We’re back at the Hunger Games, where an evil government has draftees from various oppressed regions fight each other to the death, until only one person is left standing. Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), survivor of last year’s round, is initially a pawn for the System, then increasingly becomes an obstacle and is thrown into the Games again for a second round, which is intended to be fatal.… Read the rest
The word Classic gets thrown around a lot in the world of pop culture, but Half-Life 2 deserves the label. This first-person shooter from 2004 shows up near the top of most ‘best video games ever’ lists. (Like this one.) Because of its reputation, I always felt I needed to give it a closer look and I finally got around to it.… Read the rest
Jazzpunk is odd, and this is in no way accidental. In fact, the game tries a bit too hard to be odd and strains something in the process. Being free-form is to be expected from a game with the word ‘jazz’ in its title, but with a little more focus and a bit more restraint, the oddness could have been put to better use.… Read the rest
The Originals plays like a supernatural Dallas set in New Orleans. It’s about shifting alliances and power struggles, with frequent but doomed romances thrown into the mix. There be vampires and witches and werewolves duking it out to gain the upper hand.… Read the rest
Guardians of the Galaxy has just raised the stakes. Not so much for the next Avengers movie or for the other Marvel comic book movies it loosely ties into, but for the upcoming Star Wars sequels. This is how intergalactic high-adventure should be done.… Read the rest
In the beginning True Blood must have been a fun outing for creator Alan Ball, as he had just wrapped up his high-quality but downbeat series Six Feet Under. True Blood started out as a somewhat slow, atmospheric soap about a little southern town that was dealing with a world in which vampire-kind had recently come out of the closet.… Read the rest
So I’ve reviewed the comics and the Telltale game. Might as well review the television series. The basic set-up for The Walking Dead in all its incarnations is the same. Interesting characters are forced to make morally complex life-or-death decisions in a post-apocalyptic world.… Read the rest
Wouldn’t it be great to be reunited with the ones you loved and lost? For them to suddenly show up on your doorstep years after their apparent demise? Les Revenants (The Returned) ponders this question. How would people react?… Read the rest
First-off, let me confess that I am a ‘noob’ when it comes to ‘hack and slash’ action games. Before DMC, I never finished one, having dabbled with the amazingly camp Bayonetta, but getting side-tracked by something shiny. I haven’t played a Devil May Cry game before.… Read the rest
Bastion is an action game with an isometric view, in which you play a kid called The Kid. You battle monsters with a creative assortment of weapons in a melancholy, but colourful storybook world. The sad part comes courtesy of something called The Cataclysm, which blew apart your homeland and turned nearly all the inhabitants into pillars of dust.… Read the rest
