Little Nightmares: PS4 Review

Little Nightmares: PS4 Review

Developed by Tarsier Studios
Platform: PS4

There's something extremely ghoulish about this little platformer that has a terrifying habit of getting under your skin.

And it all starts off so cutely, with Six, a girl in a yellow raincoat waking up in what appears to be the bowels of a ship. With no real clue of how to escape, it's up to you to try and progress through the various oblique puzzles and settings and avoid the rather macabre creatures that want to grab and eat you.

Disturbing is Little Nightmares prime MO. From a grey mattress where you begin to crawling through service ducts to creatures clawing at you, this is a Tim Burton-esque treat that really rewards your patience.
With scattered directions from the AI over how to move things and how to progress, the game's very occasionally an exercise in patience more than anything else. Partly because it's never initially clear what you have to do to keep on moving and while you're stalking through the shadows, you're never quite clear what exactly you will be bumping into.

Armed with only a light whose flame flickers, Six is a cute proposition that finds herself slap-bang in a nightmare. There are little facials on show, but somehow the inherent plight of her captivity comes to the fore.
Also coming to the fore are the more horrific elements of the game. One room early on sees you finding a pair of legs dangling from the top of the screen, with a chair under them. Clearly, there's been a suicide here, but the game doesn't allow you to dwell on that. Instead you perversely have to drag the chair across the room so that you can clamber up it and swing on a door handle to keep on moving.

It's this kind of nightmarish vision that helps Little Nightmares through some of its darker edges.

It does take a great deal of patience here and there, to allow a degree of lateral thinking to help you solve what needs to be done. But sometimes the fact you simply get up, walk away and have a Eureka moment is to the game's strength.
But at times, that moment takes a lot to come, and how much you're willing to sacrifice to get there, is entirely upto you.  It can be rewarding in among the dark and the game's to be commended for somehow managing to convey that horror that something is stalking you and breathing on your neck via its imagery rather than via its outright obviousness.

At the end of the day, the fact a game like Little Nightmares from Tarsier Studios even exists to haunt us is great news - creativity can be clever and Little Nightmares will invade both your waking and sleeping hours in ways you may never expect.

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series Receives Its Second Episode on June 6

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series  Receives Its Second Episode on June 6

Episode Two 'Under Pressure' Will Be Available for Download Starting June 6

Hi Telltale fans and True Believers - We have some exciting news for you. The next episode of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series, "Under Pressure," is set to debut on June 6 on PS4, Xbox One, PC, Mac, iOS devices and Android devices. In "Under Pressure," the Guardians just can't seem to outrun the past (or their tab), but if they figure out how to control the untold power of their mysterious new relic, they might not have to. With help from dubious old friends and unwilling new allies, Star-Lord and company scour the galaxy for answers. But how long can they elude the genocidal maniac hunting them? And will simmering tensions finally tear the team apart? And get ready to delve into a certain Rocket Raccoon's past...

Far Cry 5 release details

Far Cry 5 release details

UBISOFT ANNOUNCES FAR CRY 5 IS COMING TO AMERICA’S HEARTLAND

ON FEBRUARY 27, 2018

 Ubisoft announced that gamers will experience the chaos, unpredictability, and ferociousness of the Far Cry franchise with Far Cry 5 on PlayStation®4 Pro computer entertainment system, PlayStation®4, the Xbox One family of devices, including Project Scorpio, and Windows PC. Set in America for the first time, in Montana, players will have total freedom to navigate this serene-looking yet deeply twisted world solo or entirely in two-player co-op as they fight for survival and freedom, when the game releases on February 27, 2018. Development for Far Cry 5 is being led by Ubisoft Montreal*.

To watch trailer click the image below

As the new junior deputy of fictional Hope County, Montana, players will find that their arrival accelerates a years-long silent coup by a fanatical doomsday cult, the Project at Eden's Gate, igniting a violent takeover of the county. Caught off guard and drawn into a power struggle, players must disrupt the Project at Eden’s Gate’s carefully laid plans, and fan the fires of resistance to help liberate the Hope County community and themselves.

Under siege and cut off from the rest of the world, players will join forces with residents of Hope County and form the Resistance. The fight against the cult will take players to unique locations throughout Hope County that provide different gameplay experiences. During their journey, players can fly planes to engage cult forces in aerial dogfights across Big Sky Country. While tracking down cult members and gathering resources for survival across farmland, forests, mountains and rivers, players can get behind the wheel of iconic American muscle cars, big rigs, ATVs and boats. Vehicles also provide refuge when under attack by animals or as a way to quickly escape when things don’t go as planned.

To take down the cult, players will need to utilize any and all weapons at their disposal, including ranged weapons such as guns and grenades and melee weapons like a sledgehammer or baseball bat. Additionally, players can recruit Guns for Hire from a large cast of characters, or even Fangs for Hire, specialized animals like bears and cougars to complement players’ playstyles whether they’re going in stealthily or forcefully. How players approach each situation and the chaos they create in Far Cry 5 is up to them. Far Cry 5 will also see the return of the map editor, giving players the opportunity to create and play an infinite amount of new playgrounds. The map editor will include new features that add a new dimension to the content created by fans, with more details coming soon.

Additionally, PS4 owners will get at release a free Far Cry 5 skin pack with their purchase of the game. Players need a free Ubisoft account to do so, which can be done at http://farcrygame.com/playstationULC; . Players on Xbox and PC systems will have the same content available through the Ubisoft Club.

For the latest on Far Cry 5 and all of Ubisoft’s games, please visit www.ubiblog.com.

Don't Breathe: DVD Review

Don't Breathe: DVD Review

"There is nothing a man cannot do once he accepts the fact there is no God."

After splattering up the woods with blood in the Evil Dead remake, Fede Alvarez turns his twisted attention to a siege thriller, that's more about suspense than outright horror.

Desperation haunts Don't Breathe's characters in more ways than one.

Minnette, Levy and Zovatto play a trio of teens casually robbing houses and searching for a pay-off. Determined that one last raid will help them out of the Detroit hell-hole they inhabit, the trio of Rocky, Alex and Money decide to hit the house of a Gulf War vet (Lang), who is apparently sitting on a fortune in his house after a pay-out from the death of his daughter.

But the trio finds the break-in is far from what's expected - and soon, the tables are turned on the crims...

To say Don't Breathe is a taut thriller that grabs you by the throat and sends you to the edge of your seat is perhaps an understatement. (As Marge Gunderson once said "All this for a little bit of money" - it's quite appropriate in this case).

Best viewed fresh and without any of the twists spoiled, the film subverts your expectations and turns it on its head - while Minnette  spends a lot of the film wide-eyed and looking shocked, it's Levy and Lang's underplaying of their roles that speak volumes.

Coupled with Alvarez's smart directorial touches (low camera shots and swooping cameras add to the sense of claustrophobia and tension), there's plenty to dive into in this film. A bravura basement sequence early on is fiendishly unfurled and smartly executed and perhaps one of the high points of this suspense thriller.Using the briefest touches of character (Levy's Alex is afforded the most hints of a life outside of the house) proves to be wise, giving a sparing yet simple reason to sympathise with the gang. But, Alvarez is also clever enough to use some brief moments to make you re-think your loyalties with Stephen Lang's dweller. (Though one final sequence may seem a tad too far).

Ultimately visceral and quite suspenseful, Don't Breathe is a thrill-ride worth strapping in for.

Taut and lean, its 90 minutes run time seems just about right, and with a slightly warped viewpoint, the genre flick is insidiously clever in its growing ever tighter grip of suspense.

Dec 21st

Fences: Blu Ray Review

Fences: Blu Ray Review

Based on the Pulitzer and Tony Award winning play by August Wilson from part of the Pittsburgh cycle of plays, Fences rarely transcends its theatrical roots in its transition to screen.

And while this tale of an ordinary family and the ordinary everyday battles with life's choices may overwhelm some unable to disassociate the non-filmic experience, for those who stay in their seats during the 140 minute run time, the reward is a powerful performance from a pair of searing leads.

Washington plays Troy Maxson, a rubbish truck worker in 1950s Pittsburgh. Resigned to the life laid before him after he was rejected from the Negro baseball league, Maxson's determined to make a promotion to driver of the truck becoming the first African-American to do so. Believing he was passed over by the white man because of his colour, Maxson's bitterness is infecting his family.

From his long-suffering wife of 18 years, Rose (played with a quiet ferocity by Viola Davis, who's on award-winning form) to his son Cory, who wants to try out for the football leagues, Troy's righteous anger bubbles deep below the surface.

But as the bullish and mood-swinging Troy continues his quest to cope with the price paid to keep the family together, the simmering resentment and frustration he feels at his situation is corrosive to all around him...

Fences benefits from a powerhouse performance from Davis, and a little less so, with Washington, both reprising their award-winning roles from the stage performance.

While Washington's is clearly the more showy turn, with plenty of exposition and "Remember when?" ethos soaking his at times, didactic dialogue, the quieter more effective Davis as Rose is the more explosive of the two.

Hers is a subtle performance of a tragedy within and her reserved outlook for most of the film means when the inevitable moment comes, its intensity and power is evident. It's a relative shoo-in for her for an Academy Award this year, based on the politics of the film and the subtle energy of her performance.The allegory of Troy Maxson's family obsession with building a fence within the play isn't lost on the audience, with it being mentioned several times that it's to keep things out and simultaneously things in, but the poignancy of the reasoning behind it doesn't become clear until the end.

However, it's a long way to the end, and with the film's flow very much feeling like a four act play with distinct ends and fades, there's a degree of endurance needed to get through Washington's relative workmanlike direction of Wilson's play. He rarely makes use of any of the spaces around him, with the dialogue demanding that stationary sets and relatively static positioning be used doing little to shake off the more theatrical feeling of Fences.

Consequently, Fences becomes somewhat of a punishing movie, and some of the electricity that would be delivered in the live arena of the theatre is, unfortunately, somewhat lacking. As the story of the ordinary suburban family plays out, one can't help but feel more of an edge would have generated a little more of a frisson for ordinary film-goers.

As it is, the confines of the stage writ large upon the big screen, rob Fences of some of the moments that would land in that live venue and with the electricity of an audience. That said, in the back half of Fences, this performance of actors acting becomes more of a tour de force, mainly thanks to its leads and their lengthy monologues. 

Whitney: Can I Be Me?: Film Review

Whitney: Can I Be Me?: Film Review

Director Nick Broomfield

There can be no denial of the power of Whitney Houston's voice.

While Broomfield's documentary opens with the 911 call made on that fateful night in February 2012 in Los Angeles, it soon kicks back 13 years to backstage Frankfurt and allows Houston's gospel-tinged vocals to soar as she belts out "I will Always Love You".
The sheer silky ferocity of Houston's vocals are perhaps the major boon of this relatively straight, by-the-numbers documentary that follows pieces of Houston's meteoric rise and shocking fall.

Broomfield's less interested in providing a doco that's full of salacious chat or indeed any major revelations, preferring to take the route of simply telling the story of Houston, her journey from Newark, the role of her family and how it all fell apart for her.
It's in the unfurling of some unseen footage that Broomfield's piece is more of interest to fans of Houston and scenes shot backstage of Houston talking to others or leaving the stage in tears that the doco gains its edge.

Focussing on talking to family members, using archival interview footage and moments, Broomfield's piece captures some of the control of the singer's ascent, and maybe chronicles some moments that people will not fully be aware of.

But whereas the likes of Amy had more of an emotional edge due to the unfettered and meticulously assembled footage, Whitney: Can I Be Me? occasionally teeters close to hagiography because of the lack of depth. It's a very competently put together documentary, that hits a lull midway and feels like a telling of the story, rather than anything else.

That's no mean feat though - and moments such as when Houston was booed at the Soul Train awards because of her cross-racial appeal demonstrate how badly she was hurt by the business, proffering insight into how her soul was splintered gradually by a series of knocks.

The second half of the doco is perhaps the more interesting as an infinitely more sallow and drained Houston starts to manifest; the results are shocking and go some way to fulfilling some of the edges of this rise and fall doco.

If you're a Whitney Houston fan, this doco is a compelling must. But for those of us raised on docos like Asif Kapadia's Senna and Amy which manage to take subjects and make fans of non-supporters, Whitney: Can I Be Me? feels like it falters a little. It does what it can with the material that it has present, but it simply doesn't provide the emotional heft that it should.

It's a perfectly competent rise-and-fall piece, but its arguments that family and the times were responsible for what transpired aren't really backed by anything to make them simply claims.

There's no disputing the tragedy of Houston's death, and while it's best to concentrate on the legacy of the songs and celebrate the voice, Broomfield's documentary hits some of the high notes, but, by missing the more personal touches, also somehow manages to put a few beats wrong.

Train To Busan: DVD Review

Train To Busan: DVD Review

Despite starting off dangerously close to camp territory thanks to a resurrected road-kill, Train To Busan shakes off any silliness to provide one of the year's freshest and engaging takes on the zombie genre.

In South Korea, there's a crisis - amid concerns of foot and mouth inside a quarantine zone, trouble's brewing. Thanks to a "tiny leak at a biotech district", chaos soon reigns and the region is over-run by a zombie virus, turning the masses into rabid feral biters, determined to take down anyone and anything in their way.

Unaware of what's happening, Sok-Woo (Yoo Gong) is trying to get out of spending time with his estranged young daughter Soo-an (Soo-an Kim) because of work pressures. Separated from his wife in another district, Soo-an simply wants to board the train to Busan to go back to her mother, after her father failed to attend her recital.

Motivated by guilt, the pair board the KTX bullet train heading for Busan. Full of other passengers, the train suddenly becomes a killing field when one of the infected ends up on board at the last minute - and soon father and daughter, along with a clutch of other groups, are desperately struggling for survival as society breaks down around them.

It's rare to get a film that offers a fresh take on a tired genre.

But while Train To Busan, with its fast-knit horde of speeding infected may owe a debt to World War Z's scrabbling horde, it's thanks to Sang-ho Yeon's direction and some thrilling action sequences that this is a train well worth boarding.

As the eerie build up begins and glimpsed shots of varying elements of carnage play out just off screen, the sense of indiscriminate panic begins to pile on a level of suspense that's palpable.

Granted, some of the players in the train (a group of jocks, a pregnant woman and comedy partner, a villainous COO) are clearly a little blank canvas, but what the film manages to do is make you connect with them as the atmosphere builds up. Nowhere is this more obvious than the relationship between a selfish father and selfless daughter as they awkwardly reconnect, and the pair sell this worn out trope well. One of the more crucial scenes sees the dad telling his young daughter in such situations as this, to look out solely for herself. It's a shocking moment but one that speaks volumes to how frank and refreshing Train to Busan is.

With its contorting faceless infected, Train To Busan's action sequences are taut and exciting; from the confines of the train, a station stop to the final train yard showdown, the film's MO is one of edge of your seat emotional action. It's admittedly Snowpiercer crossed with 28 Days Later, but that's no bad thing as the film speeds as relentlessly as the train does to its destination.

Sure, there are some societal commentary moments thrown in (the father is a fund manager and his main nemesis is a slimy COO, a rich vs poor allegory hanging in the midst) but the simple MO of Train To Busan is to proffer frights, scares and emotional centres.

With a relatively unknown cast on these shores, it's an added frisson of thrills to wonder who will be picked off and thanks to the pace, tone and stakes for all, Train To Busan emerges as one of the best films of the year - and one well worth getting on board with.