Chef - The Delectably Fresh Food Extrazaganza - Review & SPOILER WARNING

If you're looking for a new movie to get your teeth into, Chef is going to be your cup of tea. Just be sure to bring plenty of snacks as you're going to come out with the cravings of a pregnant mother to be. If it's not clear, Chef is about a Chef called Carl Casper (Jon Favreau) whose known as one of the best cooks in one of the best restaurants in LA. With world renounced Food blogger; Ramsey Michel (Oliver Platt) ridiculing him and his work, the job becomes too much for him and he embarks on a journey from Miami to LA in an old Taco truck selling the most delectable Cuban sandwiches with the help of his friend Martin (John Leguizamo) and son Percy (Emjay Anthony) in a bid to bring back the meaning to his life and become the father he wants to be with the aid of social media.

So you're probably wondering where the various big names come into play. Inez (Sofía Vergara) is Carl's ex-wife and Percy's mum. Inez's previous husband; Martin, played by Robert Downey Jr. is a character that is irrelevant. Merely a seat filler whose only role in the movie is to hand over the taco van to our protagonist with a little comedic scene thrown in for good measure. Much the same can be said about Scarlett Johansson and her role as Molly the head greater and waitress who has had a relationship with Casper and then disappears of the face of the earth when the story develops. The loss of the characters and possibly story avenues left me questioning what could have developed and how heavily they were played upon by sexualising both of them simply to fill seats and bring a few of Favreau's friends along to play. With the overpriced cameos, the acting was alright. I don't feel that there was any exemplary cases especially considering that I've seen little of Favreau's other acting projects to really decide if he was any good. My strong annoyance with many movies are young kid this is due to the fact that the children are typically terribly annoying characters and actors. Now, Percy was a little different. At times he was annoying as both a character and an actor yet the majority of the film he was fairly good.

Billed as a comedy, I was expecting a lot more from it in that department. What humour existed was light hearted and genuinely funny and was portrayed through interactions rather than the typical slapstick that we are usually inundated with so it's refreshing to see something that isn't trying to polish a turd. I'm looking at you James Franco. However, at points Chef doesn't feel like a comedy. Drama seems to dark and adventure to extreme. Perhaps a family adventure summarises it best, much like Walter Mitty but with less daydreaming and world travel. The ambiguity of the genre is nothing in the grand scheme but perhaps its variation has allowed it to become individual.

The overall outcome of the movie works together brilliantly. With some gorgeously bright scenes and a huge variety of shots of the mouth-watering food with a blend of music that is catchy and aids in livening up the travel scenes. Then the additional social networking shots that include the Twitter bird flying off into the sky was a great extra! It's genuine individuality and charming story alone is enough to warrant a watch and the comedy just increases that potential. Chef is a fantastic movie and deserves 8/10.

What did you think of Chef?

 

A Flurry of E3 2014 Trailers - Here's the ones that matter to me!

Simply said, the features and trailers emerging from E3 are incredible. Down below I will feature some of the best content from the event and my personal favourites from the first day. Let's get straight into it with the brand new Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare with a suspiciously Titanfall-esque style



Now a trio from one of the best developers around - Bioware with information on an unnamed title, a new Mass Effect and Dragon Age Inquisition.





Square Enix returns with a follow-up to its incredible Tomb Raider



The long-awaited and perfectly timed Star Wars Battlefront rears its head in this production trailer



The fear inducing Dying Light slaps Mirrors Edge in the face as it waltzes on stage



Evolve makes Arnie's Predator movie look tame



And who can't love Scalebound's use of giant dragons beating the hell out of giant monsters while a skinny dude runs around listening to dance music?



This is only scraping the surface of trailers that have been coming out and it can only get better. Be sure to check out the E3 website and Twitter for tons more information and stick around on Black Ribbon for lots more news and reviews!

Assassin's Creed Unity News From E3 2014

One of the biggest weeks in gaming is upon us. E3 is in full swing and information if flowing from all corners of the industry. I shall be doing my best to cover what information I can, so be sure to check back with me!

Ubisoft dropped a huge bomb a few months back with an apparent "leak" of information about the next instalment of the Assassin's Creed series based in the French revolution titled Unity. Until now, information has been scarce but today we have some fantastic news. Jumping upon the Watch_Dogs online Co-op trend, ACU/AC5 will include a 4 player Co-op with the news accompanied but this fantastic video demonstrating the flow of gameplay, visual capabilities and obviously the Co-op!

But that's not all! Down below are the cinematic trailer and the introduction to our new protagonist - Arno Dorian and his new toys!. The cinematic trailers released for the Assasin's Creed series follow a trend for visual perfection and excitement with some of the best music around. It's hard not to get pumped for such an awesome looking game. Enjoy the videos and let me know what you think of them!

Murdered: Soul Suspect - Review! - Can We Crack This Case?

Murdered: Soul Suspect seems like its been heavily under-publicised. The overall advertising campaign is sufficiently weak for a Square Enix production that steps away from the common horror thriller of shooting everything with a pulse. Soul Suspect has opted for a non-combat approach with the need to immerse the player into the world and the story. Our protagonist is Ronan O'Connor; a detective with a rough past whose in search of Salem's serial killer threat -- The Bell Killer. Through an encounter with the Bell Killer, Ronan is thrown from a 4th story window, barely concious after the fall, the killer plants 7 rounds from Ronan's own sidearm into O'Connor's chest killing him in a matter of seconds which are the burning lights emanating from his chest. Upon watching his death in his ghost form, Ronan now takes on the mission of finding his killer alongside the other victims of the Bell Killer to head towards the light.

The story is actually very short. I would put it down to the fact that the story appears to happen over a single night and in real-time could be the 6-8 hours I playing the story and maxing out the achievements. Going back through to get some extras I had missed meant I had to go to the 80% mark of story completion and got there in a little over 2 hours considering the fact that clues and information were fresh in my mind. Being so short, many would suspect the story of being weak, limited in character development and basic. Only one of these stands true and to my dismay its the character development. Although we get little eye-dents throughout the gameplay which review Ronan's life, they are fairly lacking and generic TV tough cop. The loss of his wife was never explained but can only be assumed that it may have had something to do with the Bell Killer and his rough past as a delinquent who served time is a little different but play no role in his progress as a protagonist. Unless you go through and read every little note, you probably can't connect to him as well as could be hoped and its saddening for a character that drew me into a genre I'm very unlikely to play. In comparison, the story is filled with unexpected turns and a finale that's exciting and enthralling.

With a track record of gorgeous looking Final Fantasy's visual expectations for the game are enormous. Disappointingly enough, the cut scene quality was good, but no Final Fantasy and when in game, players look like they are made of rubber rather than flesh and bones. Considering that I play on the next gen Xbox One, quality of visual aspects is what is selling these consoles. However, I digress. The quality of the world is perfect. The creepy atmosphere of Salem's dark night life coupled with their afterlife is brilliantly portrayed through the pallet of dark hues and ghostly memory imprints of past structures. Glossing over the rubber faced characters and AI's, visually the movie is great and the set of the world is amazing to look at and occasionally run straight through. Including a soundtrack which immerses you in the land of the dead. Gradually peaking in moments of excitement and dropping its tone sharply when shit is about to hit the fan.

Now the gameplay isn't simply walking about and finding clues. We all know the notions that the midpoint between life and death that is filled with spirits of not just lost souls but also of the broken and tormented who terrorise those lost. The demons that haunt the world stand as a danger for Ronan and commonly appear though their demonic forms or portals that clasp their victims and drag them to the pits of hell. The only way to defeat these apparitions, you must avoid the portals through possession and rip the corrupted from their form, freeing them of their binds. The game plays almost like a platformer with puzzles to solve and dangers to avoid and is surprisingly enjoyable even if you can't use a physical weapon to kill. Inspiration looks as if Alan Wake was involved with its unique system for dealing with demons in a really simply and easy method meaning that the overall market
for the game is vast. Not just the hardcore gamers. Although, it really appeals to achievement hunters like myself. With incredibly easy achievements based simply on roaming the streets and solving deaths and regular story missions, many of the achievements are simple to get. For the large collections you are more than likely going to need to use the games online interactive map on the Square Enix site as the game lacks this function or the flurry of videos popping up on youtube. With it being so short, rounding off the missed collectibles won't take long on a speed run. I would highly recommend doing these as the ghost story collectibles reward you with tales that are very grim and chilling to the bone.

Although it misses a map for direction, the interactive map can guide you but doesn't look very good whatsoever and can be ignored. I cannot confirm the prices on other deals but I managed to get my hands on a limited edition copy for less than the standard package which includes this neat little book which holds clues, story hints, some artwork and a message from the artists. The little addition is well made and is a wonderful extra on top of a wonderful game that I shall be rating an 8/10!

Have you played Murdered: Soul Suspect yet? Let me know what you thought in the comments!

Edge of Tomorrow - Quicky Review! - SPOILERS

If you've been to the cinema recently, you've most likely been barraged with Edge of Tomorrow trailers and advertisements. Normally I would go off them gradually, although with this, I felt compelled to go see it. The trailer looked better after I saw it a few times and with Tom Cruise's success in Oblivion and many other Sci-fi movies, I knew it would be a good watch.

In recent months we have seen comets flying over the sky of Russia and many other places on the news. Using the footage, Edge of Tomorrow has built upon the idea that they harbour life. However, this life is a little less microscopic and a little more giant, rip your face off and swing you round like a piñata big. Eventually the spread of these monsters has led to the European mainland becoming alien HQ. Much like the D-Day landing in WW2, England send troops over to the beaches of Normandy to push a seemingly weak army back into the stone age. Not all goes to plan and our protagonist --Cage, ends up dead, only to repeat the day continuously until he can find a way to end this war and the slaughter of the humans for good. The story reeks of Nolan's signature psychological games and most likely takes reference from him. With the increasingly bad K-D ratio of Cage rising steadily, he seeks help from the poster girl of this war. The Iron Bitch/Rita soon is able to sympathise with him as she has experienced the same. After a particularly jarring training scene we learn that there is a master key that if destroyed, will kill these aliens for good and they embark on a giant adventure to blow it the hell up. Without releasing a lot of information and ruining it, the story is surprisingly solid. It's engaging and the continual death toll of Cage and the repeat beatings he gets forces the same emotions of stress and anxiety that he feels. Just slightly less damaging and without the months lost...

Apart from the movies solid story, it cannot stand on that alone. After all, it is a sci-fi. Visually the movie looks wonderful. Although I can see many of the scenes being filmed on green screens, the general flow of everything going on made it bearable. Everything looked great but I do have to question the designers of those creatures. They are nightmarishly scary. If I was ever to dream something like that up, I would get myself checked. They looked amazing and did instil fear with the rapid movement and screeching. Now with the barrage of deaths, a personal favourite was acid being dropped on Cage which was brutal to watch but I may have giggled a little bit. Fighting with non-existent creatures isn't very easy so when they are being flung about, its animated brilliantly.

There isn't really not much more for me to say. Yeah sure, the acting wasn't the best but what can you expect. It's Tom Cruise in a Sci-fi movie. We come for fun action scenes where humanity fights against an alien terror and kicks some ass with it wrapped up nicely at the end. The fact that the story was good (perhaps generic in the genre) and looked great made at all the better. In the sci-fi genre, Edge of Tomorrow deserves 8/10. It's a full on fun movie with plenty of twists and turns that keep you guessing! Go see it! Seeing it's Wednesday, Orange Wednesday it!

Watch_Dogs - Review! - Was it worth the wait? - SPOILERS

After spending every available minute I had on Watch Dogs over the past 2 days, I have finally completed the campaign mode and a few of the little extras. Now considering that I've been waiting for this puppy since the first reveal trailer early last year, I was major league bummed to turn up to Eurogamer and find that they only had a stinking demo presentation that we couldn't get our hands on, then to find out that it was pushed back until now stung. The 3rd person sandbox RPG was enough to capture my attention after my huge admiration for Red Dead Redemption a few years back (Still one of the best games known to man...) and blended with a modern world piggybacking on the recent NSA coverage makes this quite a topical game.

Since playing that game, I have got a lot of gripes with the game. For something that I've spent a year waiting for, I'm rather pissed. If I'm annoyed now, I dread to think what was wrong originally to push it back. Straight away we have the driving. Normally, I'm a good driver in games and I get the hang of it very quick but setting foot in a car in this game is one of the worst possible things you could do. Every damn vehicle has the turning circle of a lorry and apparently the ability to perform a burnout when you gently accelerate. The camera angles may as well have been shoved up Aiden's ass as they are some of the worst possible angles I've ever seen and when the majority of time is spent in the fuckers, you have no hope of avoiding them. I'm not expecting that Watch Dogs should be like GTA, but when you can't shoot out of your own damn car or throw/use equipment, it is useless to expect us to be able to take down certain targets who spend all the time on highways in armoured trucks and are near no environmental factors. The only decipherable way to ram them and in doing so do more damage to your car than you inflict and then stealing other cars only to wreck them a moment later. By wreck and run them off the road, by that I mean the poorly animated collisions which are more likely related to morphing. Hitting vehicles along the road almost always looks as if you're transpiring through them like a ghost... So yeah, I despised the driving. To the point I would be willing to never drive in game again. A quick tip, get the Uplay points and unlock that car or steal a car. Buying them is pointless. Other than getting the bonuses, Uplay works whenever the hell it chooses and the ubisoft servers would regularly not work for me and trying to exit to the menu doesn't work at all for me and stayed at one spot while I was away for 3 hours.

Now the core part of the game is the hacking. In advertisements, it portrayed the fact that you could

manipulate everything or a high proportion of things, yet when in the thick of the game play, its

rather sparse for variety but a lot of copy and pasting which can become repetitive if you play as sessions like myself. Apart from the driving mechanics, hacking was easy to do and infiltrating places was also incredibly easy if you didn't fancy the run and gun approach and have some patience. Using the environment to pick people off was rather amusing but if you didn't feel like it, you could easily beat your way through with very little resistance. If you hadn't heard, not long before its release, information was revealed that Watch_Dogs was in a higher resolution for the PS4 rather than the Xbox One. I cannot tell much difference on the One but I do get a little wound up by the fact that its scratched in on a 720p setting for HD. Albeit, the game looks nice and plays the Final Fantasy trick. Luring people in with images from cut scenes that use high standard visuals rather than the core graphics is always a cheap move to make but otherwise it looks good. The gripe is when you're being hacked, the full screen starts blacking out. Now, in reality, why does the screen go black? How can we actually be blinded? Are we a fucking robot!? Let's put ourselves into the future into the Watch_Dogs world. In a time when HD is advancing incredibly fast into 4K, why is it that music and screens glitch in game. Surly the outcome would be crisp shapes with no static and light skipping? Apparently not. In the words of Sips, it makes me want to rip my dick off.

Now, the real reason many by games is the story. I as one of them were satisfied. The campaign was sufficiently long, spending an age going between them probably prolonged the period and there is a lot of side missions to do along the way. The story is hinged upon the past actions by our lead --Aiden Pearce. The loss of his niece has led Aiden to become this masked vigilante called "The Fox", although you only find out the name at 2 instances; midway through and right at the end. As he tries to do good Aiden's new persona has put his remaining family in danger and they need his help to save them. It spirals through 3 villains that all have a lot of roots in the underground and cyberspace. Without spoiling much, the end was a little dramatic but satisfying after the hours you invest. The inevitable "boss" was pretty damn easy when you can set up a load of bombs and the death by the hacking of some personal equipment was an brilliant idea. Somewhat morbid but I couldn't help but revel in how much awesome there was in that moment. As an over arching story, it was average. It's been enough to spark the interest of media outlets who want to discuss its inevitability in the real world but they do the same in Die Hard 4.0 so it's not this new big thing...

So my overall score really focuses on how much I enjoyed it. Apart from the fact that it glitches like a bitch at times, the driving is enough to drive me insane and that the story could be covered in the next buddy cop comedy movie with Ice Cube and Kevin Hart, it was rather fun.  Blowing stuff up and shooting people is what's at the core and that does it for me. Although I can't quite justify the wait, I'm giving this a 7/10. Also the fact that "collectors edition" is more, "collect these 5 different additions with different things if you want everything because we are going to milk you like a little cow"...Cheers, guys. Plus, when you advertise something, don't ruin the secrets and create new scenes which never appear in game...