So look at my surprised face when I find that not only is “Sonic Generations” okay, it’s actually really good!

The story follows our favourite blue hedgehog when he is attacked by a mysterious demon made of clockwork and darkness. Hideously injured and feeling his life ebbing away, Sonic chokes back the pain by reliving the adventures through the course of his life. It may be ripped wholesale from Hitman: Contracts but it’s a beautiful and heart wrenching way to end such a long career and I salute SEGA for taking such a daring step with the scene where Sonic tearfully admits that his last ten years have been a complete failure…

…Of course I’m just kidding. What really happens is some barely explained tear in the fabric of space-time happens which lets the Sonic we know from the 3D games meet the Sonic we love from our childhood, and then fix things somehow by playing through remade levels from a load of the old games.

Old Sonic plays almost exactly like he used to back in the 8-Bit days even down to the sound effects and animations. You run from left to right across the map avoiding traps and destroying robots by rolling into a ball, just like any hedgehog does really.

The new Sonic plays a bit like he did in the Sonic Adventure games if you turned the speed up to eleven, mixing 3D running sections where you avoid obstacles in your path and jump through hoops and side-scrolling sections that feel like old sonic except you can home in on enemies and instantly boost to ludicrous speeds like a cheating bastard.

The level design has a lot of good ideas with shortcuts and secrets squirreled away to help players find a better way to complete a level each time you play and taking some of the levels from the worse games and putting them in a better one was actually a great idea. It felt liberating to actually enjoy the levels from “the 2006 Sonic game” and “Sonic Unleashed.”

This game is really fun to play, but it’s not without its flaws. The worst of which being that it’s way too short. There are about seven levels overall, each with a 2D and 3D version and once you finish them you’re basically done with the whole game.

This would have been easier to swallow if the level ratings had been a little more challenging and encouraged you to make a perfect run. As it was I got A, B and even S rankings on every level despite sometimes limping over the finish line with no lives and one ring after spending five minutes getting impaled by spikes and falling off of ledges. I remember Sonic Adventure 2 giving me E grades by default and only offering A grades if you collected almost every ring and didn’t get hit once, if I’m not rewarded for bettering myself why should I even try?

At the end of the day, Sonic Generations is a good game, but it’s far too short to be a great game. The story was tolerable because there wasn’t much of it to spoil things, and I can’t help but wish they had just made more of it for me to enjoy.

“Sonic Generations” is well worth getting for a Tenner. Twenty if you love Sonic the Hedgehog a little too much. There’s about a quarter of a game’s worth of material, but the warm fuzz of nostalgia isn’t too bad either.

If anyone from SEGA’s reading this, you should just straight up remake Sonic 1, 2, 3 and Knuckles in this style. If you include the Co-op modes with Tails where a friend can pick up a controller and start helping me then I will personally give you a medal for actually making Sonic the Hedgehog fun again!

I was wrestling with this when I saw something that made me sit up and snarl, something I can really talk about.

The new Xbox dashboard.

Microsoft released it yesterday at the time of writing and aside from the usual “They’ve changed it so now it sucks” whining from fanboys, people are okay with it…

But you really shouldn’t be!

1.       My Xbox is infested with ads.

You have to pay a monthly subscription to use the online features on your Xbox, but that hasn’t stopped Microsoft from pasting adverts across your TV screens for more money!

I’m not normally bothered about ads, I have them here on Unbored after all, but take a look at this diagram here.

The blue area is wasted space, the green areas are buttons you actually use, and the red ones are adverts. Literally three quarters of the page is filled with advertising and I’m not even online yet!

This is like someone at Microsoft watched ‘Idiocracy’ and thought it was a good idea!

The dashboard has a nifty feature where you can flit between different ads in the middle tile, it could have been much better used if it had been for the games on your hard-drive or something, you know, buttons you actually want to use!

I can’t help but feel violated knowing that every time I fire up my Xbox it’s profiting BSkyB, a company that Hacked Madeline Mccann’s mobile phone.

And now I’ve just found that in America the ads are videos that play if you hover over them and can’t be stopped until they’ve finished… I’ll have more on this later!

2.       Microsoft leaked your credit card? Guess you’re screwed!

In order to get back online after the update finishes you have to accept Microsoft’s new terms and conditions. Squirrelled away in all the tedious and often pointless legalese is a section that states that you cannot perform a class action lawsuit against the company.

What’s a class action lawsuit? Well I’m no expert but from what I gather, when Sony royally screwed up when they leaked people’s credit card info, the customers banded together to fund a massively expensive corporate lawyer, this is a class action lawsuit.

Sony decided that their mistake wasn’t letting their network get hacked, it was letting people sue them afterwards, and so they quickly amended their terms and conditions to make sure that if anyone wanted to sue, they had to do it alone. Can’t afford an expensive corporate lawyer to match theirs? Then you’re out of luck.

Microsoft have followed in their footsteps before they even leak your credit card, so if someone nicks your account and takes all your money, all Microsoft will do is shrug and give you the finger.

This behaviour is so disgusting that half the states of America are undecided if it should be legal or not!

3.       It has loads of cool apps, and none of them are out yet.

Still it’s not all so bad. You can watch Youtube, sometime this winter. And 4OD, sometime this winter. There’s also BBC iPlayer, sometime next year… The only two apps that are out are Lovefilm and Sky. One of them is okay and the other one is the empire of evil.

Maybe it’ll get better as new apps get released, but I doubt the ads are going to get any less annoying.

In the meantime, I’ve taken my credit card off of my account. I know it sounds paranoid, but it’s not such a bad thing when you realise that buying points from Gamestation is actually cheaper than buying them straight from the Xbox.

So to summarise, screw Microsoft, screw their lawyers, screw Rupert Murdoch, and screw the horrible waste of space that is the new menu screen. The Kinect stuff is nice though.

Premise:

A waitress gets a new work colleague, the daughter of a money swindling lawyer who decides to sort their lives out

Who’s in it?

Kat Dennings (from the recent “Thor” movie) and Beth Behrs (from American Pie: book of love) play the two waitresses.

Is it any good?

Surprisingly yes it is, the two girls play off each other well and although the plots aren’t ground breaking they are still fun to watch.

Will I watch it?

I think I will the two hot girls help the decision!

Snappy Sum up phrase?

Two girl’s one horse

Terra nova

Premise:

Its 2149 the world is coming to an end, the environment has rebelled and overpopulation is a serious issue. We follow the Shannon family as they are caught with too many children, and then skip forward two years. To the offer of a lifetime to start a new life 85 million years ago.

Who’s in it?

Stephen Lang (the main bad guy from avatar) plays the hardened veteran of Terra Nova, Shelly Conn (lead actress from the excellent miniseries Dead Set) plays the wife and doctor.

Is it any good?

It has dinosaurs what more can you ask for? There also appears to be an overarching plot with intrigue and suspicion, I think I have pretty much figured out what is going to happen but it looks like it will be a fun ride getting there. The actors and the characters they play seem to be worked out well and I look forward to watching how they progress.

Will I watch it?

Yes this is on the top of to the watch list.

Snappy sum up phrase?

IT’S GOT DINOSAURS!!

Whitney

Premise:

Whitney lives with her live in boyfriend and has reached the “maybe too comfortable” stage of their relationship

Who’s in it?

Whitney Cummings (writer of Two broke girl$) plays a version of herself.

Is it any good?

In the starting credits they assure you it’s filmed in front of a live studio audience but if you ask me the audience is pretty canned. It’s not bad it’s just not new, the story lines all seem to revolve around Whitney messing with her boyfriend but not in a new way in a “didn’t they do that in friends” way or “hasn’t this been done in how I met your mother way” its main downfall is it isn’t as good as shows that have done the same thing before.

Will I watch it?

More than likely no I won’t, if I hear it get better I might give it another go though.

Snappy sum up phrase?

Could do better

New Girl

Plot:

After a bad break up Jess moves in with 3 guys she found online

Who is in it?

Zooey Deschanel (played Trillian in Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy and is a general hotty) plays jess. The three guys are played by actors you will recognise from Castle, Bones, lie to me, Flashforward and more

Is it any good?

I’m not sure if it is just the presence of Zooey, but so far I have watched every episode. It feels like the kooky and bizarre behaviour that Jess shows, is just how Zooey is on a day-to-day basis. The behaviour of the guys seems to be how they would respond if a girl started acting like this around them, also the how the guys treat each other is in my opinion how male friends do treat each other. Having a douche-bag jar is one of my favourites.

Will I watch it?

As long as Zooey is in it I will watch every week and compared to say Whitney this might as well be Shakespeare but not in the way that all school kids hate it.

Snappy sum up phrase?

More than just the Zooey show.

Suburgatory

Plot:

After a single father finds a box of condoms in his daughter’s room, he decides they need to leave the city and start a new life in the suburbs.

Who is in it?

Jeremy Sisto ( played Detective Cyrus Lupo on law & Order and voiced batman in Justice League: The New Frontier) Plays George the single dad, Jane Levy ( played Mandy Milkovich on Shameless US) plays Tessa the fish out of water teen. It also stars Alan Tudyk (Walsh: Firefly, Dale Maddox: V, steve the pirate: Dodgeball etc) as George’s friend.

Is it any good?

To be honest this didn’t interest me, I didn’t rush out to watch it but once I did I was hooked. the humour is good without being too predictable, the characters are all likable and believable.

Will I watch it?

Yes I will, it’s a good way to spend 30mins

Snappy sum up phrase?

A rare treat

Up all night

Plot:

Reagan and Chris are new parents Chris is a stay at home dad while Reagan works as a producer on an Opera type show called Ava.

Who’s in it?

Christina Applegate ( Played Veronica Corningstone in Anchorman and Samantha in Samantha Who) plays Reagan, Will Arnett ( Played Gob Bluth in Arrested development) plays Chris and Maya Rudolph (Played Lillian in Bridesmaids) plays Ava.

Is it any good?

I went in to this with high hopes and I think they were met. Will Arnett is one of my favourite comedic actors and this show is another arrow to his quiver. The comedy in this show is just my style a bit ridiculous but cemented in the characters.

Will I watch it?

So far I’ve watched every episode I don’t intend to stop.

Snappy sum up phrase?

Shame its only 30mins long.

Last man standing

Plot:

A fathers round the world job gets moved to a local position, meaning he has to deal with his three daughters on a day-to-day basis.

Who’s in it?

Tim Allen (Plays Tim the tool-man Taylor from home improvement and is the voice of Buzz Lightyear) Plays Mike Baxter and Nancy Travis (Played Sylvia Bennington in 3 men and a little lady) plays Vanessa Baxter.

Is it any good?

I went into watching this with very low expectations however I was surprised, it was better than I thought it would be, this is about the same level as home improvement its not going to change your life but is very easy to watch.

Will I watch it?

I’m not that fussed if I’m board and there is a new episode I’ll prob watch it but I won’t be counting the minutes to a new one.

Snappy sum up phrase?

Poor man’s Ron Swanson stuck with a family of women.

Like any gaming fanbase though, they reacted like dickfruits from the bellend tree when the first trailer for the newest game in the Ace Combat series was released back in August 2010. The new trailer showed a new type of gameplay – fast, furious destruction at close ranges, following an enemy aircraft in close proximity, and attacking until it exploded into a shower of debris. It also showed the use of attack helicopters, and the ability to play as a helicopter door-gunner.

The executive producers statements were that they were reinventing Ace Combat to bring a new life into the series, and to try and invent a new style of gameplay with more cinematic elements, and a more in-your-face feel to the action. It was also announced that the games’ setting would be moving from the fictional world used in the original six games, and Ace Combat X, to the Real World.

Of course, now that things had changed, the series was Ruined FOREVER, and could not possibly be any good, ever again. The Waaambulance was summarily called to cart away the stroppy pricks of fans who had already decided that they were never going to play again. Everyone else of a sane mind waited nervously for more news.

As more trailers and news came, things began to get interesting – the new trailers showed new types of aircraft, such as bombers and attack helicopters. More information was released about the plot, and the new style of gameplay. Promotion of the game kicked up a few notches, with industry magazines and websites began to pay a lot more attention.

Of course, there was still a lot of doubt around about the game itself – lots of it was calling up comparisons between Assault Horizon, as the new game had been named, and Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare, or HAWX, especially due to what had been seen of the gameplay style, the setting, and the plot.

Now that the game has been released, and is in it’s fully finished form, has the wait been worth it, is Ace Combat Ruined FOREVER, is it Ace Combat: Modern Warfare, and most of all, is it any good?

The answer is, yes and no.

I’ve been a fan of the series for a very long time, since the first game back on the PS1, back in the early 90’s. I’ve played almost all the games, and I’ve liked every one.

It’s true that the game has needed a reinvention – Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation,the first title to be on the 360, was good, but

lacked in a lot of areas. Notably, the choice of aircraft to use was less than generous than many of the earlier games, and the variety of missions was sorely lacking.

Especially infuriating were the cast of characters, and the disappointing storyline, compared to the other games in the series. The Multiplayer was tedious, and the promised downloadable content resolved only to often pointless or game-breaking reskins of the existing small range of aircraft.

So, Assault Horizon has a lot of work to do to try and get past these issues. And it lives up to the task quite well, it’s safe to say.

The game opens by shoving you firmly into the action, and opening with a big bang, giving you a spectacularly gorgeous landscape of Miami to fight in the skies over, an aural lovemaking of a soundtrack, and enough action to leave you tired. It also managed to cleverly teach you how to play during this, with a non-invasive tutorial, as well as introducing you to your main character. Who, in an amazing first for the series, actually talks!

Shortly after, you’re introduced to the rest of the cast, and to other the gameplay types – the notable door-gunner and attack helicopter sections.

The inclusion of these new types of play does break things up considerably, and adds a lot of spice and variety to things. Out of the two, being a door gunner is the less interactive, as all you have to do is point your crosshair at things and hose them with bullets from the minigun you’re manning. Although, that’s pretty fun, since it’s a minigun, after all. It also lets you do considerably more cinematic things with your firepower than Modern Warfare, such as shooting down incoming rockets, and even enemy aircraft at some points – but since you don’t get to control where you’re flying, it is a bit of an on-rails section, and therein are the limits of it.

The Attack Helicopter gameplay is quite different. You do get to fully control your chopper as you scoot around various locations, and hammer the enemies into dusty memories, and there’s a lot of tactics involved in avoiding their incoming fire. Ducking in between buildings at low level can be quite exciting, as is duelling with enemy helicopters or SAM launchers.

The sad part of flying the helicopter though, comes in that the controls for aiming and firing aren’t quite all there. The lack of a foolproof targeting system means that it can be frustrating when your attacks go wide, or otherwise miss a target that, by all of your aiming, should be perfecting in your sights. It’s also very, very easy to lose where enemy targets even are in some

missions, due to the colour of the crosshairs against the terrain. The option to change the HUD colour would’ve been helpful – but is sadly missing.

This doesn’t detract from the overall fun too much though, but can be pretty frustrating on a first play through, and should probably have been examined at some point before release.
In addition to the Helicopter and Door Gunner styles of play, both of which you get to experience twice during the campaign mode of the game, there are also the Gunship and Bomber aircraft to experience.

The Gunship is like the level in the first Modern Warfare game. Like that game, you get to act as the gunner on an AC-130 Spectre gunship, and target enemies on the ground below, of a wide variety of types, while supporting allied forces. The scope of the mission is much bigger than the one in COD and chips, and it’s a lot longer – but you only get to do it once, which is somewhat disappointing.

The same can be said of the heavy bomber section. You get to pilot a heavy bomber aircraft, to use it’s formidable payload of high-explosive rain to lay waste to a large area of real estate – but, you only get to do it once, which is a bit disappointing.

The rest of the game is devoted to what’s always been the mainstay of Ace Combat – fighter and multi-role aircraft operations.

The new style of gameplay makes this missions much more intense and fast-paced than in earlier games, and leads to you having a lot more methods to take down an enemy aircraft, and less tail chases or pointless circling than in earlier games. The new Dogfight and Air strike systems are a lot more cinematic than in earlier games, and leave the player feeling a lot more involved in the action, and up-close to what’s going on, than at a distance. Instant replays of your kills, and the meticulous details of the exploding targets are also shown lovingly each time as well – which is spectacular… but occasionally annoying, if you’re trying to concentrate on shooting down another target with priority. This is a problem overall though – some missions have you trying to shoot down enemy aircraft – such as bombers –

before they reach a certain point, or within a time limit, or else it’s game over.

With the dogfight system, it’s easy to lock onto them and giggle like an idiot while you rape them with the cannon and missiles – but it’s also easy to get attacked and blown into flaming confetti by an enemy plane, and fail that way. Breaking off to try shoot them down usually results in you failing the mission because the bombers have blown wherever you’re supposed to be safeguarding to little pieces, leaving you with a sense of frustration about the mission, and having to repeat the same bit of the game over and over again.

The fighter missions are well handled for the most part though, and have a lot of the up sides and good qualities that the earlier games had. A lot of the good elements, such as a choice of secondary weapons for ground attacks or better performance in air-to-air battles is kept, as is the High-G turns from Ace Combat 6, which are also an integral part of the dogfight system.

The choice of planes has been beefed up from AC6 as well, and types never flown in Ace Combat are also included. However, a dick move by the game results in only certain types of plane being able to be flown in certain missions. This isn’t even handled in a sensible way, such as only being able to fly carrier-capable aircraft from an aircraft carrier, and is instead seemingly completely arbitrary, and at the evil whims of the game developers.

It gets really annoying and tedious when you’re forced to choose from planes on one mission that you later can’t take, or that would’ve been massively useful in an earlier mission. Especially where certain special weapons are involved, that would’ve been extraordinarily useful against a certain target, but aren’t available because a plane doesn’t feature them.

This seems like a step backward from the freedom of earlier games, where the player was free to choose whatever they wanted for each mission. Even to the point of taking an A-10 ground attack plane on air superiority missions!

The choice of planes available is refreshing though, and the new types and marks are welcome. More are apparently going to be made available through DLC as well, and unlike the pointless and occasionally game-breaking downloadable skins for aircraft in AC6, these will actually be entirely new aircraft to fly. Whether or not they’ll be available for campaign as well as multiplayer may be worth considering, and will probably have a lot of effect on how well they are received by the players of the game as a whole.

With this large choice of aircraft though, it’s disappointing in some ways that other aircraft types are so limited. In the attack helicopter missions, you’re limited only to piloting an Apache – which is a surprise, when there are so many types of attack helicopter around the world, and even in the game, the Russian ‘Hind’ attack helicopter is featured so prominently – yet, you’re not given a chance to fly one. Multiplayer does feature the Hind as a playable aircraft – but not including it as an option in campaign seems like a big shame.
While you’re given a choice of two bombers to fly, the fact there’s only a single mission – albeit, a very, very good one – where you can fly one is a massive disappointment.

This is a big problem with the game overall though. While the plot does move fast, there are some occasions where details seem almost glossed over, or even missing, from the overall storyline. One notable occasion jumps straight from a seemingly unrelated mission to another point, and seems like you’re missing a huge chunk of story out, and the potential for more missions of all sorts of types. There’s even mention of the bomber pilot character flying a mission concurrently with the two other characters – the helicopter pilot, and Bishop, the fighter pilot – both of which you get to play, one after the other and not even remotely awkwardly. That the opportunity is missed almost seems like the game was rushed without this mission being included, or it being cut from the final release.
It seems a shame in a similar manner that so little of an attempt is made to use the gorgeously rendered cityscapes you can see in multiplayer, and in a meagre handful of the campaign missions.

Fighting above Miami in the first mission is a glorious experience – so why the hell are you reduced to spending so much time fighting above disappointingly boring generic-looking countryside, desert, and featureless water in other missions? If Miami can be made to look so good, and Dubai also, why not include somewhere really cool. I would’ve loved to be able to dogfight around the Pyramids and the Sphinx for example. Or fly under the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Or the Grand Canyon!

Some other cities have been created and are seen in multiplayer, in the Capital Guardian mode of play. But, if they’re included there, it seems all the more a shame that they weren’t featured in the campaign. Again, it seems like a missed opportunity, which is the biggest problem the game has overall.

There is a lot to enjoy, and a lot that is exciting, new, different, and epic about Assault Horizon. It does have a great campaign, and while the story does seem like the Namco team went through the bins at the back of Activisions’ HQ to get the CliffsNotes version of the Modern Warfare 2 plot, it does have enough of it’s own variations to

be interesting – but ultimately, not as epic in scope as the earlier non-real world games.
It could’ve done with being a bit longer, and while multiplayer will give it a bit more life, Ace Combat has always been about the single player experience, and it’s that that needed to be looked at, and given the lease of life.
While it has changed, and it has been made better in terms of gameplay, that there’s not more of that new gameplay to be enjoyed is a big shame.  Assault Horizon is worth playing, and that’s for certain. Especially if you liked the other games in the series, or if you’re looking for something with aeroplanes and a lot of excitement, then you’re in the right place. Wait a few weeks to drop the cash on it though – the price will come down quickly (I got the Limited Edition, since I’m such a fanboy, although Namco have been nice, and released it at the same price as the retail for pre-order customers!)

Hopefully the lessons learned from this game, and the new things it’s added will be taken forward, and whatever Ace Combat is released next for the main consoles will be the truly epic game it deserves to be. In the meantime though, Assault Horizon will give you a few hours of feeling like an aerial badass to get you through.

So here’s how I’m going to try to help. Every week I will give you a new article to help you buy something for a loved one or a friend, ten suggestions and my reasons for suggesting them.

So without further ado: What to buy someone if they’re into… COMICS!

1. Watchmen/The Sandman/Maus.

Why they’re good: If you ask anyone what the greatest comic books are and they’ll probably suggest at least one of these.

Watchmen is an absolutely seminal piece that first examined what kind of person would actually become a superhero, it follows a fascinating cast of characters as they react to one of their number being murdered by being thrown out of their apartment window.  The entire comics industry changed from the influence of this book, and none of them have really captured the magic of the original.

The Sandman follows the god of dreams across time and space. One episode will be about him battling through Hell to find his former girlfriend, the next could be about him making a random human immortal and watching him change over seven hundred years. It acts more like a collection of short stories with a big theme about stories, dreams and how they tie together. It’s weird, it’s wonderful and it’s a beautiful read.

Maus is much simpler than the other two. It follows the author’s father, Vladek Spiegelman as he tells the story of his life during World War Two, including his time at a concentration camp. The fact this is actually a true story gives everything so much more weight. It’s the comic book world’s equivalent of Schindler’s List. It’s not pretty, it’s not fun, but when you finish it and put it down you somehow feel like you’re a little bit more grown up for reading it.

Buy them if: I decided to lump these three together in the top spot because they’re the absolute pinnacle of comic books. So while they are brilliant, it’s also likely your friend already read it. If they’re serious about comics, they’ve probably read them, if they’re just getting into them or they’ve stuck to the normal Marvel/DC lines they won’t. If you get it wrong they’ll at least think you have good taste.

You can buy Watchmen here.

You can buy the first book of the Sandman here.

Maus can be found here.

2. Red Son.

Why it’s good: Red Son is a standalone comic that follows the life of Superman if he had landed in Russia instead of America. I thought it was going to be a bit of silly fun, showing an evil red scare Superman. But instead it actually takes a healthy and nuanced stance on Communism by having Supes believe that he should be helping everyone for the common good. He almost fits in Russia better than he does in America, but he finds himself stretched thin helping everyone all over the world and has to contend with an increasingly paranoid America trying to kill him constantly.

Buy it if: Your friend enjoys a bit of Superman comics or movies but hasn’t read the more esoteric stuff like this. It really gives a whole new perspective on Superman’s character.

You can buy Red Son here.

3. The Boys/Preacher.

Why it’s good: Welcome to the world of Garth Ennis, one of my favourite comic book writers of all time. He’s weird, he’s dark and very very funny.

Preacher follows a priest, his girlfriend and a vampire on a quest across America to find god… So they can beat the hell out of him for making such a mess of the world. Along the way they encounter a disfigured boy called Arseface, the KKK, Sexual Detectives, and the embodiment of death in the form of a cowboy… it’s like a depraved modern cowboy epic.

The Boys follows a young man who looks suspiciously like Simon Pegg who joins a secret CIA team who dress up in trenchcoats and beat Superheroes into line when they misbehave. It’s just as good as Preacher, and almost even more extreme.

Buy it if: They’re old enough to take it, seriously, it’s brilliant but not for the youngsters. If your friend has a dark sense of humour, can find the funny side in less than savoury subjects and enjoys a bit of gore they will love it. More prudish individuals or religious people may want to steer clear though.

You can buy the first edition of The Boys here.

You can buy the first edition of Preacher here.

4. Kingdom Come.

Why it’s good: Kingdom Come follows the entire DC universe’s superheroes gearing up for a war of epic proportions when Superman makes a mistake that destroys the whole of Kansas and goes off for a sulk. In his absence a new breed of superhero emerges, vigilantes who are dark and brooding and more interested in killing evil than saving good…

Yeah it’s a little heavy handed in its message but it’s a good story well told and it’s got some of the most beautiful artwork I have ever seen. Every panel is like an individual oil painting.

Buy it if: Your friend has read a lot of darker comic books like The Boys, Preacher or the Punisher. It’s a great way of bringing a little light back to comic books.

You can buy Kingdom Come here.

5. Pride of Baghdad.

Why it’s good: It’s about a pride of Lions that escape from a Zoo in Iraq during the Gulf War when a bomb blast destroys the cage walls. Only one of them even remembers life before captivity and the others have to adjust to their new and unfamiliar surroundings full of escaped wildlife, terrified humans and American war machines ravaging the land.

Imagine the Lion King mixed with Black Hawk Down and you might have a good idea of what you’re in for.

Buy it if: Your friend likes a damn good story. Pride of Baghdad is a good bet because it shares three great attributes. 1. You don’t have to worry about continuity, 2. It’s an intelligent self-contained story and 3. It’s not as well known as Maus or Watchmen so they’re not as likely to have read it.

You can buy Pride of Baghdad here.

6. Deadpool.

Why it’s good: Ever since the eighties Superhero comics have grown progressively darker and grittier in a desperate bid to convince people they’re a worthy art form… that and calling them ‘Graphic Novels’. Angst, depression and hatred are the name of the game for most of these comic books, Deadpool is just one of many series that brought things back to being entertaining again.

Deadpool is a super-soldier who has gone so insane that he realises that he’s in a comic book. He talks to his own speech bubbles and mocks the comics industry while having wacky adventures around all the other straight-faced and uncomprehending superheroes of the marvel universe.

It’s hilarious, doesn’t care about continuity and makes a great change from all the pretentiousness.

Buy it if: your friend has a good sense of humour and enjoys their superhero comics. Everybody loves a bit of Deadpool. Just grab any old one, the continuity isn’t too important for this guy. But i recommend “Suicide Kings” if you find it. Watching Deadpool riif off of the Punisher and Daredevil is brilliant.

You can buy Deadpool: Suicide Kings here.

7. V For Vendetta.

Why it’s good: Written by Alan Moore, the man behind Watchmen. V for Vendetta is about a Britain that has become a terrifying dictatorship under a hyper-conservative government. A mysterious man in a mask who calls himself V sets out to put things right one murder at a time.

It has a lot in common with the film, but the original is much, much smarter.

Buy it if: Your friend enjoyed the movie, liked Watchmen or takes a passing interest in politics. Whether you agree with the main characters ideals or not doesn’t matter when it’s built around a good yarn like this.

You can buy V for Vendetta here.

So there you have it. I hope this guide helps you get that perfect gift for that special someone. The only other piece of advice I think I need to give is keep the receipt!

The Body Farm.

Premise:

Workers at a body farm in England are brought in to help investigate murders by a grumpy police D.I. who has a history with the lead investigator.

Who is in it?

The only people I recognise was Keith Allen, who plays D.I Hale and Tara Fitzgerald who is playing the same character she played in waking the dead.

Is it any good?

It’s a bit of a slow burner, I think I would have more of an instant feeling if I had watched Waking Dead but the characters are a little stereotypical but hopefully they will break through this.

Will I watch?

Yes if I remember when it’s on.

Snappy sum up phrase?

It’s an English “Bones”

Unforgettable

Premise:

An ex cop (Carrie) who has the rare condition hyperthymesia which means she remembers everything that has happened,( apparently a real condition that only around 6 people in the world suffer from, so she really is one in a billion) gets dragged back into the police when  a neighbour of hers is murdered and she finds the body.

Who’s in it?

The main character is played by Poppy Montgomery who is best known for her role in “Without a trace”

Is it any good?

I like the concept the actors are all good so yes but it really depends on how her condition works in the show as it might get annoying.

Will I watch it?

Yes I think I will

Snappy sum up phrase?

Um I guess it’s quite memorable

Hart of Dixie

Premise:

A medical student who dreams of being a heart surgeon like her father, is told she won’t get her dream placement as she is to cold towards patients. So she moves out to a small practice in Alabama to learn to be nice.

Who’s in it?

It stars Rachel Bilson who you might recognise from the 2008 film Jumper

Is it any good?

Its watchable it’s very teenie and whiney so it’s not going to change my life, well unless I decide to move to Alabama.

Will I watch it?

If there is nothing else on maybe.

Snappy sum up phrase?

Doc Hollywood as a young whiney girl.

Person of interest

Premise:

An ex special forces Hitman down on his luck teams up with a scientist to stop crimes before they’re committed, with only a social security number to go on.

Who’s in it?

It starts the mighty Michael Emerson (Ben in Lost) and Jesus himself James Caviezel (Passion of the Christ)

Is it any good?

Yes the premise might be shaky, Michael Emerson seems to be playing Ben again but it works. I also never knew that Jesus was this dangerous!

Will I watch it?

Yes I will amend my schedule and I will watch each week as long as the next episode carry’s on the madness of the first.

Snappy sum up phrase?

What “wanted” wanted to be

Charlie’s Angels

Premise:

Wah wah wah Charlie wah wah wah 3 bad girls wah wah wah solve crime

Who’s in it?

Rachel Taylor the humanoid transformer from transformers 2

Is it any good?

Short answer no, long answer never before have I watched such dribble. I understand its easy to just jump into the middle without explaining why they work together but it would have been nice. I think it would be quite interesting to find out how a cat burglar a dirty cop and a mental soldier became friends. Also their Bosley annoyed me as he is the same age as the “angels”.

Will I watch it?

No

Snappy sum up phrase?

Lamo Mclamerson

A Gifted Man

Premise:

A hard-working surgeon who has no time for anyone else is visited by his dead ex-wife to make him nicer.

Who is in it?

Patrick Wilson plays the surgeon who you might recognise as the “nite owl” from Watchmen.

Is it any good?

It reminds me of Eli Stone but instead of god he sees his ex-wife. It could be the classic that Eli stone was or it could just cover the same ground it will be interesting to see which way it goes.

Will I watch?

Yes unless something better turns up

Snappy sum up phrase?

Atheist Eli stone

This is Jinzy

Premise:

Follow the exciting, bizarre and not so exciting life of the residents of a small island called Jinzy.

Who is in it?

The two main stars Chris Bran and Justin Chubb are relative new comers they have a supporting cast packed to the gills with Harry Hill, Jennifer Saunders and Alice lowe. They have a guest star each episode so far we have had David Tennent (Dr Who) and Peter Serafinowicz (Spaced, Black books, voice of Dark Maul)

Is it any good?

If you a fan of bizarre humour ala mighty boosh I think this is for you it also has a song in each episode that I promise you will get stuck in your head, so far we have had “types of wood” and “licky licky”. I think that BBC three are kicking themselves for missing out on this.

Will I watch?

Yes

Snappy sum up phrase?

Would have made “The Island” a more interesting film.

I don’t have much to say about this film apart from it made me sad, sad I started and had to finish watching it. It lost my interest quickly I didn’t care about the survivors, wasn’t bothered when they died and was however shocked they managed to get a car working after 20 years of it sitting there rusting.

I can talk more about this film but to be honest I don’t want too!

Current IMDB Rating 3.3/10  My Rating 1/10.

So now here comes a new Deus Ex game, and this one’s from Square Enix, the guys behind such famous corridor simulators as Final Fantasy. I pre-ordered the game hoping to make a good rant about the sacrilege of our god from the machine… but then I started playing it.

The story goes that in the future humanity has developed the ability to graft robotic limbs and other enhancements onto people’s bodies. They may give you superhuman strength, stamina and the ability to beam porn directly into your eyeballs, but you end up depending on anti-rejection drugs for the rest of your life and about half of the world hates you.

You are Adam Jensen, a security consultant who gets caught up in an attack from a bunch of cyborgs that results in his girlfriend getting killed and his own body being mashed up beyond repair. Jensen’s boss gets a bit scalpel happy and pulls a RoboCop on Jensen, giving him a new set of arms, new legs… and a pair of retractable shades presumably because it’d just bring the whole look together.

Jensen is brought back into the line of duty and set to the task of finding out who orchestrated the attack before his scabs have even healed, and I thought my work was harsh because they won’t give me overtime. You’d think Jensen would be a bit miffed about the whole thing, but he ended up being a lot more up-beat about the whole thing when I had the dialogue options.

Just like its predecessors, the game allows you to pick and choose the way you tackle a problem. Do you sneak around unseen with the use of the cover mechanics that allow you to hug a wall and look round the corner and pretend you’re James Bond? Do you sweet talk a security guard into giving you the keys to the objective and letting you walk straight in? Do you hack a computer to turn the security robots against everyone and sit back while they do all the work? Or do you pick up a gun and murder everyone in sight?

The experience points you earn for killing, exploration, stealth and general achievement let you unlock augmentations that allow you to turn invisible, pick up heavy objects, hack computers or take bullets to the face. Over the course of the game you will manage to unlock most of them, but the way you pick your battles changes the way your character develops over the course of the game and what methods are open to you.

I was a sneaky bastard , the only time I even killed a single person was when I found myself confronted with a room literally full of about thirty people looking straight at me… After trying to sneak around them to no avail I instead opted to hack the security system and turn the security turrets on them. Thirty looted bodies later I ran straight into the first boss… where this game finally falls short.

The Boss Fights have been universally reviled by critics because they go against everything the game had been built to be. There is no choice to how you take them down, your only option is to fill them with bullets till they die. Which is all fine and good except you may have been building Jensen to be a sneaky pacifist relying on the non-lethal melee takedowns. You can’t sneak by, you can’t hack computers, you’re not even allowed to use your melee abilities. I honestly don’t know how they got through to the final product when the standard has been so good everywhere else.

As problems go it’s not a deal breaker, especially if you play with the forewarning to pump a couple of points into armour for later and carry a nice gun around. Talk softly and carry a big stick.

Human Revolution is an absolute triumph with a few blemishes that don’t destroy the experience so much as remind you that the developers are only human. The writing is great, the atmosphere and style is superb and it’s so much fun to play and experience this world on your terms as long as you know that whether you want to or not, you will have to crack a few skulls at some point.

It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty damned close, unless something very impressive comes out in the next few months it may well become a classic. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

So I feel as I had more of a connection to this film, as thanks to the podcasts I had a chance too not only hear how Kevin went about making the film but I also heard from the producer (Jon Gordon) the DP (Dave Klein) the casting director (Deb Aquila) the Assistant Director (Adam Druxman) and from the actors including the mighty Michael Parks himself. Even with all of this talk about the movie I still didn’t know that much about the plot all i knew going in was “Three boys go into the woods searching for sex and find Jesus”.

If more directors used a similar process of opening up themselves and their latest project to the public eye, I think the connection I felt to this film could be felt for others. Imagine if Chris Nolan had gone this route with Dark Knight, and by this route I mean talk publicly about his love for the project. Also think of all insider information we could have heard, from how Heath Ledger got into playing the Joker to how much fun the stunt driver had driving the Tumbler.

Anyway I digress, if I had not known this was a Kevin Smith film to be honest from watching the film I wouldn’t have guessed. This isn’t to say it’s not got the Kevin Smith flavour to it, in the dialogue especially. His earlier films in the View Askuniverse (Clerks, Clerks 2, Chasing Amy, Mallrats, Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back) have the same kind of humour and style. Red State turns this on its head, the comedy is dark and sparing, the violence is well, the most violent things in his View Askuniverse films was Dante getting hit by a baguette in Clerks and Bartleby getting his wings shot off by Jay in Dogma. In Red State there is a mass carnage, people die left and right.

As this is a Kevin Smith film the different characters have their own voice the actors were perfect for their roles and I couldn’t imagine anyone else playing them.

In my opinion this film was worth the hype. I recommend this film to all.

IMDB Rating 6.6/10    My Rating 9/10

The film starts pretty much the same as arachnophobia, a new family moved out to a new area so the father Louis (Played by Dale Midkiff) can take over as head doctor. On their moving in day they are introduced to the pet cemetery which seems like the only way to access it is through their garden which makes me think that Jud and whoever lived in the house before had a lot of pets that died! We are also introduced to the constant stream of trucks that drive past their house every day.

On Louis’s first day a young man called Pascow is brought into the doctors after getting hit by a truck he dies on the table but tells Louis a cryptic line first. That night Pascow appears to Louis and get him to follow him to the pet cemetery. Once there Pascow tells him not to go past the fallen trees as no man is meant to be there. Louis then wakes up in his bed but pulls back the sheets and his feet are dirty!!!

While the rest of the family is away on a trip, the family cat is hit and killed by one of the many trucks. Louis not that bothered decided to lie to his kids and tell them the cat ran away, however the interfering neighbour Jud decides the kids are too young to deal with the death of their favourite pet. So he tells Louis to grab the cat corpse and go for a walk with him, which if someone told me to do I would probably say no.

They then head to the pet cemetery then cross the fallen trees, which Louis conveniently forgets that Pascow told him not to. They then trek for what seems like forever to an ancient Indian burial ground. Jud then tells Louis to bury the cat without telling him what will happen, which again I would check first before going through with it. Jud then tells Louis the same phrase that dead Pascow said.

The cat brought back to life by ancient Indian mojo turns up at the house and just appears a bit cranky, understandably as it has been dead for a day. Jud tells Louis the story of his dog spot that was buried in the same place and came back meaner than before. The family then return from the break and carry on as normal.

An undetermined time later the young son Gabe (Played by Miko Hughes who was 3 at time of filming) gets hit and killed by a truck. This is the part of the film that dragged the most for me, waiting for the obvious end of film.

I’m sure this film was a classic when it came out, however the effects and the dialogue scream the 80’s at me.

IMDB Rating 6.3/10    My Rating 2/10

While this is going on a Mayor of a small American town is having a problem with his genius brothers lack of social skills and his son not accepting his new wife. There is some high school stuff with his son dating the ex of the school bully and a lets make sure everyone knows he is a genius scene.

Eventually the hot one works out it’s a gravitational sinkhole and says they have 96hours until it eats the earth. Shit starts to get real as gravity is lessoned so two people can easily throw a car, tornadoes run rampant and London is destroyed also a tsunami hits Manhattan. The mayor’s brother tells him he knows how to stop it so head off to Houston.

The hot one works out the best way to stop it is to create another one next to it to cancel it out but they need to find the exact point to create it otherwise it could just make it more powerful. So they input the figures into the computer to work out the location. The calculations will take 32hours and the world will be eaten in 32hours so they set it off and hope it will finish it before they are all killed. During this time the mayor and his brother are on their way to Houston they get attacked but mange to get away.

The small town has been wreaked but the mayors son’s girlfriend can’t find her parents so they head off to look for them after the step mum gives him a gun for emergencies, which to be honest is asking for trouble. They head out but find the mayors son’s girlfriends ex who is getting his “looting” on. The mayors son’s girlfriends ex then threatens the mayors son and the mayors son’s girlfriend, so the mayors son pulls the gun out on the mayors son’s girlfriends ex. The mayor’s son’s girlfriends ex then pulls out his own gun and shoots mayors son, The mayors son’s girlfriends ex then starts to have some unrequested and uncalled for fun from mayors son’s girlfriend.

At this point we cut to the Mayors new wife wondering the school hall where the town has gathered. She suddenly realises the mayors son has left so goes to find him. With ease she seems to find the house where the “unrequested and uncalled for fun” and the bleeding to death mayors son. Where the Mayors son call her mum before he dies then she shoots The mayors son’s girlfriends ex who didn’t seem to get far in his “unrequested and uncalled for fun” ways.

We now cut to the mayor and his brother driving to Houston. Unfortunately the mayor had forgotten to bring his heart medication so he isn’t doing too well. He pulls over to help a damsel in short dress who tries to steal the car but the mayor’s brother gives them a kicking with a tyre iron and they set off.

The hot scientist is in panic the computer has crashed due to lack of memory there is no way they can finish the mathematical formula! We cut to the entrance of the NASA where the mayor is having a heart attack and his brother is trying to get in. they manage it his brother (the mayor) is taken to the medical bay. The hot one dismisses him but reconsiders when he mentions part of the code they then steal his computer and find the code. The lead military man asks the hot one what she thinks will happen she says it might create a wormhole, a parallel dimension or reverse time.

I think you can guess what happens now! Overall this was an interesting film that just like Sanctum you can see what’s going to happen but it’s an interesting ride. the hot one from Farscape definitely helped!

Current IMDB Rating: 2.9/10   My Rating: 5/10

I learnt a few things from this film though if you are setting a reality show in the middle of a forest in the middle of nowhere you should properly scout the area for deformed psychopaths.

Also you can cut someone in half with an axe and I don’t mean horizontally I mean vertically!

And if you’re out in the woods and you find a bbq with no one around its most likely to be human meat cooking.

In the end I think the film would have been improved with a little Faith .

Current IMDB Rating 5.5/10 My Rating 6/10

With a screenplay written by Hayao Miyazaki, and with animator Hiromasa Yonebayashi making a solid first impression as a director, Arrietty has become one of my firm Ghibli favourites to date and will hopefully not disappoint other Ghibli lovers.

In an easy to grasp storyline we follow Arrietty, a fourteen year old borrower, who lives with her parents, underneath the floorboards of a beautiful country house. When she is accidentally seen by Shô, a twelve year boy who moves into the house to live with his Aunt, Arrietty’s parent’s warn her to stay away from him because, as a ‘human bean’, he is a potential threat who could expose or destroy their harmless existence. Of course, being a main teenage protagonist, Arrietty goes against her parents’ warnings and continues to interact with Shô and soon enough curiosity for one another melts into a sugary sweet kind of friendship.

As with any Studio Ghibli film the attention to detail is fantastic; from individual raindrops rolling down leaves, to ants devouring sugar cubes, every little element is scooped up and bottled for the audience’s pleasure. Even inside Arrietty’s house there is little post stamps pinned on the walls like framed pictures. Pod, Arrietty’s father, make-shifts his own abseiling equipment- Blue Peter style- using thread and fishing hooks, and even manages to use double sided sticky tape for Spider-Man-esque climbing. It’s truly amazing how the borrowers manage find a use for every little thing us ‘human beans’ see as mundane and disposable.

Outside the house, in the only real space truly shared by the borrowers and humans, the audience is greeted by a beautiful bright and vibrant wilderness of overgrown grass and wild flowers, where a flurry of insect life thrive within. This world is complimented by compelling and thought evoking music composed by Cécile Corbel, reaching out to the audience, gently inviting them in.

This film is definitely a watch for audiences of all ages. Even a few young children sitting a few rows ahead, who I were concerned would be noisy or get bored during the parts with too much or too little dialogue (the screening was in Japanese with English subtitles), actually sat still and appeared to be mesmerised by the visually stunning spectacle unfolding in front of them.

I am happy enough to say that, after the film ended, I left the cinema feeling all warm and fuzzy with a wide smile on my face.

True Ghibli magic.

There I did it you don’t have to watch this now please see the above list in order of everything they spoof. The main problem I see is they spend too long on each one also they don’t have any purpose the majority of them don’t help the plot along. They just spoof for the point of spoofing which never makes for a good film. The only thing that made me smile was the enchanted princess but that got old as they kept abusing the same jokes.

In closing if you enjoyed Meet the Spartens and Epic Movie this will make you laugh like a spasticated donkey. If however you saw them for the piles of shit they were, avoid Disaster Movie it’s more of the same.

IMDB Rating 1.7/10 My Rating .5/10

Killing Sacred Cows.

Although used for publishing an absolute wealth of information, on the whole, blogs are used by people who want to criticise books, music or films. These people are usually unpaid (and occasionally unskilled) to do so. Thus the quality of writing varies hugely amongst blogs and there is usually a lot of chaff to be separated from the wheat, although the ADHD qualities of the web ensure that this is relatively easy. However there appears to be a trend amongst user submitted content to be overly gushing and full of praise for anything that is written about.

This clearly has roots in the idea that it’s relatively simple to write about something that one is interested in, creating a piece with pace and enthusiasm. Sometimes a writer will balance this out with lengthier pieces about how amazing something is, while comparing it to an incredible waterfall they saw somewhere once. However, the increase in writing about only things you’re interested in leaves me feeling that everyone is excited about everything. Clearly this can’t be true.

Writing a negative review is far more cathartic. Calling a spade a spade in an amusing way is a lot of fun. ‘So bad, it’s probably radioactive’ is a great example from Amazon Customer Reviews. Crushing and only 5 words long. Being a bastard quite often makes you a better writer. In fact, I’m struggling to think of a great writer who wasn’t a truly hateful human being. For example, Enid Blyton spent a great deal of her books making fun of disabled people – the bitch. To contrast, Dan Brown, I’m sure he’s a great father to his kids, but his books are absolute dogshit.

Write a review about something you don’t like. And don’t make it something that’s easy to criticise. Kill a sacred cow. In conclusion – no-one finished Midnight’s Children and there’s definitely a male prostitute in Bombay called Salman Rushdie.

Sanctum is about a large previously unexplored cave system and what happens when a large storm floods the cave trapping people inside. Just from that you can more than likely tell me the plot. If I add in the expedition leader has made his estranged Son who hates caves come along. I could also add in the selfish thrill seeking benefactor and his girlfriend who has never gone spelunking before.

However even though you could tell me the order everyone dies by or at least tell me who lives to the end, this is an enjoyable film. There were points in the film I felt the tension, I worried about the characters even though I knew they wouldn’t make it. The see it from a mile off estranged son and father getting on like proper father and son scene was touching and well done. Alister Grierson (the director) seems like he really knows how to put a scene together and get the best from the actors. I didn’t see this film in 3D due to it making my head hurt so I can’t comment on how that was, I did notice some obvious 3D moments though.

So in closing you know what’s going to happen but it will still be a fun ride.

Current IMDB 5.7/10    My Rating 6.5/10

He must have done quite well thou as he managed to have a mountain built at the end of a cul du sac to put his mansion on!

Another question when there is no answer at the large creepy house, is exploring always the best answer? And if you do go exploring and find a creature that could go by the name “Mr Stabby” do you bring it home and drop hints about how good looking your 16 year old daughter Kim (played by Winona Ryder) is?

Anyway the film starts with a young woman in dodgy old women make up trying to get her granddaughter to sleep. To help she tells a story which is the film ala princess bride.

After having an unsuccessful Avon round Peg (played by Dianne Wiest) decides to try out the creepy old house. Where after she has looked around a bit she finds Edward (played by Johnny Depp) a pasty faced simpleton with scissor’s for well not hands more fingers I guess Edward Scissorfingers sounded a bit too weird. So she decides of course to take him home with her.

However everyone loves him the local women go a bit mental for the new man on the street. He wonders around cutting bushes into T-Rex’s and dolphins, then he starts grooming dogs hair into freaky patterns the spikey dog is my favourite. Then he makes the logical jump from cutting dogs hair to cutting the local women’s hair, where again he cuts them into bizarre styles my favourite or at least the most freaky is the reverse Mohawk! But it only takes one incident for everyone to think badly of him. Then while trying to save a boy from getting hit by a car he accidently cuts him, causing the town to chase him Frankenstein style.

So he runs home to his scary abandoned mansion and hides, Kim finds him but is followed by her evil ex who tries to kill Eddy. However Eddy stabs (or should that be fingers?) him making him fall out the window where he lands dead. So Kim decides to fake Eddy’s death using another spare Scissorhand that was just lying around.

We then come back to the young lady in dodgy old lady make up again were she reveals she is Kim. I don’t know about you but I kinda guessed. She tells the kid she believes he is still alive because he makes it snow? I think this ladies medication might have got mixed up! We then see Eddy looking identical which leaves me to believe that eddy is immortal. I hope to see a sequel set in the far future and eddy is our only hope against the plant based aliens.

Current IMDB Score 8/10  My Rating 8/10.

I can’t do that, I like to appear like a normal human being, which unfortunately is not sexy and is not the kind of behaviour you want to fuck. So from a man who read “The Game” and has found the tactics of seducing women interesting, is going to just give up on all that shit because ultimately its lying. I have prided my self on honesty and acutely the art of seduction is just one by lie. I’m not that smooth, and don’t smell like that, I’m not that interesting. So why would I start off my relationship with some one who is a potential wife (due to the nature of our meeting, not because I fall in love with every woman I date).  True no?

So what do I suggest to do apart from dating? I’m not suggesting you do any thing I’m afraid, I’m just saying I don’t think dating is the way to find the “soul mate”. Maybe companionship doesn’t need to be a romantic thing. Maybe you can find companionship in a friend, no sex, no expectations. Just a friend you dedicate you life to. Maybe this is a more progressive way of thinking. Homosexuality challenged the way people thought of how a family should be like. Maybe we will have in 20 years time companionship ceremonies.

But just in case I’m not right about companionship ceremonies.

I’m Jack

I’m 21

And I like long walks on the beach

Anyway I’m getting ahead of myself here, Rite is about a funeral directors son Michael Kovak (played by Colin O’Donoghue) who decides the best way out of the family business, is to join a church sponsored college to train to become a priest, then bail on the course when you have to sign on the holy line. However when it comes to the bailing part, he is talked into going on exorcism course in Italy before he decides. Which if you ask me is a pretty good deal I’d be well chuffed if when I tried and quit a job, they sent me on holiday for two months to try and make me stay! So off Michael pops to Rome, for a two month working holiday. As someone that got into the priesthood for the benefit’s not the beliefs, he is understandably sceptic about the whole possessed by daemons malarkey. So the teacher of the class Father Xavier (played by Ciaran Hinds who reminded me of Alfred Molina in Spiderman 2) decides to send him to see the exorcist with “different techniques”. Which is where we meet Father Lucas (played by Sir Tony) who we learn hates cats. He is also treating a young pregnant girl who he believes is possessed by a daemon, however sceptical Michael believes she has mental issues caused by the trauma she has suffered. Even when Rosaria spits up coffin nails from nowhere Michael still doubts she is possessed. It then plays out like a standard exorcist film daemonic screaming, knowing things she couldn’t and speaking English when she doesn’t know how. I lost interest at this point I have seen a few exorcist film and this is normally how they end. However when I paused it to go to the loo I noticed It still had a large chunk of the film left. I was intrigued  and it to be frank rocked! I was pleased it had done something different unlike other recent exorcist films (The last exorcist I’m looking at you, mockumentry isn’t a new or a fun thing) I don’t want to spoil the end of this film as I’m sure lovers of sudo-horror/Sir Tony films will want to check it out.

Actor wise I don’t think a better job could be done by anyone else, Sir Tony really shows his acting chops and the Mulder and Scully relationship he forms with Colin O’Donoghue is a believable and charming.

Another thing I like about this film is the lack of subtitles. Not that I hate subtitles but especially with a film like this I don’t need everything translated as its more about the context then content. I don’t need to know what Sir Tony is shouting at the little boy just that the little boy deserved to be shouted at.

My downside and the thing I didn’t like about this film was the textbook start. As I have seen it all before I wasn’t really that bothered I wasn’t paying that much attention. It wasn’t till about an hour in I was interested in what was happening. It really feels like two different movies smooshed together its just a shame that one of the films clearly outshines the other.

Current IMDB Rating: 6/10  My Rating 6.5/10

So I’ve started to think about 80’s films and there charm, I’m not talking about the obvious back to the future Blockbusters which are just suckers of SS’s cock (Steven Spielberg). I’m talking about films like “Basic instinct”, “After Hours”, “Cat People”. No I’m not talking about “Breakfast cCub”, “Pretty in Pink” and “Foot Loose” which are loved in a pretentious Retro way. Those films don’t sum up the 80’s. Michel Douglas fucking his girlfriend over the sofa from behind in the first 20 minuets in Basic instinct doo. There is a self-indulgence with 80’s films I adore, Tony Montana snorting Mountains of Cocaine, Arnold Schwarzenegger destroying a whole forest to kill one alien, Jack Nicolson bouncing a ball in a massive hotel and Sarah Connor Screwing a man who has told her his is from the future and they have one night together.

So what I’m getting at is that the 80’s delivered experimental film making with in a mainstream market. Distributing to the popcorn audience, drug use, sex, violence, swearing and of course sexual objectification.

Can we have it back please?

She finds that her best friend Lillian is getting married and that she’s finally going to meet Helen, Lillian’s other friend from her fiancés side who of course Annie’s going to love…

They hate each other from the minute they first meet and they find themselves competing for Lillian’s attention, starting with a hilarious scene where they both try to make a moving engagement party speech, grabbing the microphone off of each other as soon as the other tries to finish, and it only escalates from there.

Helen (Rose Byrne) is attractive, elegant and unbelievably filthy rich, you can’t help but feel a pang of jealousy for Annie when she buys Lillian a box of sentimental gifts from their childhood and gets trumped with tickets to Paris. Things go from bad to worse for Annie, starting with her giving everyone food poisoning while they’re trying on expensive dresses (it’s as disgusting as you can imagine.)

It may be girly, but it has some serious balls.

Before I saw it I joked that it was “The Hangover but with chicks”… And I can confirm that it is in fact “The Hangover with chicks… and much better writing.” Everyone from Megan the fat military girl (who manages to be funny without being just a stream of ‘it’s funny because she’s fat’ humour) to the policeman played by Chris O’Dowd from the IT crowd has their moment to shine.

This isn’t something I would normally have bothered to watch, but I was glad I did from the moment the movie started with jokes about weird and awkward sex, followed by a bit where Kristen Wiig does an impression of a penis… Not because I have an immature sense of humour, I do, but also because they were hilariously well written and almost weirdly tasteful in their execution.

If you want a ladies film that doesn’t make you feel you’re about to poo rainbows or a few well crafted Knob gags, then you will like this film. If you want to watch something that isn’t Transformers, then I highly recommend this.

But a sequel? How can that work? By the end of the first film Po has unlocked the secrets of Kung-Fu, master Shifu has exorcised his personal demons and the only villain has been killed in a surprisingly violent explosion courtesy of our lovable panda. Can they possibly improve on the first one?

Yes, yes they can.

The film stars Jack Black as our friendly martial arts panda who has to face up to the biological quandary regarding the fact that he is a panda, and his dad is a goose…

Many years ago in the city of Gongmen, Lord Shen, the heir to the peacock clan (played by Gary Oldman) hears of a prophecy that he will one day be defeated by a black and white warrior. In a fit of rage he took an army of wolves and massacred an entire village of pandas in a bid to prevent the prophecy coming true… Well, it worked so well for Herod didn’t it?

Quite rightly horrified, Shen’s parents banished him from the city and years later he has returned with a mysterious new weapon built from fireworks that could threaten the entire world. It is up to Po to stop Shen from destroying the city and invading the rest of China.

The story itself may be quite simple, but it’s told incredibly well with the actors giving some absolutely spirited performances. Oldman in particular absolutely steals the show with a single scene that changes the way you think about the villain of this piece. The writing, acting and animation all come together to tell the story beautifully. Especially with one or two exchanges between Po and his father that were genuinely sweet.

The film as a whole is absolutely spectacular, if you’ve seen the first film you will know some of what to expect. During the first half hour or so you will feel slightly underwhelmed. This is just because you’re remembering all the good bits of the last film and it’s a bit unfair as a comparison, by the time we meet Lord Shen you’ll feel differently.

The fight scenes are again some of the best around. The frantic action works really well with the art style, and the pacing of the movie lets each fight feel fresh without becoming tired (I’m looking at you Michael Bay.)

‘Kung-Fu Panda 2’ is an excellent follow up to one of my favourite films of all time and I can’t recommend it highly enough. If you enjoyed the first you won’t be disappointed, if you haven’t seen it you probably won’t have any problems catching up.

It’s funny, it’s thrilling, it’s touching and it’s made me want to go to the cinema more often so I can do more of these reviews. That’s not a bad thing right?

We interrupt your usual Fun Stuff Friday articles to bring you a special piece on the BBC’s new series. In with the Flynns. Because I saw it about six months ago.

So Saturday night I went to a live taping of ‘Meet The Doyles’, which in the time between signing up and actually arriving had metamorphosed into ‘Meet the Flynns‘, or maybe just plain ‘The Flynns.’ After spending about twenty minutes waiting outside while the actors finished their rehearsal and the crew worked out how to herd the audience in to the studio, the magic started. Not good magic, the kind made by someone like Dumbledore or Gandalf, the evil kind weaved by sorcerers throwing bats into a bubbling cauldron at the top of a tower made of obsidian.

The show stars Will Mellor and Nicky Wardley as Liam and Catherine, a couple who had kids too early and… that’s it. It’s basically ‘My Family’ but Northern, presumably to play up the fact the BBC is moving/outsourcing their offices and studios out to Manchester.

In the episode we saw, Liam faced such wacky and original situations as his son getting in a fight at school, his daughter getting a tongue piercing and his dad almost going out with a  woman who may or may not have been a nun. We would watch the show a scene at a time, then the ‘entertainer’ would take over.

At live tapings they have to fill in the gaps between takes and scene changes. Some times it’s a way for stand up comedians to start their careers by keeping the audience occupied. I don’t think our guy was a professional stand up comedian, and if he wanted to be he should think long and hard about his life choices. I can only describe him as what you’d get if Gilbert Gottfried was northern, and not funny. His idea of hilarity involved accosting anyone who got up to leave by forcing them to hug him until he would let them go. In his eyes it was probably endearingly funny, in the eyes of the law it was probably rape.

We were there to be recorded as the canned laughter, all you need to know is that aside from one or two chuckles from what I can only assume were an actor’s mum and a homeless person who’d snuck in, the audience sat in almost stony silence. occasionally laughing at the odd joke from the guy playing Liam’s brother (Can’t find the actors name just yet) who managed to actually be funny. Unfortunately, no matter how funny a joke is the first time, the second or third take tends to lose it’s lustre somewhat. That’s just how live tapings are, when you don’t really laugh the first time, you have a problem.

Meet the Doyles/Meet the Flynns/Meet the Spartans doesn’t have a release date I can find on hand, and maybe it should stay that way. It was fascinating to watch and understand the process of making TV. How people work on set, how actors toil away for hours on end to get their scenes just right, and how an entire crew of at least fifteen people in a room will somehow get this far without one of them so much as saying, “Hang on a second, this isn’t funny. This show is awful!”

Maybe it’s just me. Maybe the show will be released and go on to sell eight series and a range of tea towels with catch phrases written on them. Maybe it won’t make it to air, which feels like a tragedy to me, not that it deserves to be seen, but that our TV licence money got wasted on this steaming pile of failure.

For those of us that didn’t know, ‘Friendship is Magic’ started in October 2010 and has gained a cult following on the internet, to the point Lady Gaga referenced it in one of her costumes.

Anyway, I decided to see what all the fuss was about and watched the pilot episode so I could make fun of it for the amusement of everybody.

The problem is, it may be a cartoon for little girls, but it’s actually not half bad.

Okay, lads, hold on to your manliness, listening to this plot synopsis may cause you to lose them.

The pilot follows a Unicorn called Twilight Sparkle who wants to save the world of Equestria from the coming of the ‘Mare in the Moon’, a sort of horsey anti-christ. But her message to the Princess, presumably requesting a horse SWAT team, is turned down and she’s told to stop reading the dusty tomes and go out and make some friends instead… Dude, harsh!

So she is sent out to Ponyville to go and celebrate the Solstice festival, which is coincidentally the time the aforementioned Pony-pocalypse is coming.

It was around this point in the episode I saw she was going to Ponyville on a chariot being pulled along by two anonymous Pegasii, Pegasese? Pegasuses? I paused the video and started furiously scribbling down jokes about how Ponyville runs on slave labour, that there is an intricate caste system that means some horses are treated as people while others are treated as, well, horses…

Then I resumed the video and Twilight got off the chariot and politely thanked the two pega… horses for giving her the ride over. Well, bugger.

Not only do I get deprived of material, but it’s actually setting a good example to my future children as well… Can I at least make fun of something other than myself for watching this? I’m watching a cartoon for little girls about magic ponies and having to concede that it’s actually quite good!

Twilight finds it hard to settle in to her new life with the Equine Ragnarok looming, and her desperate preparations are disrupted when she meets five other ponies with names like Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. Each of them is nothing but welcoming and friendly towards Twilight in her own way, but she is having none of it because you know, end of the world.

It turns out Twilight was right the whole time when on the stroke of midnight the Night-Mare appears and wreaks havoc upon the land. Twilight and her friends set out to save the world, and learn a few things about friendship along their journey of epic proportions.

That’s just the first episode.

Overall, I felt kind of uncomfortable. Not just because I didn’t want anyone to catch me watching My Little Pony, that would be silly because I’m writing about watching it now, but because I have to actually admit I enjoyed it.

Don’t be mistaken, I doubt I’m going to be watching the rest of the series or anything… I’m a twenty three year old man, but the jokes are funny when they’re supposed to be funny, it’s educational without being preachy and the messages are the kind of thing I would genuinely get behind. Things like being kind and looking out for your friends.

If you have kids or you’re secure enough in yourself to check this out, then I highly recommend this show. If you’re a dude I’d recommend it for you too, but I would also suggest you listen to some Alestorm every fifteen minutes lest you forget you are a man, because this show will get under your skin.

This years entertainment was curated by Animal Collective. Who despite being fun on stage, seemed to have a genuine hatred of music or any kind of tune. Two out of every three acts was the kind of experimental music that seemed to be more about making noises than a melody. If you listen to Radio 6 late at night you’ll be right at home I guess.

During the event I took notes on my phone. Here’s what I said of the acts I saw.

Highlife: Apart from several moments when he sounded like somebody was strangling a cat with a guitar he was good fun. He just played a mellow acoustic guitar act and it was quite relaxing until he opened his mouth and started screaming.

Black Dice: They made me feel like a grumpy old man. They sounded like a collection of random noises at ear splitting volume… but when I joked about it to my dad he turned and said “I know, it’s great isn’t it!”

They are a case of Marmite division in music. You’ll either love it or hate it. I hated it, but I’ve loved weirder and worse in the past. So make your own mind up and complain about it in the comments.

Dent May: They sounded like karaoke, but karaoke of something really good. I liked their tunes, but the setup wasn’t quite right. They were having problems with their drum machine and apologised to the audience that they hadn’t had any practice. So I’m giving them a thumbs up they could be really good on CD or anywhere with a proper sound test.

Lee Scratch Perry: My sister pointed out that he Looked exactly like Goldar from Power Rangers and I couldn’t think of anything else after that. You will really like him if you’re into Reggae.

Soldier of Fortune: They had the sound of metal about them, and I approved the hell out of that.

Actress: They sounded like your usual club and trance fare… Except whenever you felt he was leading up to some kind of big crescendo Adagio for strings style he would just dial it back and move on to another mix. He’s either a massive cocktease or a massive disappointment.

Big Boi: I have no idea how he ended up here, animal collective don’t seem like rap aficionados, but I’m glad they did. I only saw the last third of their performance and it was one of the weekends highlights. By the time I arrived they had all the girls in the front row up on the stage dancing along. They had damn good stage presence and despite the fact I’m white as the virgin snow, I would actually check them out again.

Brothers disconnected: they played a good mix of different styles, even having a couple of ‘comedy’ segments between songs with the kind of humour that would make Frankie Boyle shit himself. If you give them a try, give them a couple of chances because they run the gamut of good and unsettlingly weird with hints of genuine malice. One track was a Sergio Leone western style guitar riff, and the next was about lynching somebody.

Matt Baetz: He performed a stand-up gig that I enjoyed immensely. He catered his act around the fact a couple of ten-year-olds were sat in the front row, which must have been really difficult when you normally expect to use fuck-words as common punctuation. He was excellent and I will happily watch him again.

Mick Barr: He hammered away at his little guitar like nobody’s business. Normally I love that kind of thing; I listen to all of Dragonforce’s two songs after all. But he just sounded like me playing with my dad’s guitar.

Meat Puppets: They were far more conventional than anything else at the show. I enjoyed the crap out of them. And they had an excellent stage presence.

The Frogs: I was literally about to walk out when they finally decided to turn up. They were riddled with technical difficulties, including the vocalist turning up late.

They were also objectively the worst band I have ever listened to. I know music is a personal thing, but there is no excuse for the way they acted on stage, they would stop playing a song half way through, declare it wasn’t good enough and start again from the beginning, the drummer even started hurling abuse at somebody in the audience.

I can’t tell whether it’s supposed to have been part of the act or not, but if it was, their act was shit! Don’t listen to them, don’t watch them, don’t bother with these wastes of space.

The Entrance band: I only went to see them because the girl on base had great legs, but I’m glad I did because they were my second highlight of the weekend. They were massive fun to listen to and I highly recommend them!

Tony Conrad: Their whole thing was that their performance was surreal, and I suppose that was a brilliant success because I couldn’t tell if they were singing or having a seizure.

Mikachu and the Shades: They had a fun punk rock sound and they actually apologised for being late on stage. I give them thumbs up all the way for that!

Gang Gang Dance: They had a club dancey vibe and were my absolute favourite act of the weekend! They were incredible fun to see live, you could dance to it without having to be dosed to the eyeballs on pills and I’m listening to it in the other window right now.

TeenGirl Fantasy: They had a similar but more mellow sound than Gang Gang Dance but they were a great way to unwind immediately after the former.

Animal Collective: The headline band and curators behind this event. They were good on stage and it was fun to dance to them the first time they played, unfortunately the second time they played was identical note for note. My sister was seriously upset by this, I found them so tuneless I honestly wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t pointed it out. If you’re into this kind of music you will love them. If you’re not, for the love of god don’t go to anything curated by them!

So there you have it, all the acts I remembered from the weekend. Some good, some bad, some massively pretentious, but my Unbored Seals of Approval go to Big Boi, Gang Gang Dance and The Entrance Band. I highly recommend you check them out if you get the chance.

There’s an old saying that goes… When the pirates came for the Music industry the publishers did not speak up because they didn’t make music. When the pirates came for Hollywood the publishers did not speak up because they didn’t make movies. When the pirates came for the books… everybody was too busy watching Netflix to speak up.

Here are my thoughts.

1. Book sellers: ‘Stop trying to horde sales.’

The Kindle only takes books from Amazon. This is great when they’re on top of things, but it isn’t going to help the punters when they are locked into two options when they buy their eReader, eat up whatever prices they set or pirate everything.

It’s called the Gilette Method, you buy something at a ridiculous discount, originally a razor but in this case a Kindle, and then they bilk you for your money afterwards in razorblades or ebooks. It worked with videogames, it worked with razors, but it won’t work here. Because this time we can just make our own razorblades for free.

2. Publishers: ‘Your books need to be cheaper, get used to it.’

Fighting the internet is like trying to fight the tides. You either swim with it or you drown.

Anyone personally involved is too busy calling them ‘thieves’ to actually acknowledge this. But 90% of pirates just do it out of convenience. They just don’t want to pay the same amount of money for an eBook as they would for a physical copy.

A real book has value, it is something you own. An eBook is data written on silicone that can be re-written any time the publisher wants. Amazon snatched hundreds of copies of Nineteen Eighty Four away from customers because the publisher didn’t want it published yet. Why should you pay the same for something you don’t technically own?

3. Writers: ‘Yes you will make less per book, but you will sell more books.’

It’s not all doom and gloom. Yes you will have to cut your margins a bit, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t going to pay for your writing.

With the harsh realities of the internet also come glorious opportunities. Angry Birds is a little iPhone game that costs 60p to buy… but it’s been downloaded 140 million times because people are more than willing to fork over a little pocket change for something they enjoy.

If you sell a book online, it costs nothing to sell, no printing, no logistics, just data. If you make 30p for every book you sell, it doesn’t sound like much unless you sell a million books… then you’ve made three hundred thousand pounds. And that’s not as hard when literally everybody on the internet has the chance to see it and buy it.

4. People still like to read.

In fact they may read even more when books get so much more accessible. People are starting to read books on their iPhones, iPads, Kindles, Nooks, Crannies, Crevices and toasters. The market is there, and they’re more than willing to pay money to get their fix. It just has to be cheap and convenient enough for them to not bother wading around the seedier parts of the web for a torrent.

5. Watch how everyone else is dealing with it.

Music went through this, Movies went through this, Videogames went through this. Every single one has slowly come up with a streaming online version of their material. Spotify, Steam, iTunes, Netflix the list goes on and it will only get bigger as people realise that fighting piracy is about as effective as spitting at the sun.

6. Deal with it!

This isn’t the end of literature. This isn’t the end of anything.

Publishers are going to fight change, they are going to charge ten quid for an eBook and then get surprised when people pirate it or buy Angry Birds instead. They will try to prosecute pirates and then find that after a long, boring and stupid court case that they missed the other eight million people going at it unimpeded.

Things are going to change, it may be slow and a little uncomfortable at times, but business is like life, it always finds a way to survive and thrive. When everybody has food in their bellies, roofs over their heads and cash in their pockets they’ll always be prepared to give some of it for a bit of entertainment.

People want to read books, and they want to do it on command, and they want to do it on the cheap. If you stop complaining for five minutes and oblige them you may well hit a goldmine.

Happy Easter Everyone!

On to my weeks highlights.

Man gets to walk for the first time with the aid of exoskeleton:

This is genuinely touching, for the first time in twenty years a man is able to walk with the kind of exoskeleton the engineers were probably building to make an Iron Man suit.

I wish this guy the best of luck and I hope his kit gets even better.

Sarif Industries… Where the last story will go in ten years:

I hope this is a viral ad for something, because this video is brilliant.

And luckily this coincided with the genuine breakthrough this week.

Studio Ghibli’s Soundtrack in Metal:

I need to watch all the Ghibli movies again, I watched Spirited Away again recently and was astounded by how good it was. Why aren’t they bigger out here?

It’s also a good thing I love metal covers of other genres. Check out PowerGlove if you want proof.

Freddie Wong just… doing what he does:

There’s a unicorn… just see for yourself.

I wish I was even a fifth as talented as this guy is.

TED talk about empathy.

The TED talks always come out with some great things, I could do an entire article on my favourites. But this is the one I found this week, and it’s an interesting watch.

So that about wraps it up for this week. Did you find anything interesting this week? I’ll get back to you once I’ve eaten my Easter Eggs. I wonder how Jesus must feel? I don’t think I’d want people to celebrate the day I died by eating chocolate, I’d want them to celebrate by avenging me or something.

Having to go to work is torture when you have something like this waiting for you. And finally playing it was like coming home for the first time in years and finding somebody’s tidied the place up while you were gone…

For those of you that don’t know. Portal was a game where you only got one gun, and it didn’t shoot bullets. Instead it could place two portals on any appropriate flat surface, what goes in one portal comes out of the other. The first game introduced this concept and gave you a series of ingenious puzzles delivered to you by GLaDOS, the laboratory computer. As the game went on it became apparent that she was toying with you and planned to kill you, as you broke out of the confines of the experiment the game became a cat and mouse chase between you and the omniscient computer. It was cerebral, atmospheric and incredibly funny at times.

I’m reviewing this at about three hours in, and the plot has been a complete rollercoaster. Years have passed since the events of the first game, GLaDOS has come back to life and has taken complete control of the facility, up to and including moving the walls around and building new rooms as you go, with the express intention of torturing and killing you. Luckily, you find yourself under the wing of Wheatley, a mild mannered, slightly clumsy little AI played by Stephen merchant who wants you to escape.

Portal 2 feels so comfortably familiar whilst being astoundingly different. The clean, clinical rooms have been enveloped with jungle plantlife, rust and decay. The opening acts of the game reintroduce you to places you saw in the first game in their new state, it sets the scene and shows you just how far Valve have taken the technology in the last three and a half years.

More characters have been added to the mix this time with Cave Johnson, the CEO of the company behind the experiments and Atlas and P-Body, two robots that have to take experiments in the Co-Op mode. I don’t know how Valve managed to inject charm into everything in this game, but they did somehow…

The changes aren’t limited to the story and characters. Light bridges, lasers, the constantly shifting scenery and various reality warping liquids play a part in the puzzles and it is an absolute pleasure to find the solution to a knotty problem after several minutes of trying to find it.

The music in this game changes depending on your environment and how much you accomplish in each puzzle, I never thought a drum beat would be so satisfying, but when it chimes in after successfully flinging a crate across the room through several portals to land at your feet you will know the game is praising you for a good job.

Valve are absolute masters of dropping new elements into their games and letting you think you’ve worked out how they work yourself, and this game is no exception. Valve are notorious for their massive quiet periods between their games, but when they come out with something this good, who the hell am I to complain?

Everybody should play the first Portal and this, I don’t care if you have no interest in videogames. This is the perfect way to show people just what you can accomplish with the medium with the right talent and the right people.

And if actually paying money to get a copy is what’s holding you back, Valve were kind enough to give me a spare copy of the first Portal along with this. It can be yours if you can make a good case for having it and promise to give it a good home on your hard drive.

Whenever I pick up a copy of an album, I try to keep an open mind while listening, which can prove extremely difficult if you have any familiarity with that particular artist’s back catalogue. Even harder is when you review the bloody thing, comparisons keep popping up which is, admittedly, a handy reference point. Still, at least I try to keep an open mind, damn it. And there’s no better surprise than to have your expectations shattered into a million tiny, tiny fragments.

One of the nicest memories I have of the music of Sweden’s Jeniferever is escaping the blazing heat of the Tuscan sun. Cycling through the narrow streets and side-lanes of the old town in Lucca, different pathways extending like spindly veins from the central ampifeatro. Navigating this part of town took some practice; often enough I found myself ending up at the same spot two or three times. What struck me most about the pace of life in that part of the world – there was always that something that makes you want to slow down, just take in the day. Perhaps the same impulse that forces excessive consumption of olive oil – I’m not sure. In any case, something caused me to slow down and open my ears. Returning to the house in the valley later that evening, I sat down in the coolness of the terrazzo and let music wash over me. It was Choose a Bright Morning, Jeniferever’s 2006 debut album.

Okay, so they were incredible – original (if that even means anything anymore) and gentle, for some of it, and magnificent – for most of it. Something about their new album, Silesia, is simply majestic. The band has pared down their sound considerably, straying a little from their comfort zone of atmospheric and relatively slow post-rock drenched indie, focusing instead on crafting what could almost be considered pop, in some circles. One of the main features on this album seems to be the use of keyboards as a central instrument – almost as an orchestral tool in some instances. Even the drum sound in the mix is dry, much less reverb-heavy and somewhat reminiscent of Ester Drang’s later work. Kristofer Jönson’s vocals, quiet, melodic and sweet are given centre stage here – whereas on the debut and even on the organic Spring Tides his voice lacked a certain definition, carved into a hollow in the song. This time around his voice is back-lit by the band; it is right at the top of the mix and it is illuminated by stunning performances all round, instrumentally. On ‘Dover’ he sings “We hold tight to the ghosts in the stories/we do everything that we can to keep them alive.” The song is about not letting go, or rather, treasuring those memories held dear, the chorus line “We hold tight to bits of the past/they keep the days from ageing that fast.”

There’s something sentimental about Jönson’s lyrics, a recurring theme ever-present that displays certain vulnerability that is wholly endearing.

Most impressive of all on the record is the exquisite ‘The Beat of Our Own Blood’, an absolute gem that should by all rights be a single, and a respectable one at that. Huge melodic guitar and keyboard lines weave around intricate drum lines, all lifted by the overdriven, muscular bass line that was instantly, like, ‘Wow, Adam Clayton gets around a bit.’ Jönson speaks of emptiness in familiar ways, “The clothes and accessories form a faint pattern of guilt on the floor.”

It’s nice to see that the Scandinavian talent spell hasn’t worn off. Jeniferever really pack a punch in this release, and much like the sun creeping slowly up the buildings, off of the paving tiles of that Lucchesi day – the illumination may only be for a short while, but the warmth remains.

Silesia was out in the UK on April 11^th, 2011 on Monotreme Records.
‘Waifs & Strays’ is up for free download on http://www.jeniferever.com/.

The game is set in a fantasy world similar to The Neverending Story that is under attack from a dark goo that is slowly enveloping and corrupting everything it touches, a young thief with the ability to talk to animals sets out to find the ancient guardian of the kingdom ‘the Majin’ in order to push the darkness back and save the world.

That’s all I was told before I was thrown into a grimy dungeon to try and find this creature. The guards were horrible black goo monsters that walked like men and hissed like nighmares that swiftly ended my first sword fight against them when they ate my sword. After having to sneak around I finally managed to find this fabled Guardian of the whole world, a creature said to be capable of smiting armies with a single swipe of it’s arms…

“I hungry! You find me food yes?”

Right… So of course I was all like “Kay! Whatevs!” and I sauntered around for a bit and found a bit of fruit that I snuck back to the hungry troll creature. Which suddenly tore its restraints off like paper and declared that we were now friends! It turned out that since the darkness couldn’t kill the Majin because it’s practically a god, but they made do with the next best thing which was to strip its power away and plant them as fruit as far away from the Majin as possible… you know I’d have just left them in a safe somewhere, but what do I know?

And so begins a voyage of discovery as you lead this simple but powerful creature across a decaying post-apocalyptic world to find the fruits that will bring it’s power back and help you save the world from the spreading darkness.

The gameplay nicely balances several different elements, combat when you just wade in with your Majin friend, stealth when you’re on your own and puzzles when the only door big enough for the Majin is locked. The abilities you and your friend get over the course of the game nicely complement each style of play and it’s great to explore their uses. For instance, you get the ability to make the majin shoot lightning to power machines or fry enemies and while it’s great in combat it has some very clever applications over the course of the game involving lightning rods that can extend how far the bolts reach.

The combat is great fun with or without the Majin, on your own you can knock enemies down for a while, but only the Majin can kill them completely. Fighting alongside the Majin is another experience entirely, he’s the embodiment of the forces of nature and he packs a hell of a punch! You get the most benefit by winning through teamwork like knocking bats out of the air with a well-thrown rock to get it in punching reach of the Majin or stunning enemies enough to perform takedowns together where the Majin basically throws you up over the enemy and you both hit it at the same time… It takes finesse to achieve, but it’s incredibly satisfying to watch the apocalyptic destruction you can wreak on your enemies with the right strategy.

The most important thing about this game is how utterly charming it is. At first I thought the Majin would get annoying but he quickly grew on my like the thick foliage on his back. The story is simple but effective and I’m desperate to find out what happens next… this is quickly becoming one of my favourite games of all time and I defy you to try it and not fall in love with the ten foot tall monster when he trips over and goes “Ouch!”

Has anyone else played this or got any thoughts or questions? Feel free to weigh in on the comments below, I’ll chat back while I write tomorrows Fun Stuff Friday!