Sicario: Blu Ray Review

Sicario: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Roadshow Home Ent

Seared in unease, blasted in a sense of dread and swept up in suspense, director Denis Villeneuve continues his cinematic path to darkness with Sicario, a blistering drug cartel drama that also once again indulges his predilection for bodies within walls stories.

In themes that seem remarkably redolent of this year's NZIFF docoCartel Land (even down to one of the Mexicans who bears more than a passing resemblance to Dr Jose Mireles), Emily Blunt plays Kate Macer, an FBI field agent who's co-opted to a task force aimed at cracking the cartels whose insidious grip is growing on both sides of the border.

Headed up by Josh Brolin's Matt and the equally enigmatic Alejandre (a practically-wolf-like Benicio del Toro) Kate finds answers to her questions not forthcoming and her faith tested as the operation continues.

To say more about Sicario (the Mexican word for hitman) is to betray its sense of unease and its paranoia that anyone is a potential target or perpetrator.

As previously demonstrated in earlier flicks, Incendies,  Enemy and Prisoners, Villeneuve has a way of seriously ramping up the unease and atmospherics and in this latest, he makes no effort to ease that off, constructing sequences that are nerve-jangling to say the least. As the sense of uncertainty increases, a crashing, low-rumbling and dissonant Johann Johannson score adds to the atmospherics substantially and pushes you further to the edge of your seat.

If a Mexican based sub-plot about a man named Silvio is less successful than it should be (and reminiscent of the story of the American on the border that swirls around in Cartel Land), Blunt's eager agent, who's clearly out of her depth given the grand scale of events and the reach of the cartels more than makes up for it in the initial stages of Sicario. Her place in wider scheme of things and the jurisdictional issues and politics is never overplayed but is all the more powerful for it. Though, admittedly, towards the back half of the film, she seems to be a little underwritten and drifts disappointingly away in the final mix.

However, it's del Toro's almost muted and dialled down performance as Alejandro that remains in the mind long after the lights have gone up. A coiled and be-suited del Toro even utters at one point "This is a land of wolves now" with no hint of irony or sense of which side he's on. However, with his semi-closed eyes and on-point performance, and with the constant guessing as to his motives, he, along with Brolin's enigmatically charismatic turn propel the central mystery as we're kept in the dark as much as Emily Blunt's character is.

Villeneuve and his script-writer Taylor Sheridan delight in holding their cards close to their collective chests, with answers only forthcoming in a shocking final third-act denouement that rings as true as it does horrific. Using some stunning aerial vistas and location shots of the deserts and roads as well as ramping up the tension (one border crossing is particularly nerve-wracking), the pair have concocted a slick tale that never stops to lecture merely demonstrate how out of depth some people are as they seek revenge - and it also stops short of delivering commentary on what is, no doubt, an escalating and insidiously growing problem with the war on drugs and the cartels on the borders.

Gripping and thrilling, the intensity of the occasionally bleak but intoxicating Sicario is nigh-on asphyxiating from beginning to end. It's unrelenting in its release as it inveigles its way under your skin and, thanks to its stunning execution, it's one of the best of the year.

Rating:

Everest: Blu Ray Review

Everest: Blu Ray Review

"The mountain will have the last word."

With this year's Sherpa playing at the New Zealand International Film Festival and the recent Nepal earthquake foremost in Kiwi minds, Everest can certainly lay claim to being topical.

It's the story of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, when, during a busy climbing season and in the impatience of the early days of adventure tourism, tragedy struck resulting in Kiwi mountain guide Rob Hall and two others forfeiting their lives.

However, despite the sensitive touches made to Everest's script throughout, and the lengths gone to by the writers to add shades to Hall's evidently nice guy persona, Everest is a disaster movie through and through, steeped in the traditions and tropes of many a film of its ilk before it.

Crowding on the mountain with players, 2 Guns and Contraband  director Baltasar Kormakur surrounds Jason Clarke's Hall with relatively cardboard characters and paints them with the broadest brush strokes possible (including some terrible attempts at the New Zealand accent - largely from Emily Watson, who channels South African in parts and seems to be challenging Ben Kingsley's attempts in Ender's Game). It's disaster movie 101 when broken down in to the sum of its parts - time spent to introduce characters and have them dashed cruelly by nature's force.

And yet, with sweeping stereoscopic 3D cinematic vistas conveying the scale of the mountain and some stunning shots (a peek out onto the mountain in the dark of midnight when all the stars are out is nothing short of magnificent), Everest summits the limitations of its characters to produce a piece that's emotionally draining in parts when the storm rolls in - and which almost feels intrusive in its ultimate finale and execution.

But aside from nature, Everest really peaks with Clarke's stoic performance.

His grounded and human Hall is a masterpiece of subtlety, an all-round good guy who collects rubbish from the mountain, while offering a mailman who wants to summit the peak a discount on his third attempt and a guy who when the chips are down puts everyone else first. Clarke's take on Hall works at an emotional level and transcends the written limitations of a slower first half that takes time to only build on a few character traits of those in the ensemble around Hall (witness Hawkes' mailman, Brolin's Texan swagger, Gyllenhaal's laid-back mountain guide to name but a few).

If the disaster comes in too quickly and the climbers are lost within a swirl of coats and goggles, perhaps that's symptomatic of conditions on a mountain - but it could also be some of the limitations of a script that's spent time building an ensemble of characters and which doesn't quite know what to do with them all (eg the South Africans who are so vocally against the climbers but who disappear) and there's certainly no shortage of cliched language and exhortations throughout. Wisely though, this Everest steers clear of apportioning blame for the disaster, preferring instead to signpost moments throughout.

However, there's no denying a feeling that these are real people who died on the mountain and who suffered, so moments of queasiness and unease pervaded my viewing of the film - particularly given that the movie is a Hollywood piece that proffers little hope come the end. But the palpable sense of emotion when the end finally comes is tangible and there won't be many who leave Everest feeling nothing - occasionally though, a little more subtlety, a tighter script and a little less by-the-numbers disaster flick would have benefited this already tense and occasionally coldly claustrophobic film greatly.

Rating:

Newstalk ZB - Reviewing The Danish Girl, Spotlight

Newstalk ZB - Reviewing The Danish Girl, Spotlight

http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/saturday-mornings-with-jack-tame/audio/darren-bevan-spotlight-and-the-danish-girl/

http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/saturday-mornings-with-jack-tame/audio/darren-bevan-spotlight-and-the-danish-girl/