Play the 5 New Rockstar Verified Selections from the #STUNTS Creator Contest

Play the 5 New Rockstar Verified Selections from the #STUNTS Creator Contest

After playing through each and every hi-octane submission, we are pleased to announce the winners of our Rockstar Verified Creator Stunt Races Contest – congrats to Slimjim171, eclaide38, neogry, Serg3n and shawface. Along with the bragging rights that come with being officially Rockstar Verified, these Creators will each be receiving a cool GTA$8,000,000. Be sure to check out these latest additions to the Rockstar Verified list and, for easy access, jump directly into our Rockstar Verified Playlist starting today and running through December 12th.

Rocket Kars by Slimjim171
Fight for first place and gasps of air in this cloud-top celebration of Stunt Races - stick to the track and don't look down!

Straw-Dogzz Crew Commissioner Slimjim171 has built this Race high above Mount Chiliad, giving much needed space for the epic jumps, straight runs and tight bends that dominate this soaring course. Be sure to keep an eye out for those sharp turns and big leaps - without the comfort of a Barrier along the winding roads you may end up taking a tumble down the side of the mountain.

Black and Yellow by eclaide38
Careful not to get stung on this thrilling dash above Paleto Cove - a distinctively coloured Stunt Race full of tight turns and narrow dashes.

Set around North Chumash, this appropriately titled black and yellow Stunt Race course by French creator eclaide38 is meticulously designed for adrenaline junkies. Locked to the Super class, manoeuvre through twists, turns, tunnels, loops and crossovers as you careen your way to victory.

Gordo by neogry
Hit all the sights of North Eastern San Andreas in this luscious tour of Mount Gordo, rapidly descending from raised chicanes down to scenic sea level straights.

Taking its moniker from the Job's locale, Creator and NEO-Army Leader neogry creates a scenic but death-defying Race around Mount Gordo. This challenging course is chock-full of ways to trip up even the most seasoned of racers.

Love Canyon by Serg3n
Rocket down Raton Canyon and enjoy the views from the climb up Mount Josiah before an unforgettable final stretch.

Starting off down Cassidy Creek, Jokers Elite Clowns Crew Leader Serg3n makes great use of both Stunt Props and the natural terrain of Raton Canyon. This eclectic course takes you down rivers, through forest fires and then switches the playing field to Prop-heavy technical jumps and turns with a little something for every type of racer.

Meuy's Grand Line by shawface
Race over the Alamo Sea from McKenzie Field to Sandy Shores and back. Stunt jumps, long straights, track and street.

BATMAN - The Telltale Series' Finale Arrives December 13th

BATMAN - The Telltale Series' Finale Arrives December 13th

'BATMAN - The Telltale Series' Season Finale Out December 13th; Episode 1 Now Free on Steam     New Steam Patch Updates Series to Support  Broader Range of PCs

Today we can announce the release date for BATMAN - The Telltale Series Episode 5: 'City of Light'.   The final of five episodes in the season, Episode 5: 'City of Light' will be available digitally worldwide starting Tuesday December 13th on PC from the Telltale Online Store, Steam, and other digital distribution services, on the Xbox Games Store for Xbox One® and Xbox 360, and on the PlayStation®Network for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3. The episode will be available the same day for compatible iOS devices via the App Store, and for compatible Android-based devices via Google Play.   Special note for the finale: Players will begin this episode in very different places depending on where they chose to go in the third act of Episode 4. Additionally, Episode 1: 'Realm of Shadows' is now FREE to download for PC via Steam. Telltale has also released a performance patch for BATMAN - The Telltale Series on Steam, updating the game to support a wider range of PC configurations and address some of the concerns we heard when the game launched earlier this year. This patch contains significant performance improvements as well as adding numerous performance settings to allow users to customize the game for their systems.  In Episode 5, the leader of the Children of Arkham prepares to execute the final act of a plan to destroy the Wayne family name, and the people closest to you are in their path of vengeance. Can Batman's ultimate secret be kept - his very identity - when it is causing chaos and death in Gotham? The fate of the Wayne family and of the city itself rests on your choices. What will you do? How far will you go? Which mask will you wear? The series is also available to purchase at retailers in North America and Europe as a special Season Pass Disc, which includes the first of five episodes in the season, and grants access to the subsequent four episodes as they become available for download via online updates.  Rendered to look like a living, breathing comic book, Telltale's vision of Batman features an award-winning cast of talent, including Troy Baker in the role of Bruce Wayne, Travis Willingham as Harvey Dent, Erin Yvette as Vicki Vale, Enn Reitel as Alfred Pennyworth, Murphy Guyer as Lieutenant James Gordon, Richard McGonagle as Carmine Falcone, Jason Spisak as Oswald Cobblepot, Dave Fennoy as Lucius Fox, Anthony Ingruber as John Doe, and Laura Bailey as Selina Kyle. BATMAN - The Telltale Series Episode 5: City of Light is rated M (Mature) for Violence, Blood and Gore, and Language by the ESRB. The series is published by Telltale Games in partnership with Warner Bros.

Sing: Film Review

Sing: Film Review

Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Scarlett Johansson, Taron Egerton, Reese Witherspoon, Seth MacFarlane, John C Reilly
Director: Garth Jennings

With a note saying Sing contains 85 songs during its 110 minute duration, you could be forgiven for feigning apathy after doing the maths of how often they'd appear.

(Maths purists - it's about 1 every 1 minute or so)

But Illumination's latest animated foray manages to pack in some zaniness around the music and the relatively 2 dimensional characters in this thinly veiled tribute to vaudeville and music audition shows.

Matthew McConaughey plays Buster Moon, a koala theatre impresario whose love of the boards has seen him put on several less than successful shows. With the bank about to foreclose on his theatre and with ideas running out, Moon decides to put on a singing audition competition to attract some interest. But things go further than planned when his lizard secretary accidentally puts onto the fliers that there's a $100K at stake...

It's easy to see why Sing's crammed its run time with classic songs - it's simply because there's nothing more than a terribly basic plot to flesh proceedings out. But that's not to take away from the fun moments that permeate the screen - from auditions with endlessly familiar pop songs blasting out to wacky sight gags, there's enough to keep the younger end happy and enough to ensure the adults recognise the music.

However, it's not quite enough.

Given Zootopia made real its anthropomorphic world with depth and insight, this tale feels lacking in anything other than a simple bubblegum formulaic animation that ticks the boxes and does little else as it zips between what feels like episodic moments stuck loosely together.

It's a shame as the vocal talent is more than sensational - McConaughey's laid back drawl makes Moon an affable and perky presence, MacFarlane's parlance is perfectly suited to a jazz playing mouse, whose rat-pack pretensions and sass are on display from the beginning and John C Reilly's perfectly cast as the slacker mate of Moon.

But it all feels so by the numbers, a medley of melodies being its only real saving grace. And to be frank, the idea of putting one last show on with a menagerie of oddballs has repeatedly been done to death by The Muppet Show.

There are no messages here other than a little self-belief and a hastily bolting on bonding between a father and son gorilla - but Sing is perfectly happy to carry on regardless.

Where it wins is once again indulging the wackiness of the Illumination brand, pioneered by Despicable Me and expanded by Minions. Simple wacky moments add a levity to the film but also serve to highlight the weaknesses in the overall story and lack of real personality.

When Moon announces his intention to put on a singing audition, there's a meta moment where one character intones "Who wants to see another one of those?"

It's a prescient moment, and if the world-weary and slightly cynical among us nod our heads in agreement, there's an almost tacit acknowledgement that younger audiences will lap up the unabashed feel-good simplicity of it all and its formulaic edges, because it all comes wrapped in a perfectly dayglo blast of music and well-visualised fluffy characters.

Sing may aspire to hit the high notes, but in truth, it actually manages to solidly hit a mid-range, never quite veering into essential territory but never quite making itself feel unwanted.


Sing previews from the 9-11th of December, before opening on general release on Boxing Day.

Fifty Shades Darker - New Trailer drops

Fifty Shades Darker - New Trailer drops

Fifty Shades Darker releases on February 9^th 2017.

When a wounded Christian Grey tries to entice a cautious Ana Steele back into his life, she demands a new arrangement before she will give him another chance.  

As the two begin to build trust and find stability, shadowy figures from Christian’s past start to circle the couple, determined to destroy their hopes for a future together.

Dead Rising 4: XBox One Review

Dead Rising 4: XBox One Review

Platform: XBox One
Released by Capcom

Guess who's back, back again?

Frank West is back - tell a friend.

This time, in the fourth outing for the franchise, he's putting the Slay into Sleigh Bells as Dead Rising 4 has a Christmas tinge all the way throughout.

(And a light jazzy series of interludes when you place it on pause... just in case you're anti the festive season).

The cocky, blase photographer from the first game is finally back where he belongs in this zombie fuelled blast of festive silliness that's as gory as it is goofy.

Once again, it's back to Willamette, Colorado the place of the undead (all touches of subtlety and mocking of small town life are once again to the fore) and the scene of Frank's previous encounters.

This time, he's tricked into heading back to the mall after one of his proteges alerts him to a conspiracy at the heart of Willamette - and it's once again back into the Mall for another bloody rampage.

With a mysterious outbreak fuelling the fire this time around, there's a little feeling of deja vu, but thankfully the developers have realised that Frank's fractious and frivolously unPC take on things is the way to breathe some life into the undead.

A lot of the game just feels fun - it's not an in-depth precis and expose or satire of small town life - and while there's a bit more to the just zombie outbreak story line, the bare bones of this hack and slash beat-em-up is in the way it embraces its gory MO and runs with it.

Smacking down a stack of zombies builds up a bloody combo for Frank to unleash on his prey - usually in the form of a gory cut-scene that's as tongue in cheek in its splattery execution as it is bloody. But there's also variety here - whichever weapon you choose to rack the combo up will ultimately dish out the death. Early on, Frank can be transformed into a whirling dervish of an executioner when the tank's full - so there's plenty of variety on show here.

Night vision and spectrum analyser vision have turned Frank's camera into more than just a machine of snapping shots - this pap's got powers now in a weird way that help dig deeper into the mystery of Willamette and give you a new way to play the game.

It's worth taking a hat off to Capcom and acknowledging they've found a way to keep this latest fresh, while simultaneously engaging with what made it so popular in the first place. Along with an EXO suit to power up Frank, Fresh zombies (newly reanimated undead who race at you and rip you apart) and Evo zombies (cunning killers), there's plenty to keep it weird.

The Xbox also coped with an extraordinary amount of the undead on screen for Frank to unleash his combo weapons on - one section alone saw around 200 plus of them hacked and smashed by Frank's blood lust - it's almost as if Sam Raimi's gone beserk in the gaming world and we're all benefiting from the final result.

(FYI Multiplayer will be more solidly tested once the game's been launched worldwide, to see how the servers cope.)

At the end of the day, Dead Rising 4 deserves major kudos for its execution, for giving us Frank back after the disappearance in the 2 previous games and for really throwing some life back into the undead apocalypse.

Finding Dory: Blu Ray Review

Finding Dory: Blu Ray Review

That Finding Dory doesn’t quite repeat the magic of Finding Nemo will really not be a surprise to many.

This parable about living with disability and those around the person with the disability trying to cope and fearing for their future is obvious from the start.

Flashing back to when Ellen DeGeneres’ little blue fish Dory was more or less just a set of big eyes, the story concerns itself this time with her quest to find her parents – when she remembers she has them.

With shards of memory dropping giving her an idea of where they now reside, Dory sets out on a desperate quest to rejoin her brood. Dragging along Nemo and Marlin (Rolence and Brooks respectively) for the ride / swim, Dory finds herself in another world of adventure when she lands up at a marine life institute.

Separated from Nemo and Marlin, Dory befriends Hank an octopus (played by Modern Family’s Ed O’Neill) who’s desperate to stay in the centre, rather than being returned to the sea, as per the marine world’s MO.

There’s no disputing the colour on show on Pixar’s latest is evocative and reminiscent of the greatness that was life under the sea in Nemo. And there’s no disputing the fact that this time around, the critters at the Marine Life Institute are a marvel to behold; once again, the animation is top notch.

But there’s a slight nagging feeling that this sequel doesn’t quite embrace enough of the darkness that is inherent in the story to ensure the heart strings are duly tugged. Perhaps it’s evident of the fact we have a lead character who always forgets, except when she doesn’t, and that the story’s stop-start potential ending feels too rushed and keen to ensure a crowd-pleasing finale and a rote chase sequence.

DeGeneres is a delight though as Dory; her infectious goofiness keeps proceedings brisk and pacy. Equally her interaction with the increasingly grumpy Hank is fun as well – in fact, a lot of the laughs of the film come from Hank’s racing around the institute and blending into the surroundings.

Finding Dory follows a lot of the similar trajectory of Finding Nemo in terms of peril for our protagonists and there’s certainly enough to keep the youngsters amused (though the last 20 minutes saw the little one I was with losing some focus and shifting around in his seat as the darker edges came to the fore).

Pixar’s proven with the likes of Inside / Out and Toy Story 3 that it can do darkness well, so it’s a shame that Finding Dory’s story strays away from where its inherent strengths could have lain. It’s still a good solid family film that entertains as much as it can – and its pre-short film Piper about a seabird finding his sea legs and filling his belly is photo-realism with a side of adorable thrown in as well.

16th Nov

Suburra: DVD Review

Suburra: DVD Review

One of the year's most blistering and searing films has arrived in the form of a dramatic look at corruption in Italy that's soaked in style and oozes character.

Based on the novel by Carlo Bonini and Giancarlo De Cataldo of the same name, it's an intricately lurid crime story that seizes you by the throat midway through and never lets go.

A politician, prostitutes, drugs, land grabs, power-plays, bribery, blackmail, turf wars, a government in crisis and the priesthood.

These are all familiar tenets of the Italian drama world and the fact Suburra embraces them to create an initially disparate web of threads shouldn't be the reason to dismiss it outright. As the story plays out against a backdrop of 7 days before the "apocalypse" arrives, the film's intricacies are brought together by a commanding cinematographer and a sense of sickening dread.

From the politician whose Icarus like hubris demands punishment to the son saddled with his father's uncontrollable debts, every frame reeks with someone fighting against the tide and the fact they could lose their soul at any moment.

There are real consequences for all in this film, and while the women ultimately feel like objects more than people, the film's all the better for embracing the tropes under the helmship of Gomorrah TV series director Stefano Sollima.

While the spiritual crisis alluded to is a thread that falls flat despite its portentous introduction and book-ending scene, what plays out in between with the Mafia and the interlaced narrative is nothing short of stunning.

Sprawling corruption, bathed in a synthesiser OST and filmed against an unending backdrop of rain are a potent concoction that deliver on flair after initially looking like it'd flounder under its own self-imposed epic feeling.

Ultimately though, the compelling Suburra grips intensely and delivers cinema that shows everyone involved fighting for their very existence, both literally and morally.

The Sopranos it ain't, and in 2 and a quarter hours it delivers bravura cinema that is as tense and exciting as it is delivered with flair. It's a desperate scrabble for all, whether they're jostling to get to the table and be an equal player or plotting their next step up the ladder.

Suburra is relentless in its execution, and as the web pulls tighter and the story becomes more taut it's difficult not to get sucked into this world that never once loses focus on the singular players, their motivations and the increasingly sickening feeling that misdeeds will deliver disastrous consequences on them but results that prove emotionally rewarding for the audience.