The Casual Critics

By John Dinsdale 

Well folks it had to happen eventually welcome to the first positive review for a game! Get your party hats on and celebrate as this is one game that really did surprise. Oh speaking of surprises yeah kinda forgot to drag this out. Well you know my opinion now let’s see how I came to this positive conclusion.

  Now a lot of Saint’s Row fans were disappointed in the third instalment of series as it was originally the perfect mix of serious story and mad gameplay that was a direct rival to GTA. The third was an update to madness but fluctuated between the serious and silly but couldn’t match the mix of the second and was just a failure, an entertaining failure but failure nonetheless.

  So here came Saint’s Row 4, a superhero, alien brawl to the death. It is the silliest game to hit the shelves last year but also one of the most fun.  You start out with a squad on a mission to take down former enemy Cyrus Temple who has a missile ready to launch.  Cue fighting terrorists and an epic climb up a missile to Aerosmith’s I don’t want to miss a thing. After this feat of heroism you are made president of the U.S.A, making a tough choice and then…. Aliens! Yes aliens strike and their leader imprisons you and your gang inside a virtual representation of Steelport. Well firstly in a 50s sitcom hell. Prepare for a fight to sabotage the simulation and bring back your crew. Fans will fight old enemies and learn much more about the crew you command.  Also fight a giant soda can as the Steelport statue before finally defeating the alien leader Zinyak. With such a mad, sci-fi story expect plenty of pop culture references and the usual Saint’s Row charm.

  There’s plenty of characters new and old including plenty of old faces, past Shaundi, Benjamin King etc and the eventual return of one particular fan favourite. There are also plenty of celebrity voices around such as Troy Baker, Nolan North, Terry Crews and Neil Patrick Harris as well as cameos from Rob Van Dam and Rowdy Roddy Piper. So many characters with so much personality provide a rich gameplay experience and with each crew member featuring a special super power state they never get old. Also all of them can be romanced….. Yeah in the classic black screen fade out style. Sorry guys no sex scenes for you.

  To gain their superhero powers each crew member must have a loyalty mission completed. These are incredibly fun and parody some of the most iconic franchises in gaming including Metal Gear Solid. Yes there is a box stealth section. There are throwbacks to the original saint’s row games and you even fight yourself. There are cool costumes and just plenty of fun to be had.

  So enough about the crew, now let’s talk about you. You once again create your own character through multiple options including gender, skin colour etc.  Then there are masses of clothing items, unlockable costumes and so on. The guns are all customisable, upgradable and varied. There is a black hole launcher, robot laser arms and even tommy guns.  There are extensive alien weapons that almost remind me of Destroy all Humans, another old favourite franchise of mine. Lastly there are the superpowers which are relatively realistically obtained, as far as the story goes. Kinzie the computer genius hacks the simulation to provide you with superpowers which can be unlocked, upgraded and obtained throughout the course of the game. They are satisfying to use and although pretty overpowered are great to master. If guns start failing then start ice/heat blasting or pick up an enemy and send them flying with telekinesis. It’s more of the branded Saints madness, with superpowers. Though the super speed renders vehicles useless.

  Lastly let’s look at collectables and replayabilty. The story is fairly linear and although there are plenty of power combinations available there is no real need to replay the story.  However there are tons of collectables in the open world for you to explore and collect. There are approximately 1500 data clusters to find despite obvious locations this will eat up your time. There are audio logs to find around the city in iconic places and there are statues to demolish of our alien overlord Zinyak. Not to mention the minigames located around the city including mech suit mayhem, car thefts and of course normal mayhem.

  To wrap this review up I’ll say this is an incredibly fun game that is completely insane with superpowers, brutal weaponry and crazy costumes. The sandbox world is pretty much open from the start and the powers are available within the first few hours. So my friends enjoy the carnage,  beat up some aliens and save the simulated world president!

By John Dinsdale

I was a fan of the first Machete film. It was a mad and blood soaked tale of equality, betrayal and revenge. It had a revenge fuelled plot peppered with political satire and enough blood and guts to make an abattoir blush.  It was mad, wild and just oozed the sleazy grindhouse appeal. Now we have machete kills a non-serious, over-the-top plot line that sounds like it was a fever dream… and I still love the franchise. To all those who were expecting another deep film just give up now. To all those who want more Machete madness and even more over the top violence read on…

  So as I said the story in Machete kills is much more action orientated and a lot less sensical. It focuses again on Mexican federale, Machete Cortez. After witnessing his partner (briefly played by Jessica Alba) get murdered at a bungled weapons deal to the Mexican cartel. Machete is captured by a noose happy sheriff when in the nick of time he is saved by a phone call to from the president. Carlos Estevez or Charlie Sheen to those who haven’t seen the film is hilarious as the President and fits the role perfectly in the mad world the film is set in. Machete’s task is to stop a missile that is pointed at Washington D.C wielded by multiple personality disorder suffering revolutionary Mendez.  However this is no simple disarm job as the missile is linked to Mendez heart-rate, so if he dies then Washington goes boom.  Only the heart rate came with a 24 hour launch pin and Mendez set a bounty of 10,000,000 on himself. Cue a mad-cap dash through Mexico against an arsenal of colourful assassins such as La Camleon, played by 4 actors including Antonio Bandearas and Lady Gaga, and machine gun bra wielding maniac Desdemona and her army of strippers.  Things only get worse in America though as Machete is captured by arms dealer and inventor Luther Voz (Mel Gibson).  Voz is no ordinary man though as he can see the future and has created a space station and countless futuristic laser weapons including a defective pistol that turns people inside out. Voz wants to clone Machete to create an army of super soldiers.  Cue a battle of mass proportions as Machete with the aid of the underground and Luc (Michelle Rodriguez) take on Voz in an attempt to stop him plunging the world into chaos. It’s mad, weird and highly over the top.

  Expect to see the return of other memorable characters in cameos and humorous or tragic set pieces. There is betrayal, revenge and violence by the bucket loads. The acting is surprisingly strong with Mendez being a well thought out character with hilarious lines and random outbursts of violence caused by his other personality. He too has his own story deepening his character. Each villain has their own humour and personality, Desdemona hates men, La Cameleon keeps you guessing to their real appearance and Voz is actually realistically evil. Danny Trejo once again thoroughly plays the part of Machete well with Michelle Rodriguez also making a triumphant return to the franchise.  There is plenty of humour and each actor provides enough personality to bing each character to life, except Jessica Alba who’s character dies within the first 10 minutes…

  The effects may be considered lacking in some areas but there are still plenty of far-fetched deaths, explosions and slicing to keep the film feeling like a Machete film. There’s an array of guns, lasers and of course machetes to fuel the violence and as I said earlier there is a gun that turns people inside out…need I say more. Yes there is also a futuristic machete too. There are vehicle based murders and enough madness to fuel the movie through its 1 hour 48 running time.

This could be one of the shortest reviews I’ve ever done but I just wanted to inform everyone about Gnarwolves. Big scary Monsters are good at picking out bands from ‘under the radar’; and they hit the jack pot with Gnarwolves. These Brighton, bright sparks are utterly sick and dripping with talent and potential. ‘CRU’, the new 6 songed EP from the boys is full of filthy guitar riffs and infectious drums, not to mention the powerhouse of a voice from lead vocalist Thom Weeks! These boys have done a great job creating this explosion of instruments and brilliant lyrics, so a well-deserved pat on the back to them!

The album opener, ‘History Is Bunk’, smashes into your ears like a ton of bricks, the vocals don’t hit until about 20 seconds into the 1.40 minuet song, and that just adds to that impact. Followed by the fast-paced immensity of ‘We Want The Whip!’ keeps your ears content. The EP is a really dirty pop/punk album and sounds like a “grungy skater kid” concoction of Turbowolf & Enter Shikari. ‘CRU’ is drenched in meaningful lyrics, especially in ‘Community,stability,Identity’. This song is the only slow song on the album, yet it’s still full of emotion just shows the passion and focus behind this EP.  This band is the kind of band you’d find playing in a grotty punk bar full of real music fans, the beer drinking, skate boarding grungy trio have gained quite the fan base due to this immense EP!

You can really tell Thom, Charlie and Max are passionate about what they do, and their musical talent is off the radar. Just the way the EP has been delicately mashed together shows that! Expect big things from these guys, hopefully a full album on the horizon huh?

After forming in 2012, Columbus based SRVVLST have released a handful of nifty EPs, splits and singles showcasing their progression over the past two years. 'I Would But I'm Baroque' hurled the five piece into the realm of promising new artists to look out for in the post-punk/math rock scene in October 2012 with it's driving riffs and snatchy group vocals. The single 'Trees' demonstrated the band's hidden emo abilities with twinkling acoustic riffs and a more melodic approach to its vocals in April 2013. The following month SRVVLST released one track on a 7" and cassette split with Grand Rapids's emo four piece, Running Shoes, through Black Ajah Records and Driftwood Records, selling out in cassette format. The latest addition to the collection is 'The Seven Year Inch', a three track EP to be released officially this April on 7" glow in the dark or black vinyl and cassettes exclusively for bundle purchasers. 

'The Seven Year Inch' sees the boys in SRVVLST returning to their rowdy punk roots, indulging in the experience they've gained after successful experiments on previous tracks like 'Trees'. Opening track, 'Thoughts' reintroduces the riotous shouting they're so damn good at and overlays them with a loose but tangible melody. Intricate licks weave in and out of chunks of distorted edges and a smooth bass line which adds a more static framework to the untamed noise. 

'Executies' is a tension building assemblage of colliding notes and hammering drums which drags itself towards its vertex and then descends through euphonic melody until an abrupt standstill, leaving you at a point of emotional release. Personally, I think this track would function more suitably as the finishing track, because the suddenness of 'Ambulette's opening interrupts the cathartic atmosphere and cuts off any climactic response the song is so capable of achieving in it's listeners. 

Final track, 'Ambulette' is the math rock darling of the bunch. Oh the complexity, the angularity, the irregular time signature and the thundering, dissonant chords which scurry into slick outro. It's every math-rock fan's dream, with a hoarse "we break our backs for you" being chanted over delicate guitar strings. I said earlier that 'Executies' would work more effectively as the final track, however after paying closer attention to 'Ambulette', I can see the two have a similar structure in the sense that they both provide a very captivating and powerful yet alleviating finale. 

Bands like SRVVLST are the reason I make the effort to listen to music that, from a distance, sounds like careless, jumbled noise. There is a talent that comes with creating precise, well thought out music that still sounds punk as fuck. Listen closely, and you will find a whole material skeleton holds the flesh that you dismissed as racket. 

Listen to 'The Seven Year Inch' below and click here to buy. 

- Amber Efstathiou

By John Dinsdale

  Before I start this review I feel I should say this now and get it as far out the way as possible for the future. My role is critic and therefore I will critique the franchises you love and my opinion may differ from your own. This is no doubt going to happen and it is just normality. I won’t love the same series’ you do nor you love mine but I don’t want to receive messages and stuff hailing me as Satan because I dare to criticize. This was made clear in my introducing paragraph and still stands, fanboys beware.

  Now that ugliness aside, just why am I doing such an old game here. Well here’s the context. Anyone who knows me well knows I don’t like the Fable series based on my experiences of Fable 3. I was challenged to play its predecessor for review and so I did. Here are the results.

  I’m going to start by de-bunking its reputation. Peter Molyneux hails the series as the best RPG’s in the world and this is not the case. Fable 2 is a very average, very generic RPG.  It was incredibly dull to play and felt so familiar to any other RPG I have played past and present. It was a chore to play through and I’m going to explain this a bit more detail.

  Firstly as I said the game is dull. It is basically one long-winded revenge story. You are the fourth hero with many different titles depending on what you buy from the town crier. After your sister is killed by the evil Lord Lucien and you shot and left for dead, you return to exact revenge on the Lord and disrupt his sinister plans. You must recruit the other three heroes to stop an evil magical device and thwart his plans for world domination. These heroes consist of a hammer wielding monk, a scheming, self-obsessed pirate and what boils down to a wizard.  From there you are dragged through tedious quest after tedious quest. This is broken up by forcing you to gain renown point by completing side quests.  This is apparently the formula for the best RPG of all time.  The jobs which are the best way to gain money are soul-crushingly boring that they were a chore to do and I just had to slog through in an attempt to make money. The required amounts for promotions become obnoxious and in the end I just gave up with them.

  To elaborate more on the characters and NPC’s in general it safe to say it’s heavily mixed. I found myself getting sick of the forced British/Cockney voices very quickly and being from England myself, it’s annoying to see the stereotype. The strength hero is the most annoying character in the game. She is a loud, complainative monk who was a sworn pacifist until the death of her father. I spent most of my time with her resisting the urge to smash her skull in with my Warhammer.  This can be said of many NPC’s and it really did just grate after a while. Conversely the pirate, Reaver (voiced by Stephen Fry) is hilarious. His dialogue is incredibly well done and he never overstays his welcome.  Likewise most of the enemies designed in the game are pretty cool. There are many great enemies in this game from giant spikes to incredibly annoying werewolves. All again with artistic flair and surprising variety.

  The game artistically is beautiful. Even though it is dated the scenery and levels are amazing to look at. There is charm to each village, temple, cave and city. There is what, I think is, a medieval and old style to the levels you see. My favourite being the cityport of Bloodstone. A true pirate-esque port full of seafarers and whores. This is where the game shines however the real downside is practically every level is a corridor. The game boasts a massive open world yet there are invisible walls everywhere. There is no free jump button meaning you can only jump where the game deems appropriate. It’s incredibly linear and it continuously forces you to backtrack. If it weren’t for the fast travel system the game would never end.  

  So I’ve complained about almost everything in this game. Though there is one thing that bothers me greatly. That is the complete washout ending. Throughout the story you are force-fed that you want revenge, you must kill this evil Lord and you deserve your vengeance. Well you know what. Give up on that idea straight away. You will be lead to the biggest anti-climax ever. You attack Lucien with a music box before he breaks out into a you can’t stop me monologue before Reaver blows his brains out. That’s right no boss fight, no grand finale, just that.

  In a similar frame, the combat system is heavily undeveloped. It revolves around spamming X for melee attacks, Y for ranged attacks and B for magic. The magic is controlled by a clunky inventory selection box, with different tiers of spells and damage. It’s all highly overpowered and the only real balance is the time it takes to cast. Each spell or upgrade is unlocked using experience dropped by enemies in glowing orbs that can handily be absorbed holding the right trigger. The combat gets incredibly repetitive and generally you are heavily overpowered. In a balancing attempt the game throws hordes of enemies at you which get seriously annoying.  This is key with the werewolf creatures who if given the chance charge and spam you with swipe attacks.  The game is really easy and despite my many deaths towards the end, I was never challenged nor ever struggled with any section.

  It’s not all doom and gloom though. The games other strongest element is it’s humour and interaction. There are many positive and negative interactions that are downright hilarious. There are many funny moments and achievements including one for kicking chickens, one for group sex and one for being an absolute dick all the time.  The moral choice system makes it fun to be evil and the range of chances to be made it fun. The humour is there and at times I was having fun but it really just felt like a chore most of the time and I rushed to finish it. I won’t play it again and my opinion on the franchise remains the same. Overall Fable 2 isn’t a bad game it’s just not necessarily a good one either. It becomes dull, monotonous and with no meaningful end it’s pretty pointless.

[MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS]

ITS GAME OF THRONES TIME. Anyone who knows me well enough will also know that I am an incredibly huge fan of George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series, which has been adapted into one of the best shows to grace our TV screens, and is written by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. And what is there not to love? It’s full of war, political intrigue and unexpected rip-the-soul-out-of-your-body plot twists. And of course the titties and dragons. Well, season 4 of the show is fast approaching now (April 7th, if my sources are correct), and to help us get through the coming months, the DVD of season 3 has been release, which I picked up on Blu Ray, so I will also be reviewing the worth of getting it in HD.

Westeros is in chaos, now with 3 kings in open rebellion against the Iron Throne. Arya, having escaped Harenhall, is making her way North with Gendry and Hot Pie. Bran, Rickon and the crew are also heading North, to Castle Black. Jon Snow has met the King Beyond the Wall, and has found a place amongst the Wildlings. Daenerys is making her way to the Slaver Cities of Astapor and Yunkai, building an army for her planned invasion of the Seven Kingdoms. And of course, the Lannisters are up to their usual shit and torment in Kings Landing. Of course, this isn’t even near everything which is happening.

There is so much going on in Game of Thrones, it is sometimes difficult to grasp the immense scale of this programme. It is incredible, and the writers have done an amazing job of making each character’s plotlines all run smoothly alongside each other. You feel as though you are going along with the story as it is happening in the world, with each scene ordered logically. It all makes sense, and you aren’t left feeling like you haven’t got a clue what just happened. You will sometimes feel like the pacing of the show is starting to get a bit slow, but then there will be something that leaves you gripped and wanting to watch more.

This is however a series well known for its large amount of characters, and there are now just as many in this season as there were before. Old faces make new appearances, as well as just completely new characters. You may come to love the characters you hated, and you may just come to hate the characters you loved.  Gone are the days of Daenerys running around screaming about her dragons and going on about being Unburnt. She is now becoming a much stronger character, and appearing more like a queen every day. Emilia Clarke has done an amazing job of portraying Daenerys, and she fits the role so perfectly that I don’t think I can imagine anyone else playing her. Another actor worthy of note is Peter Dinklage, aka the marmite character Tyrion Lannister. Dinklage manages to get the wit of Tyrion’s character spot on, and you just get a slight sense of satisfaction whenever he says something a bit risky to Tywin or Cersei. Yeah, you go Tyrion. Take that bitch, Tyrion knows how it is. I am on scraping the top here. I could go into more detail, but it would take up a lot of room. Needless to say, the acting in this season is, as it has been in previous seasons, great. The child actors are also doing a good job in their roles, and due to the quality of the acting, it all results in making it all that more immersive.

It isn’t just the actors who immerse you into this world though. No, this has a lot to do with the incredible set pieces. Sometimes when I am watching, I will get distracted by the surroundings, and completely miss out on what is being said. I just think to myself, ‘That must have cost a lot to build.’ Things such as the huge throne room in Kings Landing, with the huge pillars, and magnificent iron throne. And this isn’t even the best example. There is such an incredible attention to detail. For example, when you are in Dragonstone with Stannis, you can see the Painted Table, in all of its detail, and even includes the reliefs of the hills. On top of this table are hundreds of scrolls, and on the walls you can see the carvings of dragons. I feel that this shows how important the show is not only to the fans, but to people who are working on the sets, and willing to go through so much to get such a high level of quality, and as a result it makes the whole series seem so much more authentic, so much more real.

All of this detail is brought out by the richness of quality that you get from the Blu Ray disc. I only watched this on a small screen in my bedroom, but I feel that in order to respect the full potential of HD, you would need to watch it on a larger screen. This isn’t to say that I was not impressed with the quality. It brings out huge amounts of detail, which is most noticeable when seeing close ups of faces, or views of landscapes. Blu Ray is not something that you need, but it sure as hell may be worth it if you are a hardcore fan of the series.

It has been a while since I have read the third book of the series, but from what I remember, there aren’t many major differences. This season has managed to stick true. But this isn’t always a good thing. Oh no. We all know what kind of person GRRM is. No one is safe. Not even the most likeable character, as we have previously found out. There is always a plot twist, and this one is a shocker. Perhaps even more so than Ned’s. It will leave you speechless and torn. Even if you know it’s coming, even if you know how it is going to happen, it will hurt you. It is a scene acted and built up so perfectly, you feel like it all actually happened. It will tug at your heartstring, even if you are the toughest guy.

You may have had enough of this show by now; many fans of the books threw them down after the events which happen in penultimate episode. But we know that a lot of you aren’t so easily put off. It is a fact that Game of Thrones may just well be one of the best shows on TV, maybe even for a long time. It’s a series with an intense and rich plot which goes a lot deeper, and it is full of interesting characters. It only gets better from here, season four is soon to air, and winter is definitely coming.

By John Dinsdale

  So I’ll start with some context before we get into details here. As of about a month ago I forgot this movie existed. I had briefly seen it advertised and sort of just forgot it. Then I saw it mentioned in a YouTube video and with its recent DVD release, I decided to buy it. I’m really glad I did as this was quite an unexpected surprise…

  On paper this sounds like your generic slasher movie. Gang of mysterious assailants attack a defenceless family and start to pick them off. What makes this movie interesting is that the heroine of the movie has extreme survival training and starts fighting back. Expect lots of improvised weapons, traps and surprise from this movie.

  The other great thing is that this is one of the funniest horror comedies I’ve seen in a long time. I can’t tell if it’s intentional or not a lot of the time but it’s really damn funny. It basically starts with basic sibling rivalries and arguments brewing between the family before one unlucky member ends up with a crossbow through the forehead. As I said the heroine tries her best to help the others survive but with traitors in the family it never quite goes well. Cue the traps that look like they come from a more twisted version of home alone, some witty lines and the most interesting use of a blender yet. The humour is relatively dumb and some quite gory but non-the-less entertaining.

  Another surprise was the characters. Some were well done, others just slabs of meat with names and voices, oh and screams. The heroine is interesting and is cleverly morphed throughout the movie into a twisted psychopath. Her abilities to survive are given a viable reason and she isn’t completely annoying like some horror movie stars. The gang also are deeper than originally thought, not just your average murderous gang. They have a reason for their actions too and it is just fun to watch them get paranoid and scared the more they get hurt and die. Lastly the best done character but the most hated is the older brother, whose name eludes me (sorry), that is done in such a way that it is impossible not to hate him. Honestly he pissed me off to no end and I couldn’t help but cheer a little when he received a crossbow bolt through the back. As annoying as he is, it can’t help but be noticed that he is the best representation of an asshole older brother. He is agitating, whiny and as I said an asshole.

I've always been a fan of the works of John Green. By this I mean his YouTube channel with his brother Hank Green the ‘Vlogbrothers’. To my knowledge and I’m sure to the knowledge of many of you John Green is also an accomplished author, an author in which I hadn't relished in until quite recently. The book of his I picked up, what was it? An Abundance of Katherine’s. 

The book followed the life of Colin Singleton, a child prodigy with an apparent obsession for dating girls who go by the name of Katherine. Throughout the story we go through the up and downs of Colin’s life, his struggles with dealing with his impressive intellect and not accomplishing the legendary status he believes he should. His troubled love life and how he believes he will never accomplish his hard fought battle of not being dumped and his struggled with holding a friendship because of his focused mind which doesn't seem to see the importance of anything else other than himself. The main plot line of this story follows Colin and his best friend Hassan engage upon a road trip after Colin is dumped by Katherine number nineteen. 

The main characters of this book in any real life situation wouldn't exactly be the most likable bunch of people. I personally found myself getting quite irritated by Colin’s single minded nature at the beginning of the book. Colin comes across of incredibly self-involved with a passion for correcting people. If the character was actually in existence I imagine he would be one of those unbelievably annoying people who write corrections beneath your Facebook status. Hassan to me personally was just as bad as Colin. Although the character comes across as a big cuddly teddy bear with his well-received sense of humor which actually had me laughing out loud at certain points (much to my own embarrassment as I sat giggling at the pages of a book in a busy bust station with an audience of unfriendly stares from the rather large group of people surrounding me). His pure laziness irritated me throughout the majority of the book especially to anyone who leads a busy life. After spending a day of non-stop movement because of my busy college schedule and then coming home reading about the life of someone who would rather spend their entire day watching ‘Judge Judy’ than go to college. It’s fair to say Hassan was my most favorite of people at this time.        

Having said all of this, having appreciated all the flaws of these characters and being really quite aware of how annoying these people could have potentially been. I found myself completely enthralled in their lives and hoping that every little thing went just right for them. I even found myself at times getting quite emotionally invested when one of the characters would go through a tough time. Personally I believe this it was because of all these flaws the characters possessed which made them so much more relatable, so much more realistic, so much more…human. Put simple, there isn't a single person without an array of flaws no matter how small or large that list of flaws may in fact be. 

One of the things I did really love about this book was the collection of factual trivia throughout this book in the form of footnotes. On almost every single page of this book there was a small piece of information at the end of the page which would relate to the story in a very small way. Most of these facts were completely useless unless you had specific work in that field of knowledge but most of them I found myself reading anyway, some of them even two or three times just because of the fact they were…well….interesting. The book seemed to have an extensive collection of knowledge throughout, from maths to science. To me personally it wasn't even the story of the book that made it special; it was these pieces of trivia. What for me personally was lacking in the story (which I will get to in a moment) was made up for with these random little facts which made you really feel like the author John Green, had really gone out of his way to get this information and this made this book so much more special than your average ‘throw the story at you and nothing else’ book. 

Now to what I mentioned previously, the lacking story. To me the story felt almost too simple and not in any way special at all. There was nothing that really stood out compared to other books. Yes I was hooked and yes I did find myself attached to the characters and really eager to find out what happened to them next. However, there was no real moment that had me wanting to share with anybody else, no real scenery or event that I would be thinking about for any time at all outside of ‘reading time’. 

In summary there are elements to this book which were very well done. The random facts, the relatable characters (even if they are at first almost punch bag worthy) and the moments in which you can really feel for Colin because you've most likely been through the same thing yourself. Despite this, the story doesn't feel special enough to make the book a must buy or a really great read. The book is good, don’t get me wrong, just not fantastic.  

6.5/10

Since last year, I knew that Jared Leto was dramatically losing weight, the reason I wasn’t so sure of - until I heard about this new film that he was staring as a main role in with THE Matthew McConaughey. Dallas Buyers Club. As everyone can imagine, I was extremely excited and could already tell it would be pure acting genius. It’s been 6 years since Jared Leto made a film, to which I’m frankly surprised, he is so committed and pushes himself fully in everything he does. So, on my day off, where did I go? To watch this masterpiece on the big screen, with a bag full of food.

Wow. And that is all I can say on that matter.

Based on a true story, about a heterosexual Dallas born and bred named as, Ron Woodroof. Ron is told in 1986 that he has HIV which will eventually contract into AIDS and is told there and then that he has only 30 days to live. Your probably guessing that ‘oh maybe the film is about him living in those 30 days?’ No. He defies the odds and gives a finger and many ‘fuck you’s’ to the doctors and knuckles down to do a lot of research about the deadly virus and tries to find alternative drugs in order to treat himself and others with the disease. Soon, he has set up a ‘club’ or known as ‘the Dallas Buyers Club’ to sidestep the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and their many rules about drug selling by creating a ‘membership’ for patients who can ultimately receive their imported drugs for free, by paying upfront $400. At the start of the film you get the impression that Ron is a sex addict, drug addict and has a severe hatred of homosexual men and women. Bringing life to the fact that this is how it was in 80's America. However, in order to sell his drugs he needs to make common cause, HIV is normally caught through the act of homosexual relations; so therefore, these people are the number one buyers of club memberships. Then voila! This former nutjob becomes an inspirational figure, slowly breaking down his ignorance and his own homophobia as well as the others around him.

I've always loved Matthew McConaughey and he gives an absolutely incredible performance portraying Ron. To do this, he has to lose a lot of weight and frankly he does look ill. With his, moustache, combed over wiry hair, gold chain and steson, McConaughey is literally unrecognisable. We first see him being any normal ol’ boy, earning a living as an electrician and paying for prostitutes and a shit ton of cocaine, and we see a lot of lines. However, his real passion is the rodeo, surprising huh? We see this at the start of the film, rowdy cowboys on bulls, while Ron is engaging himself in sexual intercourse with two women. We also see the rodeo at the end of the film, except Ron himself is on the bull, clinging on for dear life without any saddles or buckles. I see this as highly metaphorical, and how he learns to take his problems into his own hands instead of everyone doing it for him.

When he told he has HIV, of course he thinks it’s a joke as only ‘faggots’ can get HIV and AIDS and starts throwing ‘fuck you’s around like nobody’s business. After doing his research, he comes to terms with that heterosexual men, too, can contract the disease. He gets straight into action, knowing that his pride won’t be affected because of it. We see him buy black market AZT from a sneaky hospital assistant and takes an over-advised dose of the substance – until it runs out. He ends up passing out and being referred into hospital and finds out that this drug is doing more harm than good. He goes to another doctor and Ron himself ends up grasping something these ‘qualified’ doctors do not, you need to be able to manage your symptoms. He ends up journeying around to difference places to investigate other drug possibilities that FDA’s themselves should be doing, but won’t, forcing the drug AZT to patients, unaware of it's side effects. When in hospital he ends up meeting a transgender male called Rayon, played by my beautiful Jared Leto, who has a likeable wittiness and colourful style. It is Rayon’s connections that led Ron to his willing customers and potential ‘club’ members. I feel the movie is much more about finding a drug, it is also about their really sweet, affectionate bromance, which was really lovely to watch. They make a memorable, odd couple.

One thing I did find really interesting to watch was how Ron’s life becomes affected by the diagnosis of HIV. He refrains from any sort of sexual intercourse except for when a new ‘club’ member announces she has ‘full blown AIDS’ well then of course he goes for it and they end up doing it in the small shower room for all to hear. It was also nice to see his romantic interest in his doctor Eve, played by the lovely Jennifer Garner – no, nothing happened, except the exchange of a few long hugs.

I feel Jared is a revelation as Rayon, a loveable character who is undeniably a mess of contradictions, full of common sense but extremely self destructive. You watch her slowly go from being flamboyant and witty to sad and vulnerable. They do not shy away from her illness and drug abuse, what with her blotchy skin, seriously skinny frame and heavy, dark eyes. The diva moments you do see, wearing her array of wigs and different coloured eye shadow, you feel as if you know Rayon and you learn to appreciate her in every way. The last few scenes we see of Rayon are really quite emotional and I did shed a few, ok maybe a lot, of tears. This is me trying to be unbiased, but Jared Leto is absolutely outstanding not just in these scenes but throughout the entirety of the film.

Matthew’s performance in this film, also is pure excellence, like previously stated, Dallas Buyers Club is based on a true story. Ron’s wild nights become a thing of the past, however McConaughey makes sure the old Ron is not entirely gone. Ron at the end of the film is seen more heroic than idiotic, even when he is wondering around with a drip taped to his arm or leaving the hospital with Rayon in nothing but an overall and no underwear. It’s impossible to overlook the fact that the film deals with some quite harsh topics such as drug abuse, sex and death. However, at the same time it’s uplifting with the moral being to fight back even when the odds aren’t in your favour.

A 9/10. 

By John Dinsdale

This review is not for the faint of heart, nervous of condition or intolerant of extreme abuse directed at a more than deserving game. Now even I knew going into this it would be terrible, I read the reviews and saw the gameplay but I had to try. I had to hope it wasn’t really as bad as it seemed and well I was right. It was much worse. So much worse. I can sum up the review in one sentence, do not buy this game, at all unless you are into masochism or are incredibly easy to please. Now with that aside let’s analyse this a bit further.

  Before I go on, let’s get one thing very clear, this game is and always will be the final straw on bad pre-orders, through doctored gameplay footage the developers completely tricked thousands into pre-order this game. That is truly unforgivable and a sign of just how scheming some companies are. Right, morals aside let’s get into the game.

  Starting with the story, let’s get one thing straight when you write the self-acclaimed sequel to the aliens’ movie you stick to the story of the movie. You don’t develop a twist that completely shatters what the movie created. The twist in this game which I’m gonna spoil is in the latter half of the game you stumble upon a marine from the movie. Oh who could it be? None other than Hicks. Hicks. Are you kidding me. This breaks the logic of the film therefore rendering the game complete and utter pointlessness. The rest of the story is a waste of time too as you investigate a derelict ship to retrieve a flight recorder you are ambushed by no not xenomorphs but human mercenaries from everyone’s favourite evil corporation, Weyland Yuntani. Ha you actually thought you’d be fighting aliens in an aliens’ game. What would give you that idea? It certainly didn’t cross the developer’s minds. Your marine partners are dumb and plain 2D stereotypes with zero development. What’s worse is the character who’s your best friend is the most cumbersome, dumb and annoying of the lot. Well done team!

  Now just how good is the world of LV-426? Well at a distance nice, if you get over the screen tearing issues, buggy graphics and well when you too close you can see all the awful low res and stretched textures that come with the Xbox edition. I imagine the PC port was slightly better but as I said I had the 360 version and it looked terrible. I felt like I was playing an early Xbox game not a 2013 release. The indoor areas were terrible and it took textures as long as 20 seconds to load. There were objects clipping through other objects and floating item. It was buggy and glitchy and really didn’t run properly.

  So how about animations? Did they work properly? Of course not. Why would you think that? My most memorable scene is when I walked into a room and a xenomorph jumped at me and got stuck in a wall, jerkily twitching its arms and legs or how about their lack of decent A.I. meaning all they do is charge, no hunter-prey mechanics or terrifying encounters. It’s just swarms of jerkily moving lurkers with the same intelligence as the classic charging monsters of old. Even the boss aliens follow the same charge and windmill mentality. It is a repetitive endurance test to see how many times you can get blindsided by charging packs of idiotic aliens whilst walking through linear indoor and outdoor environments. The human enemies are just as dumb. They can’t use cover properly and are just as inaccurate as your average movie villain. They too can get stuck in walls and glitch about the place. Even your character isn’t animated properly. I was picking up a downed marine without touching him. Him staring up at me as if he were a shop mannequin. It would have been considered romantic if it were not for the insta-killing alien in the next room.

  The main problem with this game is its most important element, gameplay. For a start its way too easy.  To get any challenge I jumped straight to super badass mode and even then it wasn’t until the final levels that it finally got tough and that was just because it made my teammates dumber and spawned more and more bullet sponging aliens or humans. The inaccurate mercenaries suddenly became master snipers in the most unfair difficulty spike ever known to humankind. The last level took too long to complete as the checkpoint system is highly unfair forcing you to do entire sections again as you were too slow to take at the 50th insta-killing merc in the level. The bosses are a joke with the famous power-loader being reduced to a button mashing bonanza and an interesting crusher species of xeno being introduced that could have been interesting was nothing more than a glorified bull. Woo and oh the alien queen ending is pathetic. Do you fight her in some epic showdown to the death? No. no. no .no. no. You push 4 buttons and fail to launch her out of an airlock. Meaning you macho man commander sacrifices himself to send the queen flying. It’s a pointless ending that makes your actions seem pointless. The only interesting species was in a sewer level. These were the boilers. A blind race attracted by motion that would blow up should you move in their presence. You had no guns and could not fight back. This was the closest to tense it ever got, apart from the dread of having to do sections again. (Grr) This was quickly removed and you were soon back to your normal arsenal on legs self. The gameplay gets monotonous from the start and there is really only ever shooting, running or defending. The settings rarely change and there is barely any freedom to explore. The only cool thing is the collectables such as dog tags, audio logs and the cool legendary movie guns which I’ll admit were really awesome. The problem was you only use a smart gun twice! There is an A.I. partner who keeps the smart gun all to himself and rarely ever shoots anything. It once took him 10 minutes to kill a small face-hugger that was standing still! I should be using that gun not that moron. The game fails to make use of the motion tracker so it’s a waste of time being there and with A.I. partners having the cool guns you are left to play with your pulse rifle and that’s really the only cool gun you get. The others are just variations on modern day guns such as assault rifles and submachine guns.

  So other than the short, padded campaign there is a multi-player mode that again just kinda falls flat. During the game you level up allowing you to customize your online xeno and marine. This is cool and playing as a xeno can be fun but it soon gets boring as the modes are limited and at the time of reviewing, no one was playing it online. So I guess I’m stuck with the campaign and nothing more.

  Overall this game dropped like a nuke leaving fallout of disappointed fans and falsified hype. The aliens’ franchise took a horrible kick to the face and has impacted the whole pre-order market. The games disappointing graphics and gameplay make the player ill and sick off playing. On two occasions I got headaches and lost my temper several times at unfair A.I. that clip through the player when attacking and the repetitive drone or re-doing sections since my last checkpoint was miles away. The only hope for Aliens now is the new Aliens Isolation being developed by the creative assembly that looks amazing. A true alien’s survival game. For now I’m going to go and play something better to wash away the dirt of the game I just completed. Hoorah to ashes marines but stay the hell away from this game. Then again you already knew that.

Rage quitting seems to be quite a recurring thing when I actually have time to play these types of games, anyone who says they have never quit a game because of anger is a liar. I’m quite a persistent person and I don’t like being defeated but I’m also very stubborn, this is definitely one of the games that after rage quitting much to my dismay, i have returned to. The amount of games I have played for five minutes, couldn’t do the first task and not put the disk back in, ever. bless my heart… anyway, back on the subject please Corine.

It’s very often now a days to see a first person shooter or combat game that requires you to run around aimlessly killing things that get in your way for little or no reward. 

Left 4 dead 2 is a game that focuses on four survivors of a zombie apocalypse as they obviously go through each level trying their best not to get eaten by the infected. Each level, if you will, requires completing some task, to get them out of wherever they are trapped etc. As far as story line goes, it doesn’t consist of much, but enough to keep you playing for hours! Be that out of stress and persistence or pure enjoyment.

SPOILER ALERT. It’s fantastic the first time you have played the game without warning.. 

Running around, enjoying your time surviving when suddenly you hear the faint sound of a young woman crying, so you run to help her, as you get closer to her, the crying turns into a growl, then that becomes vigorous and the ‘survivor’ starts shacking… Oh no, it’s not a survivor that you can save and gain gamer points… It’s a mother fucking witch. Then the dreaded subtitles ‘you have startled the witch’ shows up and this terrifying, screaming mess is chasing you with dagger claws to strike you down, ready and waiting for a health pack. Sorry, but that’s not ok. if you don’t know it’s coming, you poo… Everywhere. 

Obviously running around killing ‘normal’ zombies would be too easy, so special types of zombie like creature things decide to join mid hoard to make your time surviving in the game a lot more enjoyable! Sense the tone.

They each come with their own warning music for identification, I’d recommend putting the subtitles on as well, just so you’re sure exactly what you’re going to be dealing with!

But here is a rough description of these super fun creatures:

Boomer: Basically a really fat zombie, doesn’t do much but explode when you shoot it, it’s easy enough to kill. 

Spitter: This bitch is possibly the ugliest thing ever, she just shows up, vomits and usually disappears again if you don’t kill her. (Zombies are attracted to the vomit so if she’s sick at you, this is an issue in your life) 

Smoker: I usually never see smokers until they have dragged me half way across the map with their tentacles, strangling me to death, whilst I wait for one of my thick team mates to shoot it down.

Charger: So you’re planning your route around the map when suddenly, out of nowhere a charger will literally just run at you and push you against a wall.. It’s really unnecessary. (Or out of a window if you’re unlucky like me.. rage quit worthy.)

Jockey/Hunter: Both different things but they basically just jump on your head and annoy the fuck out of you.

Tank: This thing will just run at you and throw you across the map.. or if you’re extremely lucky he will casually throw half of the floor at you.

This then brings us to my absolute favourite thing to come across.. As previously mentioned,

The Witch: There is many things that annoy me about the witch, one of them being that if she strikes you, you’re down. i just dislike her really. (Hard rain is full off them, it’s the best level but I hate her so much.)

One of the things that stands out for me when it comes to this game is the console controlled supporting players and their sheer lack of ability to play the game that they are programmed to.. It is seriously sometimes like playing with potatoes, bloody things. I recommend playing as Rochelle because she is dog shit left alone. Having to revive her every five seconds in the first game I played allowed me to form this very strong opinion.

Despite my anger towards this game, I highly recommend it even if it’s played for pure enjoyment at startling the witch every five seconds.

Something you’re going to have to get used to is me and insanely weird music taste. It will change practically every day, I’ll be into something different or I’ll have discovered a new band/artist to fangirl about. One day it’ll be a really sweet mellow acoustic artist and the next it could be a filthy grunge-punk band, who knows! Basically, no matter what I listen to or write about I always have good things to say. Unless we’re talking The 1975 or Avenged Sevenfold….those guys I just cant take seriously(sorry not sorry).  Anyway down to business, I’d like to cram Dinosaur pile-up down your throat and force you to listen to this forever changing indie/rock band. Now on their second album, I must say ‘Nature Nurture’ is an amazing follow up to ‘Growing Pains’.  Since ‘Growing Pains’ was released in 2010 the Leeds lads have grown up, not only in maturity but their music has really blossomed too. It’s gained a sort of naivety and a ‘I don’t really care’ kind of attitude especially with songs such as ‘Peninsula’ which has ball-busting guitar riffs and infectious lyrics, it’s one of the best songs on the album along with ‘Summer gurl’ & ‘Lip Hook Kiss’.  All have been injected with the lyrical madness of Matt Bigland and phenomenal drum skills of Michael Shields. Bigland isnt shy showing his musical inspiration throughout the album, there is definitely a hint of The Pixies in theres with a dash of Foo Fighters and a scoop of Melvins to create the perfect recipe for a  big slice of guitar melodies and vocals that smack you in the face with awesomeness. The big opener to the album ‘Arizona Waiting’ is the song that hits you hard. Blaring guitar leading up to a spine tingling screech of “ Scrreeeaaammmm, sccrreeaamm at my reflection” just forces the power of Matt’s voice into your ear holes. Matt’s voice has such a shocking range for such a little grunge kid, comparing songs like ‘Beach bug’ and ‘Start Again’ you can hear his manifold range of tones. And the finishing song on the album, ‘Nature Nurture’, feels like it’s so repetitive its driving you insane. Yet the insanity you feel is just the sheer dynamism of the full album burning through your brain! Looking back at Dinosaur Pile-up back in 2009 compared to 2013 I think that DP-U have had a backwards transition, they’ve gone back to being the old DP-U like when they brought out ‘The most powerful EP in the universe’ which was kind of sickly sweet grunge and was very ‘Nirvana’ with quite ‘cloak-and-dagger’ lyrics. These guys really deserve so much more hype and recognition for their contagious music! GIVE THEM A LISTEN!

By John Dinsdale

Now I am an avid horror film fan. I have seen too many to name and would require an elder scroll to write them all on. Despite the amount I have seen I cannot shake the fact that there is a real decline in good horror films. A depression in originality and actually scary films. A common victim to this is the supernatural genre. With film like paranormal activity having me in stitches, I cannot help feel the film has failed. However moan aside I feel the conjuring is a fairly good film. Now read on and find out why… if you’re not too scared to anyways.

  So this film is directed by James Wan director of Insidious 1 and 2 featuring the same star Patrick Wilson, who is a pretty damn good actor, personal preferences aside, the film is focuses on the lives of Ed and Loraine Warren, two real life ghost hunters. Both Patrick and Vera Farmiga are well cast as the duo and put in well cast performance as their characters. They are called upon by the Perron family who unwittingly move into a haunted house. The house has a very dark secret and it’s not long before hauntings and horrible events happen to drive the family into terror. After they arrive Ed and Warren waste no time attempting to oust the spirit only to find the house is haunted by a witch looking to return to the plain of existence. This leads to the mother being possessed and that’s all I will say. The story is dark and the houses history twisted enough to creep you out in the dead of night. However the poster doll only appears in two segments of the film which was disappointing as it was the creepiest thing in the film.

  Story aside is the film actually scary? Well not really. Now isn’t that an oxymoron. I’m saying a horror film is good yet it isn’t scary. I actually burst out laughing at one scare so I got the wrong idea. Now wait,wait let me explain here. Despite the lack of big scares, the film is deeply atmospheric and the tension in the air could but cut with a knife. The scares are well built up and the story holds enough mystery to keep viewers alert and focused during its 90 minute progression.  That being said there are one or two good scares that made me jump but no massive heart pounding, terror attacks that I was expecting. The story makes sense and is based on real events making it just that little bit scarier.

  The effects in the film are well designed with the poor possessed victim turning into a vile witch like being and some other creepy props relating to other entities in the house.  A favourite being the music box used to summon a creepy little boy. The haunted room in the Warren’s home is full of odd objects that could believably be haunted and the film oozes realism. The award for best prop goes to Annabelle the possessed demon doll. Featured in the opening scene haunting teenagers and locked away in a cage for most of the movie. That thing is just plain creepy and is a redesign of the real Annabelle doll in the Warren’s collection.

  Despite this being a shorter review, it should still be informative enough to help you decide whether you want to watch it. Overall this is a great, atmospheric, horror story with enough tension to keep you on the edge of your seat and delivers some biggish scares. It’s nowhere near as far-fetched as Wan’s other franchise, Insidious and is much a real portrayal of actual events. So horror fans, you will have probably already of seen this but to those of you who haven’t, get some friends and popcorn and enjoy.

You might not have taken me seriously when I said I like music that sounds like it was recorded in someone's shed. Trust me, I was deadly serious. One thing you have to be prepared for in my reviews is noise. Cluttered, shabby, frantic noise. Be it anything from a stomp and clap folk band, a rustic garage-blues artist or just a group of kids  recording fuzzy math-rock demos on their iPhones, more often than not it's going to have layer upon layer of sweet, sweet sounds- quite often to the point where you can't work out what instruments are being played when and who's singing what. Or shouting in plenty of cases. 

I'm pleased to introduce Michigan's tumultuous two-piece, Odd Dates, as my first example. Where Odd Dates lack in members, they definitely make up for in dynamics. After the release of their debut EP, 'Get Even', in March 2013, the duo released the tracks 'Wu Wei' and 'This Basement is Most Definitely Haunted'  as a literal file dump last month after an organised split with a mysterious band didn't go according to plan. 

'Wu Wei' opens with the clean, intricate math-rock influenced riffs that have become quite predictable since the so called 'emo revival' has sweeped its way across Bandcamp with the help of bands such as You Blew It!  and The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die. However, although repeatedly lumped into the same category, Odd Dates are almost incomparable to said bands. As the song crashes head first into a jumble of jagged power chords, escalating drum bursts and asperous group vocals from which the lyrics are almost impossible to decipher, there are moments in the discord that are reminiscent of bands like Pixies who are known for their success in eccentric musical structures. Even after this, 'Wu Wei' manages to fade out from something that is original, fresh and impressively captivating for a band with one 5 track EP and a far too short 2 track demo. 

The purely instrumental 'This Basement Is Definitely Haunted' charges in with a cleverly composed assemblage of precise harmonies and, as described earlier, "layer upon layer of sweet, sweet sounds". The end result is something which is as magnificent as it is formidable. Organised Chaos. 

You can download all of Odd Dates' music for free on Bandcamp by following this link. You can listen to 'File Dump' below. 

-Amber Efstathiou

Ok so one of my many life obsessions has become the popular British sci-fi that is Doctor Who. Despite this I intend to given an entirely unbiased review to give all you people a chance to make your own mind about this show which I personally believe all people should have at least seen once. 

Doctor Who is one of those few shows that you can’t really explain to others without sounding completely insane and that’s just explaining the basic plot but I’m going to go right ahead and give it a shot anyway. Doctor Who is basically about a two hearted alien that’s been living for thousands of years that’s known as a Time Lord. He looks completely and entirely human other than the fact that whenever he goes through a life threatening ordeal he sort of just changes his face and personality completely, normal huh? This alien is only known to us as The Doctor and his name isn’t revealed throughout the show. The Doctor’s life consists of traveling through time in his time machine known as the T.A.R.D.I.S which is actually disguised as a 1960s police box, picking up usually quite attractive female ‘companions’ and showing them the universe whilst getting in all sorts of trouble and oh so much running…..really, they’re never not running in this show.  

So that shows that really is just simply about a mad man in a box actually started in 1969 and has being going on and off since then making it the longest running British television sci-fi show. The show came back in 2005 with what we have now called ‘Modern Who’ The first Doctor the show started with back in 2005 was actually the 9th actor to take the role, Christopher Eccleston. This was a war torn doctor who had just lost all of his people making him the only remaining Timelord. The 9th doctor was full of sass, oh so much sass. This Doctor could deliver the kind of speech that made you want to stand up and fight for what’s right at the same time as making you want to watch re-runs of The Fresh Prince of Bel-air just to learn some of this sassy behavior. What really made this 1st series of Modern Who special though wasn't just the Doctor it was his companion, Rose. She’s the character that not only made it impossible for you to attach to and have to hold back the tears like the big cry baby I guarantee this show will make you but this character helps the audience so much to connect with the show . Very few people can connect to the Doctor; I mean how many people do you know have two hearts? But everyone can connect to the Doctors companions. Normal people just waiting to be swept off their feet to journey upon a life of beautiful discovery and exiting dangers, to be taken out of your ordinary life of eating chips and catching buses and taken to a world where time travel just becomes part of your day.  

The 9th doctor is only the first Doctor we get to see in modern who and there are 3 more Doctors after him but I’m not going to tell you about those, Il leave you to discover them for yourself but I will say this if you enjoy 9 oh behold a world of joy and soul crushing viewing.  

Doctor Who is a mix of emotions from joy, to sadness, from laughing hysterically at the humor of the show to crying your eyes out every time the Doctor sheds a tear. The show will have you hooked within a very short period of time and have you spreading the joys of fish custard and 3D glasses much to the confusion of anyone yet to witness the show. I do not believe the show is everyone’s cup of tea as there is a strong element of sci-fi throughout the show but I do believe that everyone should at least give the show a chance and you never know, you might find yourself wishing you never watched that first episode in no time because your life has become nothing more than an obsession with a crazed elderly alien traveling from planet to planet armed with nothing more than a sonic screwdriver.   

Okay guys this is like my first review ever. So sorry if its not great, I hope to improve with time.

So with the arrival of the PS4 just over 2 months ago, we haven’t had quite the amount of games that some of us would hope for. And, to be honest, there doesn’t seem to be some in the few months to come. However, PlayStation are very kind and give us a new game every month for free. February’s game is Outlast, a survival horror. And it is horrifying.

You are Miles Upshur, who after receiving an anonymous tip off, make your way to investigate the Mount Massive Asylum. The whole of the game is set in the POV of Upshur, our silent hero, even through the cut scenes, which does indeed help to increase the tension of it all. You will hear his breathing react to whatever is going on in the game, such as running, or just in really tense and terrifying moments. It’s almost as if the character in the game is reacting in the same way that you are. Of course, here I am, getting jumpy at every single sound, whether coming from in game, or just somewhere in my house. The music used in the game is incredibly atmospheric, and only adds to the tension, picking up and droning out at the right times.

Obviously, as you would expect from a survival horror, it is dark more often than not. So thank God you are armed with your only useful piece of equipment, your video camera, complete with night vision. When you are using the camera in night vision mode, you will drain the battery, it is important that you try to find batteries, otherwise, well, things don’t go well. But don’t worry about that! On the easiest setting, you get a 10 battery limit. The higher the difficulty, the less batteries you can get. The eerie green lighting of the night vision helps to navigate your way through the mysteriously dark and dilapidated asylum. It isn’t perfect however; the night vision can only work up to a certain range, and as soon as you may think it is safe to move out of your hiding place, one of the psychopaths will appear almost out of thin out. And then you will probably need to run. Because trust me, you don’t want to be caught. There is nothing more fun than being chase around by a 6 foot brute who really, really enjoys ripping off people’s heads.

These are often the most intense yet the most rewarding parts of the game. Just running away will not help you lose the scary guy behind. No, you will need to find somewhere to hide. The level design is perfect; allowing you to always find ways to slip past, and even when you reach a dead end, there is always somewhere to hide. Yet even then, you aren’t completely safe. The enemy can open the locker or cubicle you are hiding in, chuck you out, and then the chase will ensue again. Luckily, you can slam doors behind you, slowing the enemy down, giving you enough time to hide again. Once you have lost them, you will need to avoid the murderous fellow searching for you. You can open doors slowly and peek around corners, to make sure your way is clear. This can however get quite repetitive as you spend the majority of your time running around and hiding throughout the game.

For this month’s free game on PS Plus, this is an incredible choice, and I hope for more of this quality in the future. I don’t think that I have ever played a game that has got me so worked up over the smallest sounds, even those which aren’t part of the game. it is a masterpiece of suspense, which will go down as one of the best survival horrors of the last few years. The pacing of this game is great, and it is bound to have you gripped throughout, even if the running and hiding mechanic can be repetitive. You will be terrified the whole way through, even if there is no particular reason to be. Reaching around 4-5 hours long, it is the perfect length, with an ending that will leave you wanting to know more. And hopefully we will get it.