Batman: Arkham Knight - The Grand Finale - Minor Spoilers!

The Rocksteady series of Batman games have been some of the best and undoubtedly, one of the best super hero games to date. Does Arkham Knight follow suit? Yes, yes it does.

So this is the first and last of the series to run on next generation consoles and its safe to say, it didn't go well. It seems as if a lot of games designed for the next-gen consoles seem to have huge optimisation issues on the PC. The issue was so bad, it led to WB pulling it from PC sale until its at a good standard. Now considering I played it on the Xbox One, I can't complain. The low runner in the current generation, the expectations aren't for 1080p, 60 FPS, 4K sorta' stuff but it held its own and looked gorgeous. Visually the game was stunning (as ever) but we suffer from the issue of 'Detective Mode'. The X-ray vision is almost in current use if you're trying to find something among the clutter of buildings and lights. Orange people normally mean some sort of outpost and any respectful completionist will get all of these. The same goes for the ridiculous amounts of Riddler trophies and riddles, just so you can fight him. While you're in detective mode, you are taken out of the world. Your view of the world is a menagerie of blues and oranges with a range of a couple hundred yards and finding anything outside of this view is near impossible without an online guide. I'll never deny how useful this device is, in fact it has aided me in my near completion of the game. However, given the chance, I would like to be able to find things in the world substantially easier. I don't want to wait for intel and I don't want to spend hours looking for the firemen in obscure areas of the map that you just can't admire.

But enough about that. Lets talk about what we are really here for. The story, the story of the Bat. Turns out the antidote against Joker's blood in Arkham City didn't actually fix anything. Batman is left with the blood coursing through his veins and is in a desperate chase to find a cure. While doing so, Scarecrow and the goonies decide to take over Gotham with the help of the Arkham Knight. A face completely unknown to Batsie until clues are literally slapped across your face like a wet fish. Perhaps a slightly more subtle approach would have created a huge gasp of excitement and glee but considering I can't remember much of the previous games, the clues gave me a good reminder. So, the Knight and his Militia crew join forces with Scarecrow, Penguin and Two-Face to take down Batman. Penguin and Two-Face supply the goods and Scarecrow gases the whole city in a new fear toxin while the Arkham Knight orchestrates it all in an attempt to kill Batman.

All very simple and understandable. However, it runs for quite some time. You can either divert and do the side-missions for each villain in the game or you can plough on with the main quest as you are haunted by the Joker which was honestly my favourite part of the whole thing. I spent 2 days playing, with at least 20 hours in game with a respectable ending percentage. All the side quests were fun, the stories were intriguing but the boss battles at the end were repetitive.

Repetitive, how? you ask. There is very little skill involved in beating these bosses. With a 3 or 4 stage sequence that doesn't alter as you progress, it feels like the mechanics never change. In fact, one of them isn't even a boss fight. You simply have to keep pace with them while they wear themselves out, 4 times. The combat is good but the nature of repeating yourself 3 times for the majority of the bosses lacks any individuality or excitement. Its a turd in the industry of boss fighting. We get very little variation from a platform based game like Dante's Inferno because they are limited to that scale but you had to put some sort of effort in. Simply brute forcing it would get you no-where while this, you can do very easily, especially when the AI is stupid enough to run in front of Batman's new tank. I'm not saying its all bad. The combat is still fluid, even though you still occasionally leap from one side of the room to the next, you still get that sense of achievement when you wipe out a room of goons with a few tactical advantages, even more so when its an uninterrupted combo streak. I previously mentioned the Batmobile and honestly, its incredible. Its rotation capabilities and speed is great and the combat missions with them is so much fun. Outnumbered by 40 other tanks, they have balanced it enough to be quite the task if you aren't paying attention and extremely fast paced.

Honestly the games haven't changed much from what they were. Is it a worthy send off for the series? Hell yes. Should you get it? Hell yes. Is it the greatest game? No. Yes we have many big name voices that give depth to the characters such as Telltale's Dave Fennoy who voiced Lee in the Walking Dead episodical series, John Nobel who voice Scarecrow. Mark Hamill who recites his role as The Joker and my favourite, Troy Baker, who voices a whole host of characters. The cast is simply perfect. The voice acting was spot on but the audio was an issue. It was never very clear or just cut off all of a sudden. Some things were simply too loud while others were so quiet, you hear half the conversation among the various other environmental sounds and people chatting over others is a huge annoyance. In all fairness, I can't reward it for its poor optimisation for PC users. That is a huge cock-up and a mark down and the elongated story that could have ended 5 times earlier were enough to make me wonder about the vast knowledge these super villains are supposed to have, even more so with Riddler. Honestly, in what world is shooting buttons in the order they light up or racing through an underground track deemed as a puzzle!? Its almost as if this instalment has taken the best of the previous and done very little to improve or derive something new, compelling and extreme enough to be any bit daring. Enjoyable, stunning and good fun, the game deserves a 7/10. Taking into factor the poor launch with a 3.5GB day one update and the general predictability, this could have been the greatest in the series but it played it way to safe.

TV Review: True Detective - Season Two Episode Two "Night Finds You" SPOILER ALERT

Shotgun Blues

Wow. HBO has officially become the number one slaughterhouse for main characters in any of its' many series, with the final scene of this week's True Detective episode seemingly killing off Colin Farrell's conflicted cop character, Detective Ray Velcoro at the hands of the same masked murderer (The Birderer as it were) who was seen driving the deceased corpse of Ben Caspere. This is HBO however, and in a similar vein to the death of Jon Snow in Game of Thrones, the death of Velcoro just seemed rather strange, if rather shocking, due to fact that not only was he undoubtedly the most interesting character on the show so far, but his storyline was slowly expanding into something much deeper and darker which was ultimately the backbone of the season so far. With this in mind, the fact that Velcoro took the bulk of his killers' shotgun blasts to the chest suggests that death may not be the outcome of such a tragic event, but hey, I assume we will find out in the near future. 

"Night Finds You" also began to expand on the death of City Manager Ben Caspere, starting with the autopsy in which our trio of heroes were subject to not only being told he was privy to an STI or two, but to be shown the remains of his John Thomas which had been blown to shreds by a shotgun (eh, ring any bells?). Also on the agenda of Caspere's death was the financial game of cat and mouse he was supposedly playing with Vince Vaughn's Frank Semyon, with Caspere refusing to invest Semyon's livelihood in a field of industry swaying more towards the legal side of business than anything perhaps Semyon has encountered before. With money the hot topic on Semyon's mind, Caspere's death subsequently has sent him on his own personal investigation into his murder with the location in which Detective Velcoro was shot being one in which Semyon had found on his own accord. Was it just by accident that Semyon sent Velcoro to his supposed doom or was it in fact intended, with Velcoro's reluctance to continue playing puppy dog to Semyon's demands being the only justification for such that I can think of. 

Episode Two in this season of True Detective definitely explored much more ground than the previous in regards to the main story arc that will be focused on in the coming weeks, with greater character development of our heroic trio being greatly needed, whilst suffering once again from some cringe-worthy lines of dialogue (Velcoro's speech in which an E-Cigarette was seen as a robot's penis springs to mind) that endanger it into falling into a satire of its' own existence. The final scene will get the headlines undoubtedly, but I believe the death of one of the series' most interesting characters is a decision come way too soon and will subsequently be sorted out in the coming weeks but hey, this is HBO, anything could happen. 

Overall Score: 9/10

Film Review: Minions

And It Was All Yellow...

One of the many benefits of heading into my local cinema is to experience a wide range of movies which jump from one completely different genre to the next with my experience of watching Universal's Minions being a prime example, with it undoubtedly unlocking the 7 year old child that is still inside of me and seemingly transforming all the bad energy in the world to a charming and quite bonkers 80 minutes. The fundamental existence of the minion character has always managed to make me crack a smile, regardless of how I felt at that certain time, meaning before even entering the cinema I was bound to at least like Pierre Coffin's spin-off from the Despicable Me series, yet unfortunately for the cute little freaks, "like" seems to be the key word after watching Minions with it yes, being rather heartwarming and funny, but altogether not being pretty spectacular whatsoever.  

After years of isolation from both the world and a evil leader to follow, Minions Kevin, Stuart and Bob are tasked with leaving the confines of their cave in order to seek a new leader to follow in order to bring back the long-lost sense of purpose which has been taken from their race. During their journey, they are taken up by crime-lord Scarlet Overkill (Sandra Bullock, Gravity), who tasks them with stealing the crown jewels in return for the race of Minions to serve once again. In terms of the plot of Minions, not only does it lack originality and freshness, but it is also completely bonkers and thriving with quite huge plot holes, but hey, it's a kid's film with bald, yellow alien things, what do you expect? Yet the fact that such plot holes were even picked up reinforces my sadness at how just un-engaging Minions actually was, with an over-reliance of the Minions either falling over or making a complete tit of themselves wearing off and becoming rather quite tedious after the first 15 minutes or so. 

On the upside of Minions, in places, it was rather funny, with the scenes in a rather rib-tickling overly stereotyped 1960's London being the highlight of the film, with every English character seemingly all having exactly the same traits including drinking tea, eating scones, and shouting "cor blimey," of which I found rather enjoyable. Overall, if a film such as Minions can just about hold a 21 year old's attention for its' short 80 minute run-time, then I'm pretty sure the kids will love it. Charming and funny in places, but lacking in originality and engagement in most, Minions passes the time, but don't expect it to be loved as much as you would like. 

Overall Score: 6/10

Film Review: Slow West

Into The Wild

I recently took up the chance to add to my ever-increasing film knowledge and finally, after years of them being on my "to be watched later" list, sitting down and indulging in "The Man With No Name" Trilogy, the classic Western trio of movies including The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, featuring Mr Macho himself, Clint Eastwood. Although my knowledge of "Spaghetti Western's" in general is pretty limited to say the least, Sergio Leone's magnum opus's were pretty darn good and has led me to search out and broaden my horizons when it comes to this particular genre. How fate has intervened therefore with the release of Slow West this week, a action Western thriller featuring the brilliant Micheal Fassbender (Prometheus, Shame), Kodi Smit-McPhee (Let Me In) and Ben Mendelsohn (The Place Beyond the Pines) whilst being directed by first-timer John Maclean. With the limited amount of Westerns that are released in the current cinematic environment, Slow West had the opportunity to shine and bring fresh life into my newly-found genre of movies but with Clint Eastwood thoroughly in the back of my mind throughout, it had an uphill challenge from the start. 

The premise of Slow West is one that is very reminiscent of the Coen Brother's True Grit (and obviously the original, of which, I haven't seen) whereby the hunt for the wanted is the main direction of the character's goals with McPhee's Jay and Fassbender's Silas essentially being carbon copies of Mattie Ross and Rooster Cogburn respectively, if for a little gender change on one part. In the case of Slow West however, the hunt for the wanted is due to the absence of love in contrast to the absence of cash with Jay searching the West for his long-lost love whilst Silas constantly being at his side acting as his protector and guide. Although the film contains strong levels of action and violence throughout, it was the underlying sense of black comedic value that made it hold its' ground so astutely, with it being very reminiscent of Joel and Ethan Coen as well as Wes Anderson, particularly in moments that could arguably be classed as entering the ground of "zany". 

The film's bright demeanor throughout contrasted the fundamental dark tones of the movie in which murder, betrayal and violence are particularly rife, only adding credence to the notion of the films' aim in making light of such matters by mixing in a strong comedic undertone which, for the most part, was its' strongest moments. Fassbender is ace once again in a leading role whilst young McPhee produces a strong performance as the heartbroken teen lost in the wild. Aside from a rather predictable ending and falling on rather similar territory in terms of the Western genre, Slow West was an enjoyable addition into the Western catalogue of movies, propped up by the strong element of dark humour that was prevalent throughout. 

Overall Score: 7/10 

TV Review: True Detective - Season Two Episode One "The Western Book of the Dead" SPOILER ALERT

Vice City

With Game of Thrones over for another year at least, HBO has delightfully helped us deal with the death of Jon Snow by rewarding us with the return of the brilliant True Detective, albeit with a completely different cast and story to the first season which featured Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as its' lead stars. Replacing them in the lead roles of Season Two is the equally brilliant Colin Farrell (Phone Booth, In Bruges) and the less-than remarkable Vince Vaughn (Swingers, Dodgeball) who has decided to play against the stigma of his highly associated comedic roles and embrace the darker side of his acting ability. With True Detective running for a solid eight-week run, I will be doing weekly reviews of HBO's highly engaging crime drama and conclude with an overall season score. The first thing to say about Season Two of True Detective is that it has a high threshold to follow after the critically acclaimed first series, yet the first episode has presented some promising, if rather familiar, story arcs to settle down into over the course of its' two month run. 

Of course, acting as an anthology of stories per season rather than a continuation of character arcs and plot-lines, Season Two was inevitably going to begin by highlighting some in-depth characterisation of the key players in this years' storyline. Within "The Western Book of the Dead" therefore we are introduced to characters on both sides of the law, with Colin Farrell's troubled Detective Ray Velcoro arguably having the most interesting on-screen presence, solidified by the performance of Farrell who manages to sway the character of Velcoro away from the stereotypes of the corrupt cop into a much deeper and darker ground.  The scene in which he faces his "child's" bully was quite startling, if rather OTT to say the least, but the sheer range of emotions Farrell managed to cruise through in a single scene was evidence of what a great leading actor True Detective has once again managed to bag. Of course the hyphenated use of "child" signified my first response to seeing Ray's "son", yet the plot thread of knowing that he may have been born out of rape only adds fuel to the fiery rage of one of this seasons' most interesting characters already. 

Also on the side of the law is Officer Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch) and Detective Ani Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams) who follow in the footsteps of Velcoro in each having their own particular vices, suggesting that the trait of the damaged cop is particularly ripe in the state of California, yet vices aside, the entirety of "The Western Book of the Dead" pretty much offered backstory to these three core characters, with the final scene highlighting the main plot thread for the series and conjoining the trio together for the first time. On the opposite side of the law, Vince Vaughn's Frank Semyon offered a point of view from the criminal enterprise which is set to offer a much more in-depth and layered insight into the main story arc of the series by having characters that we may possibly root for on both sides of the law. True Detective can also offer redemption for Vaughn as an actor with a much more serious and darker role offering the chance to rescue Vaughn's career from sliding off into the depths of despair and from the small screen-time we had with his character, it seems it may be slowly being saved. 

"The Western Book of the Dead" therefore offered plenty of backstory for the characters of True Detective Season Two, whilst leaving us with a final scene which established the core plot thread for the series in which murder mystery is set to be rife once more. With a strong cast heading the bill once again, True Detective is set to offer two months of engaging entertainment and compelling drama. HBO, we salute you.

Overall Score: 8/10

Film Review: Mr. Holmes

True Detective

The world-renowned image of one Sherlock Holmes is now hotly, and justly, associated with Mr. Cumberbatch who has taken the popularity of Arthur Conan Doyle's detective to obscene levels of popularity in the 21st century. It is only apt therefore for an actor of status such as Sir Ian McKellen to add a further level of depth to an already well-established character on the big screen, with Mr. Holmes delving into the later life of the great detective, who aside from struggling from the normal growing pains of memory-loss and tiresome limbs, struggles too from the pain of a long forgotten case whilst simultaneously finding redemption in the form of young apprentice, Roger, played by newcomer Milo Parker. If the BBC production of Sherlock can be aligned with traits of being both fast-paced and highly engaging, then Mr Holmes can be seen as a much more mellow and somber affair with the primary action taking place in jump cuts to actions that have previously occurred. The fact that young Roger himself continually asks Sherlock to try and recollect such previous encounters, thus echoing my own feelings, suggests that the filmmakers are well aware of the need to hurry up and get to the highly engaging flashbacks which deeply overshadow the less than captivating moments in which we see Sherlock attend to his apiary.  

Based upon "A Slight Trick of the Mind" by Mitch Cullin, Mr Holmes does feature a stunning lead performance from one of cinema's most beloved actors in the form of Sir Ian McKellen, who embraces the chance two-fold to portray the great detective himself, whilst young Milo Parker and Laura Linney provide solid enough support as mother and child double act. Although the film flew by and had just enough entertainment to keep me engaged throughout, fans of the Cumberbatch era Sherlock may be unhappy with the lack of overall Sherlockian mystery that Mr. Holmes presents, yet the film does not shy away from the fact that instead of just another big-screen adaptation of such, Mr. Holmes intends to show an older and more fragile side to the detective that we are used to and for that, I applaud it. 

Overall Score: 8/10

TV Review: Game of Thrones - Series 5 Episode Ten "Mother's Mercy" SPOILER ALERT

Long Live the King...

After ten glorious weeks of Game of Thrones, Season Five has now come to an end, and what an end it has left us with. The death of one of the programmes most beloved and sacred characters will inevitably produce shock-waves across the fandom whilst those conniving book-readers who knew such a fate was set to occur can laugh at us whilst our emotions completely pour out in front of them. Although there was also a sense of inevitably around the death of Jon Snow, the one shining bright light in the terrible realm of Westeros, his death was still incredibly hard to witness, topped off by young Olly, the killer of Snow's lover Ygritte, landing the final blow. Of course, this is Game of Thrones, and not everything is always as it seems, particularly when you take the timely arrival of Melisandre into account who finally realised Stannis was not the King she and her Lord of Light had been looking for and instead, had maybe come to the realisation that Jon was that person all along. 

Whatever it means, the "death" of Jon Snow topped off a fantastic episode which carried all the elements of what makes Game of Thrones tick in a season which suffered from a range of difficulties amidst some exciting and memorable plot-lines that ultimately will lead into another exciting season next year. 

Aside from the death of Jon Snow, we also said goodbye to Selyse Baratheon who decided to hang herself after causing the death of her only child, whilst Myranda was murdered by the hand of Reek, who finally began to redeem himself in the eyes of Sansa who was subsequently aided in her escape from Ramsey and the Bolton's. Although lost and defeated in the snow-ridden lands of Winterfell, Stannis's supposed sentence to death from Brienne was not captured on-screen, meaning he could well have been saved, yet such a scenario is very unlikely with Brienne's vengeful nature for the death of Renly obviously engulfing her, so much so that she missed Sansa's call for aid. The rushing of the battle at Winterfell made the death of Stannis rather anti-climatic in all honesty, and although there was a lot the show-runners had to get through in a short space of time, I felt the episode could have handled that particular scene much, much better. 

One scene that was handled terrifically well however was Cersei's atonement in which she was forcefully made to walk stark naked through the streets of Kings' Landing after committing her crimes to the High Sparrow. Although Cersei has been the evil Queen of Westeros since the beginning of the show, her bloodied feet and pained expression brought about the smallest amount of sympathy from me for her, whilst reinforcing Lena Headey's sheer dedication to the role of one of Game of Thrones' most hated, yet brilliantly thought out characters in the whole of the Seven Kingdoms. Elsewhere, the poisoning of Myrcella by the ever-vengeful Ellaria was rather predictable, whilst the return of the Dothraki left Daenerys in a rather ambiguous turn of events which left Tyrion, who was finally reunited with Varys, in charge of Meereen. Braavos once again was the platform for weird, eerie scene of the week with Arya finally getting her revenge against Meryn Trant whilst ever-further being trained by the masterful ways of Jaqen H'Gar who warned her against the use of a new face on someone that is "no-one", resulting in Arya seemingly going blind. 

Overall, Season Five of Game of Thrones has suffered at times from dragging its' heels into the land of boredom whilst also offering scenes of sheer excitement and tension, particularly in the second half of the season with the battle at Hardhome and Daenerys' dragon rescue in the previous episode being the highlights that first come to mind. The death of some major characters this season will inevitably have repercussions heading into the next season, as it always does, whilst the fact that the TV series has finally overtaken the books and heading into the unknown makes the future of Game of  Thrones an exciting proposition to say the least. Until next year, Game of Thrones. 

Overall Episode Score: 9/10  

Overall Season Score: 8/10