LocoRoco Remastered: PS4 Review

LocoRoco Remastered: PS4 Review

Platform: PS4
Developed by Japan Studio

Colourful and occasionally annoying in its brightness, LocoRoco Remastered feels like a mix of the Lums from the Rayman series got integrated with Sounds Shapes.

There's a loose story to LocoRoco involving the Earth being attacked and it being upto you to save the day by collecting Lums-style critters to create a massive spacehopper style creature by the end of the level.
Not being familiar with the 2006 PSP version of the game, LocoRoco Remastered is actually a pleasantly colourful surprise that leaps off the screen with real gusto.

It has an innate charm as you use L1 and R1 to negotiate your way around the simple side scrolling levels, controlling the environment and making them roll. Despite each of the short levels growing a little trickier every time, there's a real re-playability to this remaster. Vibrant primary colours spring off the screen, and look crisp and zesty as the game goes on.

It helps there's an annoyingly irritating set of songs (made largely of nonsense) as the game goes on, but the nonsensical nature of this part of the game mean it's likely to greatly appeal to the younger generation plonked in front of it (in much the same way the Teletubbies scored a career out of their sparse colourful lunacy).

And at random points in the remaster, the singing will take place in the vicinity of the controller's speaker, meaning that in small ways, the game tries to come to life.

It's a major plus that the game is so colourful to behold, but yet somehow also manages to feel squishy and malleable on the screen. Every time you inadvertently lose one of the critters you've collected, it feels like a body blow, and only encourages you to play the level again.

And speed's quite common in the game as well, with each of the 40 levels feeling enough of a challenge and yet brief enough to engage on all levels and with all ages.

There are mini-games to experience too, but it's the general game itself with its cutesy touches that makes LocoRoco Remastered a lo-cost game to invest in.

LocoRoco Remastered is proof that when remasters are done with a bit of care, and no real tinkering to the game's MO, the experience can feel fresh again. Pleasingly disposable and yet presenting enough of a challenge here and there, this is worth frittering away an afternoon on during the upcoming winter months.

Split: Blu Ray Review

Split: Blu Ray Review

Despite being burned by audiences who spurned his ongoing obsessions with twist endings, director M Night Shyamalan returns to his "classic" mode with this reasonably taut psychological thriller that's anchored by two stunning lead turns.

Abducted by James McAvoy's character and imprisoned underground (shades of potboiler thriller 10 Cloverfield Lane in more thematic ways than one), a trio of girls (The Witch star Taylor-Joy, Edge of Seventeen's Richardson and Skins actress Sula) try desperately to escape.

But it turns out that McAvoy's kidnapper is just one of 23 personalities trapped within his body, each acting on the machinations of the other but all serving a greater purpose - the coming of The Beast....

Less about the practicalities of a siege mentality and more about the mysterious journey and subsequent story, Shyamalan's new film is very much a return to form that's greatly enhanced by Taylor-Joy and McAvoy.

While Taylor-Joy's stoically passive and yet determined outsider Casey seizes the intellectual initiative of the situation and tries to bond with her captors, it's McAvoy's turn as the incarcerator that really stands out.

Easily flipping between the many personalities with the subtlest of touches and slightest nuancing of facial expressions, McAvoy's ferocious and fluid acting out of multiple personalities shifts Split away from feeling like a film that stigmatises mental illness and scoffs at its subject for cheap laughs.

From a slight re-arranging of his reactions or an altering of facial features to the use of accents makes his characters seem both distinct and unnerving as the claustrophobic atmosphere plays out.

Make no mistake, Split is McAvoy's film from start to finish.

Though he's well-supported by the impassive Taylor-Joy who conveys as much with a simple look as she managed during The VVitch.

Perhaps less successful are some of the other elements of the narrative.

At times, Shyamalan seems to lose focus on juggling the puzzle pieces in the air and more focussed on heading toward the end game. Certainly, a back story feels extraneous and using a therapist to convey medical exposition slows Split in the middle part.

And at times, some of the dialogue feels forced and unnatural. Equally, a final hurdle run into full horror territory removes Split of some of its relative freshness and more macabre edges, sullying the work done to get to this point.

Granted, it's not a Shyamalan film without an audacious final narrative gamble and there'll be plenty of debate once the curtain goes up, but to say more is to rob you of the experience.

Ultimately, Split avoids cliches and a large degree of risibility thanks to its superb two leads, imbuing what transpires with an emotional edge that's as tense and compelling as it is uncomfortable and suspenseful, and ensuring once again that Shyamalan has returned to a character piece and form that's not been witnessed since the denouement of The Sixth Sense. 

Hidden Figures: Blu Ray Review

Hidden Figures: Blu Ray Review

The space race and the fight against racism combine in this based on a true story wannabe feel-good flick from the director of St Vincent.

It's the story of Katherine G Johnson (Empire star Taraji P Henson), Dorothy Vaughn (The Help's Octavia Spencer) and feisty activist Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae), three black women working in the predominantly white NASA space programme.

Johnson's a numbers genius (as an early flashback to her childhood heavily sign posts) and when she's assigned to the unit run by Al Harrison (Costner) she inadvertently puts the cat among the pigeons. Not least because of her colour, but also because The Big Bang Theory's Jim Parsons' sneery Paul Stafford is running the team and doubts the veracity of her maths.

Equally, Vaughn's desperate to be given the chance to become a supervisor and sassy Jackson's keen to become an engineer - but both face discrimination, prejudice and societal expectations as threats.

With Octavia Spencer already nominated for a Golden Globe award  the film's trajectory is on the up, even if parts of its execution remain firmly grounded in mawkish predictable civil rights sentimentality.

Despite a relative career best turn from Kevin Costner as the boss of the unit charged with getting astronaut John Glenn into space to keep up with the Russians and the Sputnik space programme, most of the rest of the cast give solid performances that are dictated to unfortunately slide into stereotypes as the civil rights led story plays out.

From segregation to romance and racism within the workplace, all the tenets of this style of Lifetime dramas are here and everything orchestrates to an entirely predictable conclusion that wrings out every ounce of crowd-pleasing eyes weeping obviousness as you'd expect. The second half of the film aims for tearducts, but with the outside work elements not faring as well as the space race interest and story, they fall flat and fail to be fully moved.

There's no denying the story here and the struggle being real, but the TV movie style execution of it means Hidden Figures is more a case of a story that needs to be told, rather than one that needs to be told well.

It's an important distinction for this piece about the hidden struggle and breakthrough of the women and while the film may hold stratospheric aspirations, the race for the glass ceiling never quite reaches the heights of anything other than spectacularly solid and occasionally manipulative.

Manchester By The Sea: Blu Ray Review

Manchester By The Sea: Blu Ray Review

Predicated on tragedy, Manchester By The Sea should, in theory, be a tear fest.

But punctuated with large swathes of dry dark humour that pierce the moment, its solemnity never quite hits the level it aspires to.

The story revolves around Casey Affleck's disenfranchised janitor, an emotionally barbed and prickly Lee whose life sees him randomly irritate his tenants or start bar fights before retreating back to his basement flat in a tenement building.

When receiving a call that his brother (Kyle Chandler, resplendently resolute and gruff in flashbacks) is dead, Lee finds himself given reluctant  guardianship of his nephew (Lucas Hedges).

Forced back to his former hometown and a past he's wanted to avoid, Lee's world slowly begins to fall apart again as the tragedy that enveloped him is gradually revealed.

Manchester By The Sea is a mesh of flashbacks, cuts and moments interlaced into a longer narrative; and, as a result, the power of it largely rests on how invested in it you are. (Even though the script's quite adept at getting you inside the head of Affleck's distanced Lee.)

It's supposed to be a portrait of grief and dealing with bereavement; though, at times, it verges on being too concerned with that side of things to be as emotionally investing as it wants to be.

There's no denying Affleck's power in the role of the man unable to move on from grief and accept a shot at happiness, even though his occasionally over pronounced affectation of brooding makes it really look like he's thinking before acting in this dramatic variation of The Odd Couple. But, at times the aching sadness and tragedy within connect with enough potency to be hugely impressive.

However, there are moments when Lonergan's over-bombastic use of soundtrack overwhelms the quiet horror of what's unfolding on the screen; it's here that a foot off the pedal would have been ultimately more compelling and given the quiet power of the tragedy the space it needs. With scenes that find some conversations either held off screen or start quietly before fading up, there's a feeling of intimacy that's garnered by the execution.

From Affleck's withdrawn and reclusive body language to Williams' achingly dramatic announcements, through to Lucas Hedges' rollercoaster turn as the teenager caught in the maelstrom of emotion and grief, everyone turns in a stellar performance as the dramatic meat is tucked into.

And yet, for a film that's so evidently drenched with potential emotion and queitly moving in its observations, Manchester By The Sea doesn't quite hit some of the emotional weepy-points that you'd expect. In moments like the aforementioned score blasting over the awkward veracity and unfolding of events, the potential for a breakdown is drained as the 2 and a quarter hour movie plays out.

While the air of quiet desperation is there throughout, and the inherent sadness evident, Manchester By The Sea remains a film that's masterfully put together, wonderfully acted and executed, yet bizarrely remains so missing in the pulling of the heart-strings.

But, despite all that, it's a film that will be showered in critical love, even though this curiously overplayed hand is nowhere near as affecting or moving as expected. 

Pecking Order: Film Review

Pecking Order: Film Review

A new documentary slice of kiwiana, cluttered with chicken puns, Pecking Order decides to take a look at the world of competitive chicken fancying.

(Well, if Mr Farrier and Mr Reeve can do it with tickling, why shouldn't a film-maker follow more poultry ideas?)

Going behind the scenes of the Christchurch Poultry, Bantam and Pigeon club as it faces its greatest crisis in 148 years, director Slavko Martinov (Propaganda) manages to unearth more than just foxes in the hen house.

Part of the main drive of this, is the film's portrayal of parochial pettiness as it deals with the politics of running the club, which will no doubt be familiar to anyone involved in either A&P shows or any level of community clubs and societies.

With its mother hen who's been in charge forever, the documentary finds its "villain" of the piece, in the gentlest definition of the word, in president Doug Bain, who's been in charge of the show for a very long time.

A self-professed life-member of the Club, Bain's grip on the reins is the source of provocation as others preen their feathers and, in his eyes, puff themselves up to offer a challenge to his throne. As he deals with threats, Martinov's camera captures a fascinating explosion at a meeting where Bain's weariness at what he terms the "want to bes" bubbles over. It's a telling look at the generational differences that are prevalent and is perhaps the more interesting thread of the more slight entanglements which constitute Pecking Order's DNA.

There's a degree of paranoia festering in this coup / coop in more ways than one, but Martinov's keener to ensure that the doco stays out of provocative territory, preferring instead to sit back contentedly and watch others ruffle the feathers of the patriarch, rather than set the cat among these pigeons.

It's a revealing, but unsurprising, look at those who put themselves into committees and others' politics, and does much to celebrate the mythos that youngsters won't want to be involved in the stuffier older entrenched ways of the powers that be.

Wisely, Martinov peppers the documentary with some younger faces who are entering the sport for the fun of it. From kid Rhys, complete with his rat tail, dad looking on proudly and nervously, and his ethos of "I love the spotlight of winning, it's awesome", to fellow fancier Sarah who professes a love for chickens and no more, the stark contrast of ages and attitude comes to the fore with relative ease.

Martinov's HD approach with the cameras though, bizarrely and brilliantly manages to capture the beauty of the birds, with the reds and hues of their plumage shimmering starkly in close ups on the screen.

Every single chicken pun's been pulled from the lexicon for use on the titles, but the thread in the film is a lot thinner than perhaps you'd have expected. And whilst there are some droll dry moments, this is a gentle doco, content to let the ebb and flow of the narrative dictate the mood and the quirks of some trickle through the execution, rather than one which sees the pot stirred with overly dramatic gusto.

The final result is that it becomes a documentary that's more about documenting, and providing a portrait of life within the Christchurch Poultry, Bantam and Pigeon club, rather than giving you something incisive and thought-provoking.

There are notable people within Pecking Order, and a few truisms spouted throughout that reek of the Kiwi attitude and the laconic humours that lace the land, but there are only a handful (if that) of characters that stand out, meaning the whole documentary feels ever-so slightly undernourished and too slight to be fully memorable.

It's a gentle amble down the roads of poultry politics and petty perambulations of those involved in small town club politics, and while Martinov's careful enough to throw it all through a balanced prism and not overly mock his subjects, one can't help but shake the feeling a little more bite to this beautifully shot and pleasantly constructed doco may have put a bit more meat on the bones.

South Park The Fractured But Whole Releases on...

South Park The Fractured But Whole Releases on...

UBISOFT® AND SOUTH PARK DIGITAL STUDIOS WILL RELEASE SOUTH PARK™: THE FRACTURED BUT WHOLE™ ON OCTOBER 17

Players Who Pre-Order South Park: The Fractured But Whole Will Receive a Copy of South Park: The Stick of Truth for Free

Sydney, Australia – May 18, 2017 – Today, Ubisoft® and South Park Digital Studios announced that South Park™: The Fractured But Whole™ will be available on October 17, 2017. From the creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and developed by Ubisoft San Francisco, The Fractured But Whole is an outrageous sequel to 2014’s award-winning title, South Park™: The Stick of Truth™ and will release on Xbox One, PlayStation^®4 computer entertainment system and Windows PC.

To watch trailer please click image below

To download trailer please click HERE

With crime on the rise in South Park, the streets have never been more dangerous. As the sun sets on the quiet Colorado town, havoc and chaos unleash a reign of terror and the seedy underbelly of the city comes alive. The town needs new heroes to rise! Eric Cartman seizes the opportunity to save the town and create the best superhero franchise ever, his own Coon & Friends with himself as the leader, The Coon.

Every superhero has an origin, and Coon & Friends are no different. Continuing in their role as the New Kid, players will discover their backstory, assemble their unique costumes, and harness their fart-based powers from numerous hero classes to create their own original hero. An all-new combat system offers unique opportunities to master space and time while on the battlefield, and a revamped looting and crafting system gives players the freedom to craft their own equipment to aid them in battle.

South Park: The Fractured But Whole will be available in four editions: Standard, Gold, Steelbook Gold and Collector’s. Anyone who purchases South Park: The Fractured But Whole will receive South Park: The Stick of Truth for free.* If you pre-purchase the game at select partners, you can start playing The Stick of Truth immediately.

All pre-orders will also receive an exclusive in-game assistant, Towelie: Your Gaming Bud. The streets of South Park aren’t as safe as they used to be, and even the most seasoned South Park veteran will need help. Towelie: Your Gaming Bud provides helpful and hilarious advice and commentary to players at key locations throughout the game.

For more information on the South Park: The Fractured But Whole, please visit: www.southparkgame.com

The Sense of An Ending: Film Review

The Sense of An Ending: Film Review

Cast: Jim Broadbent, Charlotte Rampling, Michelle Dockery
Director: Ritesh Batra

Based on Julian Barnes' Man Booker prize winning novel, the film version of The Sense of an Ending benefits greatly from the paucity of its lead actor.

Broadbent doles kindly and curmudgeonly in his role as Tony Webster, a retired man who runs a camera repair shop. Webster is a man consumed by the past in more ways than one. He refuses to get a smartphone despite his daughter (Michelle Dockery, Downton Abbey) being about to give birth, he tends to damaged cameras, and his desktop runs an old system.

Further to this one foot in the past ethos, Webster one day receives a letter which sends him down memory lane. Caught up in reflections from yesteryear, Webster begins to re-examine his life and his decisions.

Intercut with scenes from Webster's school days and burgeoning romance and relationship with an enigmatic girl Veronica and his friendship with school newcomer Adrian, the film has a tendency to simply cut to the past as the assignations of the present start to come squarely into focus. But it comes to rely on its bifurcated structure to provide the drive of the film as it continues.

And while Broadbent is the main reason to view this film, thanks in large part to a subtle underplayed turn that always hints at something more, this adaptation is probably more for an older generation after some reflexive viewing.

Parts of the book feel like they could have been trimmed for the screenplay, and a lot of Dockery's scenes and her character genuinely feel redundant to what's actually transpiring.

Equally, a fleeting appearance from Rampling squanders one of the best assets, and while that's not her fault, and is the demand of the narrative, her scenes with Broadbent's Webster pack an emotional power that's hard to deny.

But it's the hard yards to get to the emotional pay-off, with much of the film's mystery desperately masking itself as an enigma. Webster's rhapsodic ruminations are certainly universal in some ways (love, lust, desire) but the ultimate reveal feels more muted than devastating; a sign perhaps that translating this to a larger canvas means the intimacy of the book's context is a little torn asunder.

There are plenty of wry whimsical words which will resonate with the older end of the audience as it ambles toward its conclusion, and Broadbent's somewhat particular demeanour as Webster means he's never anything less than watchable, but perhaps The Sense of an Ending is more a case of a story that is slightly - and unfortunately - lost in translation.