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.
Meet the leaders of the Philadelphia Resistance as we reveal the first details of Homefront: The Revolution's gripping story.
As raw recruit Ethan Brady, you are plunged into a desperate struggle for freedom as the Resistance try to save the one man who can inspire the people to rise up - Benjamin Walker, the 'Voice of Freedom' himself.
What lengths will the Resistance go to to achieve their goals...and will the end ever justify the means?
Weaving state of the art performance-capture into a 30-hour open world single-player campaign, Homefront's dark and brutal storytelling will leave you reeling.
Homefront: The Revolution will be released on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC on May 20th 2016. Pre-order Today and get the Revolutionary Spirit pack!
LEGO Dimensions Adds Three New Fun Packs!sions Adds Three New Fun Packs!
LEGO® Dimensions™Adds Three New Fun Packs Based
on DC Comics, Ghostbusters and LEGO Ninjago
Players Can Grow Their Collection to Create Even Crazier Combinations
with Their Favourite Characters, Vehicles and Gadgets
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announces the release of the highly collectable DC Comics Bane, Ghostbusters™ Slimer and LEGO® Ninjago™ Lloyd Fun Packs. Players can customise their building and gaming adventures in LEGO® Dimensions™ with the purchase of these Wave 5 Fun Packs which provide buildable characters, and rebuildable 3-in-1 vehicles and gadgets with special in-game abilities. All expansion packs provide gamers the opportunity to use everything interchangeably, anywhere throughout the game. Plus, any expansion pack character can unlock the corresponding Adventure World of the same brand to provide players with additional open-world gameplay content based on that entertainment property.
DC Comics fans can broaden their LEGO Dimensions gameplay with the buildable Bane Fun Pack. Players can place the buildable villain on the LEGO Toy Pad to bring him to life in the game, and then activate his Hazard Protection, Big Transform, or Super Stealth abilities to solve puzzles and overpower enemies. His 3-in-1 Drill Driver will boost gameplay, and can be rebuilt into the Bane Dig ‘n Drill and the Bane Drill ‘n Blast for upgraded in-game abilities.
Players who want to slime their enemies can construct Slimer, the glutinous ghost, included in the Ghostbusters Slimer Fun Pack. They can fire his Hot Dog and activate his Boomerang, Sonar Smash, Flying, Dive, Hazard Clean, Illumination, Mini Access and Hazard Protection abilities to solve puzzles and battle enemies. When he needs backup, players can call in the Slime Shooter and rebuild it into a Slime Exploder and Slime Streamer for upgraded powers in the game.
Players can put their ninja skills to the test with the LEGO Ninjago Lloyd Fun Pack, featuring a buildable Lloyd minifigure, two Golden Katanas and rebuildable 3-in-1 Golden Dragon. Players can use Lloyd’s two Golden Katanas and activate his special Spinjitzu, Illumination, Acrobat, Laser Deflector and Stealth abilities to solve puzzles and take on enemies in true Ninja style! When it’s time to take the battle to the sky, launch Lloyd’s Golden Dragon and rebuild it into a Sword Projector Dragon and Mega Flight Dragon for enhanced powers.
These Fun Packs round out the first five waves of LEGO Dimensions expansion packs, with many new expansion packs based on more of the world’s biggest entertainment brands to be revealed soon. The LEGO Dimensions Starter Pack will remain the entry point for a gaming system of play that will offer continued compatibility – everything bought today and expansions added tomorrow will continue to work together. No compatibility chart necessary!
LEGO Dimensions is available for PlayStation®4 and PlayStation®3 computer entertainment systems, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and Nintendo´s Wii U™ system.
UNCHARTED 4: A Thief’s End is the latest installment of the award winning series from acclaimed developer Naughty Dog. Launching exclusively for the PlayStation® 4 system, A Thief’s End delivers the most thrilling UNCHARTED adventure yet. With new gameplay mechanics, larger, more open environments, and enhanced graphics and animations that showcase the power of the PS4 system. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End is out in shops now! To enter to win a copy of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End and a Nathan Drake Sackboy, all you have to do is drop me an email, with your name, address and the words UNCHARTED 4 in the subject title! Email is darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com NB Competition closes 20 May - editor's decision final!
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Blood and Wine Release Date Revealed
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Blood and Wine Release Date Revealed
CD PROJEKT RED, creators of The Witcher series of games, announce that the final expansion to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Blood and Wine, will premiere on May 31st.
“Blood and Wine makes The Witcher 3 complete it’s Geralt’s final mission. Containing more than 90 new quests, and over thirty hours of brand new adventures, it’s something that I think gamers will remember for a long time,” said Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, Game Director, CD PROJEKT RED. “There’s also a massive amount of features we’re giving gamers with this expansion like a dynamic Point of Interest system, a new Gwent deck, new endgame mutation mechanics, and even a place Geralt can call home.... And it’s all happening in a new region as big as No Man’s Land in the base game,” Tomaszkiewicz adds.
The limited box edition of Blood and Wine contains physical versions of the Northern Realms and Nilfgaard Gwent decks.
Blood and Wine can be bought as part of the Expansion Pass, which also contains Hearts of Stone the first expansion to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Cast: Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Sean Penn, Danny McBride, Bill Hader
Director: Clay Kaytis, Fergal Reilly
So, who remembers Angry Birds?
That game we were all so addicted to way back when and then it suddenly died a death overtaken by consoles, Candy Crush and other such time-sucks.
Well, the film version of Angry Birds doesn't care that you've abandoned it, nor does it care that it's essentially got the feel of a one-shot and gone animation, aimed squarely at throwing all its eggs in giving you a cinematic take on the game's simple MO - destroy the towers.
Long story short, Jason Sudeikis is Red, the original Angry bird, who's ostracised cos of his grumpy ways (even though he's lonely from having been bullied in his younger years). Sentenced to Anger Management by a judge after erupting during a hatchday party, he meets Josh Gad's hyper-active Chuck, McBride's explosive Bomb and Sean Penn's non-verbal Terrence.
But his world - and along with all those other flightless ones on his homeland of Bird Island - is further threatened when a ship of Pigs turn up on their shores, headed by Bill Hader's Leonard. Everyone welcomes the Pigs except Red, who discovers a sinister plot by the porcine expedition....
The Angry Birds Movie is a hyper-kinetic, colourful mix of cartoonish one-shot sight gags that almost threatens to fall apart due to the lack of anything more than a thin or coherent thread running through.
The whole thing's essentially structured to lead to a cinematic version of a game as the residents of Bird Island take on the Pigs by hurling themselves through the air and assaulting the towers within.
It's a shame that the first half of the film is little more than a few strong gags threaded through with the thinnest story that those older members watching almost threaten to disengage.
Youngsters will adore the bright coloured animation and the vivid colours (and fans of the animated genre will appreciate the depth and detail that's gone into the creation of the critters, from feathers bristling to a furriness that's adorably executed), even if they never stop to question why these critters can't fly.
At times, during the Pig invasion, the whole thing seems to hint at an allegory for refugees, tolerance, child kidnapping and xenophobia - it never digs any deeper into this darkness, preferring to leave the allusions there for anyone who wants to draw on them.
Sudeikis is affable as Red, and much of the younger end of the audience will be drawn to the hyperactive looney tunes nature of Chuck, but simply The Angry Birds Movie's MO is to be nothing more than to shoe-horn in the game and its mechanics into the narrative.
It just about succeeds with a wilful stubbornness as it slingshots birds across the screen and shoe horns in the game mechanics - but even thanks to some truly impressive animation, it's just a little above a fleeting distraction at the movies.
Cast: Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, Zac Efron, Dave Franco, Chloe Grace-Moretz
Director: Nicholas Stoller
A comedy of diminishing returns, Bad Neighbours 2 simply doesn't have enough steam or gags to sustain it second time around.
When Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne's Mac and Kelly sell their house, they find they have a 30 day stand down period where the buyers could pull out. Things aren't much better for Zac Efron's Teddy Sanders - his best bud in college Pete (Dave Franco) is about to be engaged to his boyfriend and so wants Teddy out of the house they share.
And for Chloe Grace Moretz's freshman Shelby, college life is sucking with the fraternities ruling the roost and sororities hit by sexist double standards. So, finding the house empty next door to Mac and Kelly, Shelby and some chums decide to set up a party house - much to the horror of those about to sell.
Finding a purpose with the sisters as a mentor, Teddy clashes again with his old neighbours, but when he's double-crossed, it's all on as the older generation take on the younger generation.
Bad Neighbours 2: Sorority Rising is a tamer, less funny retread of the first film.
Whereas Bad Neighbours had the wherewithal to play on the older generation vs the youngsters and lash it in edges of Rogen's once-party guy trying to recapture some of his youth, the push this time that Teddy is trying to stay relevant when everyone else has moved on is not really strong enough.
And unfortunately for Bad Neighbours 2: Sorority Rising, it appears most of the gags have moved on as well.
While there's a commentary bubbling under the non- Spring-Breakers style house over sexist double standards within America's campuses, Moretz's Shelby is never anything more than a sweet-natured rebel; there's no bite in this revolution and no real flow in the turf war that grows. Things escalate simply because the movie demands they do, not because the narrative decrees it.
It leads to Bad Neighbours 2: Sorority Rising feeling piecemeal and patchy at best.
There's no denying that when things get a little looser on the script front that it elicits laughs - and Efron is playing dangerously close to sending up his own goofy image of pecs and dumbness in this latest (to say he's game is more than fair). Rose Byrne proves to be the film's comedy weapon, delivering such unexpected lines that shame of the flatter set-pieces and retreads that live within.
Ultimately, recycling proves to be Bad Neighbours 2: Sorority Rising's weakest plot; a scattershot flat plot, built on ludicrous foundations and a few amusing moments does not a great comedy film make.
And while Bad Neighbours 2: Sorority Rising has the good grace to be only 90 minutes long, its refusal to build on any of its generational and millennial themes or social gender and campus commentary for maximum comic effect leave that 90 minutes feeling tame and drawn out. Bad Neighbours 2: Sorority Rising is a film without a real punchline, a sequel that does nothing to build on the original and one which feels surplus to requirements.
