The much awaited Quantic Dream release, Heavy Rain, has finally hit the shelves. Written and directed by the company’s founder and CEO, David Cage, this game received much publicity and hype before its release, due to the realistic graphics and multiple playable protagonist angle, but does it live up to all the talk?

The game commences with playable character, Ethan Mars, awakening to a picture perfect day in his ideal suburban home. Straight away the graphics have an immense impact. As Ethan walks around the house; showering, dressing and generally investigating, it all looks very real. It actually feels like you are somehow playing a movie. From the running water in the bathroom basin to the dust particles and dandelion flowers flying through the air, the game looks good, there is no denying that. This aspect of Heavy Rain continues for its entirety, with the copious amounts of rain and various settings. …read more

Dead Snow (Norwegian Død Snø), is brought to us by Norwegian director Tommy Wirkola and is set in the snow fields of Øksfjord, where a group of students are spending their Easter break. A vacation which is rudely interrupted by a group of Nazi zombies who had terrorised the area during World War II.

Dead Snow generally follows the typical horror genre formula. You know who’s going to get it in the neck first and who’ll have more staying power, but there are several surprises in this Scandinavian slasher. For one, the zombies seem to have some brains. They’re not just mindless drones waddling about and this makes them all the more scary. Also, the victims of the Nazi’s campaign of terror aren’t as stupid as your usual horror flick chumps, some of them showing extreme survival techniques throughout the film. These kids want to live and they’ll do pretty much anything to achieve this.

Being set in snow covered mountains, Dead Snow is quite visually striking, especially when the blood starts being sprayed about the place. The contrast of red on white is really quite effective. …read more

James Cameron’s Avatar The Game is set two years before the story that takes place in the film Avatar.

As a film, Avatar is being citied as this generation’s example of advancement in technology due to its heavy use of CGI and 3D technology. The game though, has been welcomed with slightly less welcoming arms. The excitement and interest is definitely there, but due to a long run of less that average games based around licensed products, gamers are still cautious when playing a game that is based around a licensed product, especially a movie.

Will James Cameron’s Avatar the game have the impact on the video game industry that the film has had on the film industry?

Read on to find out.

James Cameron’s Avatar, sees the player take the role of Abel Rider. A “sig-spec” (signal specialist) for the RDA arriving on Pandora after being in stasis for five years. For the one person out there that hasn’t yet seen the film, the RDA are a big corporate human lead monster that is invading the Na’vi populated world of Pandora. The RDA is trying to work with and gain the trust of the Na’vi in order to gain access to their world and resources. They do this by using Avatars, which allow the human subject to take control of an avatar in the form of the Na’vi. They can use and learn their abilities, interact with the environment of Pandora and use their weapons. …read more

The latest game in the Scene It? franchise is Scene It? Bright Lights! Big Screen! (from herein referred to as Scene It? BLBS). This game follows the Scene It? tradition of offering a variety of movie trivia questions that can be enjoyed by people of all ages.

The big news is that Scene It? BLBS is available on the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii, whereas the previous games were only available on the Xbox 360. And while you can use standard games console controllers to play the game, it is also possible to use Microsoft’s Big Button controllers or Sony’s Buzz Buzzers. Handy.

Scene It? BLBS you cannot use your own avatar, as with in Scene It? Box Office Smash. This could be due to the inclusion of the other consoles, but I quite liked that touch with the game released earlier this year. In BLBS you can choose to play as characters provided which include the warrior, super hero mummy starlet, horror queen and action hero which all have different expressions and odd little noises.

Apart from these things, there is not a lot that is different between this and the previous Scene It?game. There is still a long and a short game mode and there is also an included Rapid Fire and Party Play option for those who don’t want to commit to a full length game. …read more

Mx vs Atv: Reflex is the third game in the Mx vs Atv series from THQ and developer Rainbow Studios.

Mx vs Atv: Unleashed was the debut game in the series. Release on the first generation Xbox back in 2005, Unleashed was followed up with Mx vs Atv: Untamed which was released on most formats in 2007. While both games were received with positive acclaim, they were still criticized for having a split personality and being stuck halfway between a hardcore sim and an arcade racer.

How does Mx vs Atv: Reflex compare to the two previous titles? Have rainbow studios discovered the true identity behind the Mx vs Atv series?

Read on to find out.

The vibrant colours and introduction sequence are an immediate indication as to the attitude that is portrayed through out Reflex. The game is gritty, dirty and full of extreme attitude of the sporting kind. Gameplay in Mx vs ATV: Reflex is broken up into three sections - Arcade, Motocareer and Multiplayer. But, before the player can jump into the riders seat and get in on the action. They must first complete the necessary tutorials. …read more

Assassin’s Creed was one of the most hyped up games to be released in 2007. It introduced us to a fascinating new IP and while it met a positive reaction on most parts from gamers, Assassin’s Creed was widely criticized for being extremely repetitive and for not providing the player enough variation in gameplay, to keep the player’s interest.

It’s now 2009, Assassin’s Creed 2 has been delivered with the promise from developer, Ubisoft Montreal, that the sequel will not suffer the same excitement deprived fate that the original did. By providing a new Assassin and a different surrounding, have Ubisoft Montreal done the impossible? Has Assassin’s Creed risen from the dead?

Read on to find out.

Assassin’s Creed 2 starts off on a low point, the opening cinematic is quite poor, it’s not the end of the world, no, but when a game that is presented like the AC series has been presented, I was expecting an high quality cinematic sequence, not a heavily compressed video clip tacked onto the beginning of the game. Thankfully - this is one of the few low points in Assassin’s Creed 2. …read more

Where the Wild Things Are, details the story of 10 year old Max, who after a fight with his Mother runs off into the woods, where he finds a boat and manages to sail off to Where the Wild Things Are where he is made the King of the Wild Things and begins several grand aventures with them. The Movie is great but I have to clear up a very common misconception, this is NOT a children’s movie it is a movie about childhood. The vision of Spike Jonze & Dave Eggers is a spectacular one with all the oddity and exentricity common in the stories and minds of children. …read more

Dead Set is the brain child of Charlie Brooker, the guy responsible for Nathan Barley, and is set in an imagined British Big Brother house. In this inventive series, zombies take over the country and the Big Brother compound is a refuge from the hoards of the hungry undead.

While not filmed in the real Big Brother house, it just as easily could be one from the look of it. The remaining contestants, some whom are based on actual UK Big Brother contestants, are pretty stereotypical. There’s the big loudmouth blonde with big boobs, the older slightly odd guy, the dittsy bimbo and the over-the-top gay guy, among others. Basically, it’s what you’d expect from any British Big Brother house.

The first of the five episodes begins on a regular eviction night with all going according to plan, until the shit hits the fan and the zombies start invading the land. To our eye, most of the outside world is running (yep, running zombies) around the countryside looking for fresh meat and the people left in the compound are pretty much all that’s left. The remaining are; a bunch of house mates, the latest evictee Pippa, Kelly the runner and the producer, Patrick. …read more

The second studio album from New Zealand comedy folk act, Flight of the Conchords is the wonderfully named, I Told You I Was Freaky. Thirteen mostly hilarious songs from the second series of the brilliant Flight of the Conchords.

All but three of the songs on I Told You I Was Freaky were released as singles on iTunes the day following the airing of the episode it appeared in, creating a novel way to accumulate the album. The first of these tracks, and the first on the record, was Hurt Feelings, which challenges the notion that rappers don’t have feelings with a genius combination of random and hilarious scenarios. The next track on the album is Sugalumps, my favourite song on the album. Here Bret and Jemaine talk up their man parts and really, how can a song that refers to dungarees and pantaloons be bad? …read more

I don’t think that there is a game being released this year, that I have anticipated more than Batman: Arkham Asylum.

From very early on in the development of the game, it was apparent that the game was holding in its hands, the fragile hopes of all the gamers that had been wronged by most licensed titles. Anyone following the frequently released preview videos, which showed the games “detective mode” and “challenge levels”, your reaction after viewing the videos would have been similar to mine, “holy shit, we could actually have a good Batman game here”.

After spending quite a lot of time with the game, how has Batman: Arkham Asylum turned out? Is it The Dark Knight game that we, as Batman fans, have waited for so long?

Goddamn right - it is.

From the very opening scene, it’s apparent how much work has gone into making Arkham Asylum, the ultimate Batman game. The mood, the tone and the colours are like a Batman comic coming to life in front of your eyes. …read more