Middle Earth: Shadow OF War Announced

Middle Earth: Shadow OF War Announced
 

WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT ANNOUNCES 

MIDDLE-EARTH: SHADOW OF WAR, SEQUEL TO CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED MIDDLE-EARTH: SHADOW OF MORDOR

Monolith Productions Expands on the Award-Winning Nemesis System and Offers Each Player Unique Personal Game Worlds

Sydney, Australia. – February 28, 2017 – Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment today announced Middle-earth: Shadow of War™, the sequel to the critically-acclaimed Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor™, winner of more than 50 industry awards, including 2015 Game Developers Choice Awards’ Game of the Year, Outstanding Innovation in Gaming at the 2015 D.I.C.E. Awards and the BAFTA for Game Design. Developed by Monolith Productions, Middle-earth: Shadow of War features an original story with the return of Talion and Celebrimbor, who must go behind enemy lines to forge an army and turn all of Mordor against the Dark Lord, Sauron.

The official Middle-earth: Shadow of War Announcement Trailer can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlZc8dPRrbs

In Middle-earth: Shadow of War, players wield a new Ring of Power and confront the deadliest of enemies, including Sauron and his Nazgul, in a monumental battle for Middle-earth. The open-world action-adventure game is brought to life through the expansion of the award-winning Nemesis System. The robust personalization from the first game is now applied to the entire world where the environments and characters are all shaped by player actions and decisions, creating a personal world unique to every gameplay experience. 

Middle-earth: Shadow of War will be available for Xbox One, Project Scorpio, Windows 10 PC (Windows Store and Steam), PlayStation®4 and PlayStation®4 Pro beginning August 23, 2017.  Middle-earth: Shadow of Warwill be available as an Xbox Play Anywhere title. 

“Monolith Productions continues to innovate by introducing deeper, more personalized gameplay experiences, coupled with authentic storytelling,” said David Haddad, President, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. “Middle-earth: Shadow of War truly drives the genre forward by taking the Nemesis System to new heights and allowing players to create their own personal journey within Middle-earth.”

“Following the amazing reception to Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, we massively expanded every dimension of the game, including the world, the story, the RPG systems, the core gameplay and of course the personal player stories of the Nemesis System,” said Michael de Plater, Vice President, Creative, Monolith Productions. “As lifelong fans of Middle-earth, we are so grateful to have the privilege to bring to life the most incredible fantasy world ever created in a new way, for a new generation. With Middle-earth: Shadow of War, we can’t wait to see the amazing stories players are going to create and share.”

The innovative Nemesis System created unique personal stories through procedurally-generated enemies who remember every encounter and are differentiated by their personality, strengths and weaknesses. Middle-earth: Shadow of War expands this innovation with the introduction of Followers who bring about entirely new stories of loyalty, betrayal and revenge. The Nemesis System is also expanded to create a unique personal world through Nemesis Fortresses, which allows players to utilize different strategies to conquer dynamic strongholds and create personalized worlds with their unique Orc army.

Set between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Middle-earth: Shadow of War continues the original narrative of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. Players will be engrossed in a richer, more personal and expansive world full of epic heroes and villains, iconic locations, original enemy types, even more personalities and a new cast of characters with untold stories.

As an Xbox Play Anywhere title, players can purchase a digital version of Middle-earth: Shadow of War once and play it on both Xbox One and Windows 10 PC. Gamers can pick up where they left off on another Xbox One or Windows 10 PC, bringing all the saves, game add-ons and achievements with them at no additional cost.

All available assets are up on the WBIE press-site here

For more information or to join the Middle-earth: Shadow of War conversation, visit www.shadowofwar.com

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About Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, a division of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, Inc., is a premier worldwide publisher, developer, licensor and distributor of entertainment content for the interactive space across all platforms, including console, handheld, mobile and PC-based gaming for both internal and third party game titles.

About Monolith Productions

Developing immersive gaming experiences for more than 20 years, Monolith Productions continues to create innovative games including the 2014 release of the critically-acclaimed Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. The title introduced the cutting-edge Nemesis System and won more than 50 industry awards worldwide. Additional information about Monolith Productions can be found at www.lith.com.

About Middle-earth Enterprises

The Saul Zaentz Company d/b/a Middle-earth Enterprises is the holder of worldwide motion picture, legitimate stage, merchandising, and other rights in the literary works of  J.R.R. Tolkien including The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.  SZC has been producing and licensing films, stage productions and merchandise based on the Tolkien works for more than 35 years.  Its headquarters are located in Berkeley, California and its website may be found at www.middleearth.com.

Win a double pass to see Alone in Berlin

Win a double pass to see Alone in Berlin

Emma Thompson & Brendan Gleeson use the truth as their resistance when ALONE IN BERLIN opens in cinemas March 2nd

Following the film’s premiere at the last Berlin Film Festival, the WWII resistance drama, ALONE IN BERLIN will open in cinemas across Australia and New Zealand on March 2nd

Inspired by a true story, ALONE IN BERLIN shines the light on two ordinary German people who made an extraordinary attempt to turn the tide on support for the Third Reich during WWII.

The film stars two-time Academy Award®-winner, Emma Thompson and three-time Golden Globe-nominee, Brendan Gleeson as Otto and Anna Quangel. It is 1940 in Berlin, and the devastating news that their only son has been killed on the front lines proves the tipping point for this working class
couple - already disillusioned with The Führer and The Fatherland.

Otto begins to write anti-Nazi messages on postcards, urging fellow Germans to question and resist the regime. Anna soon partners with him in this campaign of civil disobedience and together the covertly distribute hundreds of postcards, left in stairwells and mailboxes across the city; risking their lives in the process. In the course of their actions, this everyday couple discovered a unique way to impact the war and also found a way back to each other.

We're giving away double passes to the movie - To enter simply email ALONE IN BERLIN to this address: darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com or CLICK HERE NOW!

Please ensure you include your name and address - competition closes March 5th;

Oscar Winners 2017

Oscar Winners 2017

It is of course Hollywood's big day today.

The 89th Annual Academy Awards will be held in Hollywood this afternoon, with La La Land widely tipped to romp home after its 14 nominations.

Here's my list of the Oscars winners for 2017.

Here's the full list of the winners at the 89th Academy Awards

Best Picture: “Moonlight”

Actor: Casey Affleck, “Manchester by the Sea”

Actress: Emma Stone, “La La Land”

Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali, “Moonlight”

Supporting Actress: Viola Davis, “Fences”

Animated Feature: “Zootopia”

Cinematography: “La La Land”

Costume Design: “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”

Direction: Damien Chazelle, “La La Land”

Documentary Feature: “O.J.: Made in America”

Documentary Short: “The White Helmets”

Film Editing: “Hacksaw Ridge”

Foreign Language Film: “The Salesman”

Makeup and Hairstyling: “Suicide Squad”

Score: “La La Land”

Song: “City of Stars” from “La La Land”

Music by Justin Hurwitz; Lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul

Production Design: “La La Land”

Animated Short: “Piper”

Live Action Short: “Sing”

Sound Editing: “Arrival”

Sound Mixing: “Hacksaw Ridge”

Visual Effects: “The Jungle Book”

Adapted Screenplay: “Moonlight”

Original Screenplay: “Manchester by the Sea”

Logan: Film Review

Logan: Film Review

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Stephen Merchant, Dafne Keen, Richard E Grant, Boyd Holbrook, Eriq LaSalle
Director: James Mangold

That Logan's ending makes you feel the story is incomplete is both a testament and a damnation of the latest film that arrives with the announcement that after 17 years, Hugh Jackman's hanging up his adamantium claws.

For the large part, Logan, complete with its ageing hero, shuns the majority of the X-Men world and the mutants that have spawned so many films over the past 17 years, that have smashed box offices but been received with such varying degrees of success, and diminishing creative returns. 

And confined to the sidelines (for the most part, aside from a messy third act that falls back into lazy ways), the fleeting mentions and glimpses of that world serve up a rich atmosphere to Logan that's to die for.

Limping, riddled with the ravages of old age, and forced to work as an anonymous chaffeur to hen parties and American frat boys chanting USA (heaven knows the parallels between mutants running amok and certain US policies on Mexico feel frighteningly near the bone here), Logan has shunned the mutant life. The year is 2029 and nary a new mutant has been discovered in decades.

But when Logan's approached by a woman wanting him to transport her and her young mute charge to a specific location, he finds himself drawn back into a world he'd believed he'd left long ago.

Re-teaming Mangold with Jackman, and then throwing in Stewart is a master touch in this Old country for Old men style road trip. It's the tender relationship between an ageing Charles Xavier, riddled with dementia and a deteriorating mind now classed a WMD, that speaks volumes to this film. Filled with warmth, empathy and an occasionally scratchy dynamic that feels human and as that of a carer and their charge, it's the emotional centre of the film.

Stewart's rarely been better in the role - there's a mournful regret imbued throughout and the interplay between both Jackman and him feels natural and intimate, as they both rue over the tragedies of the past and as Xavier tries to get the dying Logan to revel in some of humanity's offering.

Tying in elements of Mark Millar's Old Man Logan storyline, the grounded, almost mournful, movie has a great deal of craft and heft as it plays out. But Mangold's not afraid to let the film live up to its R-rating, with brutal action and swift dispatches in the opening moments being more than enough to satiate those who've desired to see Wolverine's anger in action over the years.

But in amongst all of this, it's the human touches which make two-thirds of Logan stand head and shoulders above what's come before and what's gradually eroded the CGI-heavy-world-being-destroyed-previous outings. A large part of that is due to Jackman's wearied and scruffy scratchy hero as he limps his way through an old time western story (in fact, Mangold uses an entire sequence from Shane to parallel the X-Men ethos and Logan's reticence to embrace what he actually is).

From minor moments to Logan grabbing a cigar at a convenience store, to Merchant's albino mutant Caliban bemoaning the fact he'll become like a Nosferatu below deck, there's a poignancy and acknowledgement that's carried through this film and embodied by Jackman's grift and grit. There is no Wolverine without Jackman, and while Mangold's pointed out that parts of Logan owe a debt to Mickey Rourke's beaten pugilist in The Wrestler, it's Jackman whose subtle turn gives emotional heft to an anti-superhero film.

It's a shame then that the final sequence in Logan, with its typical X-Men stylings and fight within a wood is the film's one weak point. A falling back into the lazy ways of mutants showing powers and deja-vu that ultimately mean the end, when it comes, lacks the emotional resonance and wallop that it should easily possess. And while Keen as the new sullen and muted mutant becomes a ferocious, almost feral, presence in a blistering action sequence, she's lost in the cacophony of an FX-heavy ending.

Logan is at its best when it stays within its emotionally intimate confines and it's this which marks it out as a superior action-film. Imbued with a heart and a pathos that's hard to shake, the thrills are more evident in the quieter moments, than in the larger scale sound-and-fury that becomes its end.

However, if this is truly Jackman's farewell to the role, then both he and Mangold can hold their heads high. They've done the mythology of Wolverine a great service with this last brutal and occasionally emotionally bleak outing - and Jackman's earned himself a place in the pantheon of iconic celluloid characters with ease thanks to this powerfully-engaging swan song.

Poi E: The Story of Our Song: DVD Review

Poi E: The Story of Our Song: DVD Review

There's no denying the electricity of Poi E: The Story of Our Song.

At its world premiere at the start of the New Zealand International Film Festival, the Civic Theatre audience was clearly in the mood to enjoy a slice of Kiwiana.

And to all intents and purposes, Tearepa Kahi's simultaneous salute to a generation growing up and to the eminence of Dalvanius Prime achieves what it sets out to with exuberance and insight.

But as a non-Kiwi not versed in the 1980s trappings of beige stubbies, A&P shows, BYC and long hot summers, perhaps some of its intricacies and significance didn't land as they should and it may not travel as well internationally.

That's not to decry what Kahi's done and the hard work that's been put into the making of the film.

It's a documentary blast of nostalgia that is extremely well-crafted with interviews from the original Patea Maori Club as well as various people offering insight like The Topp Twins, the members of the club, Taika Waititi and Stan Walker et al.

There's plenty of humour and vitality around as well in the simplicity of the interviewees from the heartland of New Zealand and Patea itself. It's fair to say the film's a celebration and does much to set the scene for the birth of the Poi E song and the growth of the club which to some degree appears to rise stronger when the local freezing works closes.

And in the centre of it all, is Dalvanius Prime, a chihuahua loving, larger than life visionary who clearly blazed a trail for Patea but who didn't come to it willingly at the start. Using archive interviews, current day footage and super 8 film stock, Kahi's crafting of Prime's story and the subsequent ripples his influence had on the music scene are vibrant and entertaining.

Audio interviews and a very first ever recording of the inception of Poi E give the film an intimate authenticity that adds both to its veracity and its cinematic vitality. Coupled with Kiwis being Kiwis on screen and the natural characters of the heartland coming through, the film's portrait builds nicely both of Prime, his influence and his legacy.

But a quick brush over Dalvanius' death seems to deny the man the full implications and explanation of his story for those non-versed with him or who didn't grow up here. Though one can understand the desire to keep this upbeat and there's no denying that 30 years on, the song's still New Zealand's legacy.

But in many ways, Poi E: The Story of Our Song is more than just a documentary piece about a song and cultural icon that's lasted over 30 years - indeed a footnote adds the club meets every Monday, and Auntie Bib says you just need to bring a plate. (An example of the disarming and charming moments infused within this film by Kahi)

There are hints of politics within and contempt for Maori and small town New Zealand that shine an unhealthy light on New Zealand in the nicest possible way, as they bubble away in the background. It's never Kahi's MO to keep this anything other than feel-good and all the audience projection and feeling of the time will come simply from the authentic way it's all been laid out.

It's hard not to feel anger when Prime's attempts to attend a Royal Gala at the Queen's behest are greeted with a resounding No from all quarters, leading him to mortgage his home. Likewise, the closing of the freezing works is presented as a harsh community reality but Kahi's at pains to show how the community (like so many around Aotearoa) rallied to the call.

Cheekily ending with a claim that many know the chorus but not the words before presenting the song's lyrics via animation and a montage of performances, Poi E: The Story of Our Song leaves with a joyous earworm in your heart and a smile on your face, even if you may be less versed in some of the more nostalgic moments.

Prey | New Video Released – ‘Mimic Madness’

Prey | New Video Released – ‘Mimic Madness’

 

We’ve just released a new gameplay video for Prey titled, ‘Mimic Madness’. In this video, see just a few ways you can use to use the Mimic’s power against the alien force that has taken over Talos I

When you awaken aboard the Talos I space station, you find yourself as the key subject of an experiment meant to alter humanity forever – but things have gone terribly wrong. Talos I has been overrun by an alien force, and you must stop the Typhon threat from destroying humanity. As Morgan Yu, and mankind’s last hope, fend off the alien infestation armed with the tools found on the station, your wits, weapons, and mind-bending abilities.

One of the first alien powers you’ll learn is Mimic Matter. Acquired from the diminutive (and aptly named) Mimic Typhon, this power allows you to take the form of just about any appropriately sized object aboard Talos I. You’ll start small – a coffee mug, a teapot, a lamp, a banana – but as you level up this ability, you’ll soon be able to mimic more complex objects, including an impressive array of security turrets and Operator robots. 

Set to launch worldwide on Friday, May 5, 2017 on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC, Prey is the highly-anticipated first-person sci-fi action game from Arkane Studios - creators of the award-winning Dishonored series which includes the 2012 'Game of the Year' and the critically-acclaimed follow-up, Dishonored 2. 

Sniper Elite 4: PS4 Review

Sniper Elite 4: PS4 Review

Platform: PS4
Released by GDE, Developed by Rebellion Games

Set in 1943, most of Sniper Elite 4 is fairly on target.

Essentially, mixing in Hitman's assassination and the MO of prior Sniper Elite Games, the latest iteration's quite the tense blast of gaming.

A third person tactical shooter, the game's MO is very simple in its campaign front. You're dropped into a map area, have a list of objectives to achieve and need to survive being found and taken out.
Set in Italy, the game follows a familiar route to anyone who's ever been involved in war gaming - fight your way out and do what's necessary to survive.

But equally on a par with this, are the stealth elements of the game.

There's nothing to beat the well planned execution of your target (much like Hitman) and putting this into the war elements of Sniper Elite 4 adds a lot. That said, there's still plenty to revel in when you're discovered and have to fight your way out.

And perhaps in this way, Sniper Elite is more a shooting game, than a tactical and literal reading of its title.

While emptying your lung steadies your gun as you look down the sights at your intended Nazi victim, the steadying thrill of the bullet being fired in its direction and hitting is quite the burst of adrenaline.

However, there are moments when the X Ray execution of your targets feels a little queasy and almost gun pornographic, given how well put together they are.

As the slow mo bullet leaves the chamber and heads on its way, the bullet time elements of the camera and the game work really well. Sound plays a big part in these recreations as well, as the bullet makes sickening noises as it slices through its victim. Equally, as you use the environment around your targets to dispose of them (explosives being detonated, missiles being fired at, trucks exploding), there's a distinct feeling there are many inventive ways to off people.
But perhaps a little once too often, the game revels in its X Ray vision, and ultimately, there are times when it feels like it needs to be turned off (which it can).

Progression and medals are all there for the taking as well, but the game's core ideas about sniping are more down to the user's preference of playing.
Stealth can be used but equally running amok when discovered also works. Though it makes scouring the bodies for bounty a trifle harder as troops swarm around you like flies, searching for you and gradually pin-pointing your last location.

Meanwhile, Sniper Elite's multiplayer is an exercise in patience.

Certainly games where you have to take out the opposition, any move is deadly and any shot can signal your downfall.

Over different maps and scattered through different locations, it's a waiting game to see who'll be chicken first as you take out the opposition.
There's no slow-mo style execution scenes here, but there's plenty of tension and a degree of jubiliation getting it right and taking someone down.

Servers seem to hold up well with the game and certainly the few sessions that were jumped into, there were no issues either from the trash talking or the simply playing the game. Occasionally, the game spawned near where being ignominiously killed, signalling to your rivals where you were, but for the most part, Sniper Elite's online world is certainly worth diving into.

For now, Sniper Elite 4 feels like a fairly disposable, undeniably thrilling and fun shooter - that just happens to have a sniper weapon as an option to achieve your aims.