The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena (2009) - Sci-fi Videogame Review (X-Box 360)

The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay was released on the original X-Box, at the time it was a special game due to its level of immersion that saw your first person body reacting as if it was a real person. Re-released for the X-Box 360, PC, and PS3 it saw the inclusion of a new campaign; Assault on Dark Athena. Two separate games so I will treat them separately, so first...Escape from Butcher Bay.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay

Bounty hunter Johns has captured dangerous criminal Riddick and has brought him to a harsh desert planet were the galaxies most harsh prison is situated. Johns hopes the bounty for capturing Riddick will settle the debt he owes the prison owner Hoxie. Riddick vows to escape (hence the title!). The rest of the game sees Riddick constantly escaping and constantly being recaptured and put into more and more secure prison areas.

Back in the X-Box days the sense of location was amazing, it helped that for the time it was a very good looking game. The prison is detailed and has a sense of believability with graffiti everywhere, grime, blood and a vast population of NPC's who are constantly talking between themselves giving a sense of place to the game. Half of the game sees you interacting with fellow inmates and guards, doing side missions for them that reward you with money, cigarettes (that unlock artwork) and a clearer goal to escaping. The other half of the game is a combination of stealth and action.

For the most part Riddick is weak, sure you can snap necks with the press of a button if catching a guard unaware but if they see you their guns quickly take you down. It is a process of sitting in shadows, timing your movements, waiting for guards to do their rounds. All very old school stealth that doesn't really hold up nowadays, it is boring a lot of the time. Even with guards down you can't (at least to start with) use their weapons as they are DNA locked.

The game is split into 3 acts; the hub area where the previously mentioned side quests are, the stealth escape sections, then the balls to the wall crazy sections where you are an unstoppable killing machine (usually thanks to a conveniently placed mech suit). The power sections may be easy, but that is the reward for all the weak stealth leading up to it.

As a remake it is ok, is just a shame the mechanics of it all feel so archaic, the later arrival of some terrible looking creatures do not help matters, it all feels so last gen and simple. The plot is not especially interesting and towards the end I was quite bored to be honest, and forever on the verge of death thanks to super tough mechs.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

Assault on Dark Athena is a newer episode and so feels a lot fresher and modern in feel. It is roughly equal length to Escape, and features two distinct segments. Set after Escape your ship is captured by renegade mercenaries led by pirate Gale Revas. The ship you find yourself on is the Dark Athena; a ship with a jaunty aquatic look to it. The stealth is a lot more fun here, Riddick felt quite powerless in Escape's stealth sections but here he feels dangerous, helped by his often corny and cheesy one liners. NPC's are a lot more interesting here, especially young girl Lynn who gives Riddick a slightly more human side as he attempts to help her without losing his one dimensional 'I'm so tough and cool' side (that grates a lot). Side missions this time come from finding a room full of prisoners that also give some decent back story to the crew as well as some fun nods to Escape. Some quite dark themes emerge here of rape as well as some quite strong language!

Riddick gets access to two hand blades which makes combat a lot easier and again there are some over powered mech sections. Escape had guns that were unusable due to DNA locking, here the majority of enemies are mindless cyborg drones; former prisoners twisted into unwilling slaves. They have guns grafted onto their bodies which means you can only use the gun by dragging the corpse around!

The 2nd half of Assault falls down a bit, it all looks nice and is a dramatic change of scene from the Dark Athena but all becomes slightly overlong and unexciting though you get hold of a cool air gun that is super powerful. As a side note in these games Riddick is such an unlikable, horrible anti hero that it is hard to care about him at all, he is a meathead idiot!

Escape is dated, Assault is mostly good and together they give you something that is fun, quite cheap now (my copy cost £5), it is interesting just feels quite out of date as there are so many better shooters on the market. Also; such long loading times!

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The Blighted by Archer Garrett - Zombie Horror E-Book News

The Blighted by Archer Garrett is a zombie novella e-book released back in January (I believe). Archer's website has a few preview chapters available to read and I must say I was impressed with what I read.

The prologue chapter had zombie apocalypse already well entrenched, A holdout in Fiji comes under attack and is swiftly over run. A young scientist hears the alarms and has to barricade herself into her small lab as the hordes of undead pound on the only door. With her is perhaps the cure to the infection; a animal that is seemingly immune to the virus.

I was on the edge of my seat reading this, it was really gripping stuff. I have had many cool nightmares where I am trapped in a room with zombies beating at the door trying to get in, so maybe that tapped into those memories for me!

The Blighted can be purchased from Amazon for the cheap price of £2.02. To read some of his sample chapters head to Archer's website.

Sinister Visions - Horror Film News

Sinister Visions is a horror anthology, I am quite partial to horror anthologies it has to be said. This one is made up of five different tales which are as follows:

Succubus - A young archaeologist on a dig in Syria uncovers something that will change her life forever.

My Undead Girlfriend - Keith wakes up to discover his girlfriend has become one of the walking dead on the day he is due to meet her parents for the first time.

Mother Knows Best - Carl is preparing for a date with his childhood sweetheart but his dominating mother is not pleased about this.

A Woman Scorned - A woman has been captured by her boyfriends crazy ex wife.

Genital Genocide - A serial killer about to be executed tells the watching audience of his crimes.

These do have the potential to be interesting, the good thing about anthologies is that if you don't like a story then there is plenty more that could be good.

Sinister Visions is a collaboration between film-makers from the UK, America, Sweden, and Denmark, the process of many writers and directed by Henric Brandt, Doug Gehl, and Kim Sonderholm (who did the weird Little Big Boy: The Rise and Fall of Jimmy Duncan). Cinema showings are planned for Summer in the UK, Spain, and Italy, while a DVD release is planned for North America in Autumn. A trailer is currently in the works.

House Guest - Horror Film News

House Guest is directed by Jake Jalbert, produced by Brian Jalbert, and written by and starring Alex Vincent in his first starring role in 20 years (child star of the excellent Child's Play 1 and 2).

With a violent murderer on the loose in the city a group of friends decide to have a night of fun locked in at home. It just so happens one of the guests they invite in happens to be the killer the Police are hunting for.

Described as a tense thriller House Guest could potentially be interesting. It is always hard to judge by trailers as to the quality of the film, the trailer for Home Guest is no exception as it did seem a bit bland in all honesty. Still I make it a rule never to judge a film until I have actually seen it so will keep an eye out for this one.

House Guest is due out on DVD sometime in October/November this year, below is the 1st official trailer for the film...

Saw Misgivings (2012) - Short Horror Comedy Film Review

Saw Misgivings is a short horror comedy that is really a spoof of the Saw franchise (clues in the title).

A husband arrives home from work to find his wife Janey has managed to accidentally get a 'Saw' style head trap stuck on her. This is the least of her problems though as guests are soon to arrive and she hasn't finished preparing the dinner yet!

Saw Misgivings works as a comedy mostly through how little of an issue the head trap is seen by the couple, the husband barely reacting to the device, while the wife has tried to carry on her day as best as she could; going shopping, getting her make-up done, and even buying a belt to try and accessorise with the trap. Their are quite a few nods to Saw, best being where they silently consider how to get the head traps key out their  baby (who had swallowed it earlier). At times it does seem a bit too sure of how funny it is being but this didn't affect my enjoyment of it.

There is horror here for sure, mostly for joke purposes but still if pushed ever so slightly this could have had a real sense of menace behind it. I kept thinking if there had been distorted music, and weird lighting effects this would have been perfect as a Jam sketch (darkly surreal Chris Morris sketch show), not that this was needed.

For what this is it is ideal, it can't possibly outstay its welcome being under seven minutes in length, is fun and mostly succeeds. Saw Misgivings has been shown at a variety of film festivals and was even nominated for the 2012 Melies d'argent award. Be sure to check it out on Vimeo.

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The Last Exorcism: Part II - Horror Film News

I quite enjoyed The Last Exorcism and was also one of the few people who actually loved the WTF ending. Surprised to see a sequel was in the works, can't say I even knew about it until I received an offer to maybe interview producer Eli Roth, director Ed Gass-Donnelly, and star Ashley Bell. Kind of missed the ball on that one, always so behind on my blog!

The first film focused on a Preacher of lapsed faith who gets caught up in what could be a real exorcism. The sequel focuses on the possessed girl Nell Sweetzer who awakes with no memories of the events she has gone through and has to survive the demon wanting her body again.

Sounds like it could be ok, maybe? I can't say I was taken with the trailer. Anyway it is due to be released in UK cinemas on the 7th June, I will be sure to check it out and stick up a review then!

Metroid: Other M (2010) - Sci-fi Horror Videogame Review (Nintendo Wii)

I have just this moment completed Metroid: Other M, I had picked it up dirt cheap last year (was under £4 new!) For some reason Metroid has always been a series I have found quite hard. I always liken it to Castlevania in space.

Metroid: Other M is a direct sequel to the Super Nintendo classic Super Metroid. Some months after the events of that game you are travelling when you receive a distress call coming from an empty section of space. Arriving you discover a gigantic space station in disarray that seems to be abandoned. Soon you stumble across a group of Galactic Soldiers, that include your former Commander Adam. He tells you to leave but not wanting to disappoint your idol you instead willingly disengage all your suit modifications and weapons hoping your desire to follow orders will allow you to stay. As you explore the desolate station you must discover what has happened to all the people, as well as discover why it is populated with aliens and monsters.

The story is kinda terrible, but it is more the characters that really gave me a weird feeling playing this.  In previous Metroid games there is some story reason why Samus must slowly recover her armour and weapons as she progresses. Metroid: Fusion on the GBA for instance had you attacked by an alien entity at the start that stole all your abilities. Here though it is the frankly bizarre Sub/Dom relationship Samus has with Adam that sees her purposely refusing to use weapons and abilities until Adam gives her permission to. Samus seems to enjoy getting hurt for the pleasure of Adam, seen most drastically in the lava fields section of the space ship where her energy is constantly getting sapped by the extreme heat. It is a very long time before Adam grants her permission to adjust her suit to allow for high temperatures. I can only imagine she must get off on the pain, knowing her Master has full control of her.

This game most reminded me of a 3D Metroid: Fusion. Both games took place on ruined space stations, both had you visiting different artificial themed areas (desert, ice, lava) and both actually feature similar bosses (the flying computer baby was just plain strange, especially it's cries as you hit it!). The biggest similarity though is the linear sense of progression you are given. The game may be huge but you are always herded from area to area in accordance to the story goals. You have some wriggle room but don't be surprised if you find areas locked off to your exploring self. I actually think I do prefer this exploration based hand holding. The reason I have yet to finish Metroid Prime is due to the fact it just straight up doesn't tell you where you should be heading!

I hate motion control and waggle in my games, one of the reasons the Wii so frequently gathers dust. Thankfully here the game for the most part is controlled by holding the wii-mote sideways like a controller. The lack of an analogue stick is helped by the camera dynamically moving to give you the best fixed views possible. Many times it will almost be 2D as you traverse across the screen. Open areas are not a hassle either and give some welcome room. If you point the wii-mote at the screen it goes into 1st person view. Here you are stationary but have full 360 movement to aim your gun reticule around. Not bad though unfortunately this view is the only way you can use missiles leaving you vulnerable to attack while attempting to shoot at targets.

The characters may be terrible (an incredibly sexist portrayal of Samus who is made here to seem like a weak, pathetic woman compared to the faceless identikit soldiers she teams up with) but the story did surprise me with its many twists that actually led me guessing as to what was going to happen next. The secret of what the project is that was happening on the space station, a mysterious rapidly mutating creature running riot, a traitorous figure referred to as 'The Deleter' who is killing off the soldiers one by one (and hilariously the game kinda forgets about this sub plot, I had to resort to message boards to work out who the traitor was). Under all the soppiness and long rambling monologues by Samus the plot was actually kinda cool. A pre game CGI recreation of the Super Metroid end of game boss fight was a nice treat.

For the most part enemies are ones that have all appeared in past Metroid games; Space Pirates, various insects, Metroids (of course) and iconic bosses such as Ridley all appear and are welcome for it for the most part.  The slow unlock of your abilities mean that re visiting areas to get new hidden items (mostly missile and health upgrades) is fun, especially as a handy mark is made on any room that has a hidden item. All the old abilities are gained such as the plasma gun, grapple beam, power bomb, super missiles, and spinning corkscrew jump. Always satisfying quickly taking out an enemy that took a long time at the games start.

If it had just been bad characterisation then I could have stomached that but the game is let down by a very, very frustrating end of game boss that requires a un fun expectation of being able to quickly switch between first and third person viewpoints repeatedly whilst under constant barrage by energy leeching enemies. The boss then requires you with no hint to do a special move that you were only told once how to do around 10 hours previously in the games opening training section! Doesn't help the boss was totally underwhelming (didn't even realise it was the final boss until the ending kicked in) Would be forgivable but the game is usually quick to fling instructions at you that does actually bring me to another annoyance.  When your energy gets too low you can stand still, hold the wii-mote vertically and press a button to recharge half your health. This process takes ages and is no good in a boss fight usually but that doesn't stop a literally 1/3 of the screen message and diagram appearing every time you have the option to do it. If your already nearly dead and struggling to survive then a huge screen obscuring message is not welcome!

For all my moaning I did enjoy this game and got into the 'zone' where all I wanted to do was play Metroid: Other M. Once the game is completed there is a fun optional mission to do that sees you go to unexplored areas of the station and fight new enemies. Not a bad game and not the best looking game, but it does mostly stay faithful to the Metroid series.

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CD Comics - Comic Trailers for Meadowhell, Spring-Heeled Jack, and Eyam: The Plague Village UFO Mystery

I am kind of a fan of the comics of Craig Daley, they look like they are drawn by a crazed serial killer and never fail to be anything but interesting and the ideas contained within very well researched. A few trailers for the web comics have been created, I will share the horror orientated ones with you here!

First up is Meadowhell; a murder mystery about a number of grisly murders that take place in the well known shopping centre.



Next up is the trailer for Spring-Heeled Jack that follows the exploits of a woman terrorising monster.



Lastly is the trailer for Eyam: The Plague Village UFO Mystery. This one has reminded me that I must review Eyam, must do that soon!



They are worth checking out if you want something that will keep you guessing right up to the end, not bad at all.

Out There (2012) - Short Horror Film Review

Out There is a short 16 minute horror film set in rural Ireland produced and directed by Randal Plunkett. Like many short horror films it concentrates on one character caught up in a nightmare situation.

Robert wakes up in woodland with a nasty gash on his head and no memory of how he got there. As he wanders the empty paths and roads looking for help he gets flashbacks of him and his girlfriend's deteriorating relationship. Just where has everyone gone?

First off I have to note the quality of this film was terrible, it was constantly skipping and freezing making it hard to hear dialogue, and sometimes hard to tell what was going on. I was warned of this though as Randal said that unfortunately his bad Internet connection meant a better version was not able to be uploaded. Due to that I am not going to mark it down for this.

For the most part the film follows Robert on his lonely journey to get help, the location brings a lot of unease, everywhere is just too empty and quiet. A noisy generator at an abandoned farm, a house covered with graffiti and disturbing photos, long silent roads; you get a real sense of a hidden menace here which gives Out There a lot of atmosphere.

What I love about short horror films is how they use the limited time to really make a solid little story (when done right). I was intrigued to find out what had happened. Connor Marren gives a solid performance as the confused, lost Robert, while his girlfriend (Emma Eliza Regen) appeared to also give a good performance though it was hard to tell due to the freezing and skipping usually when she went to say anything.

Interesting, fantastic locations and does not out stay its welcome being a perfect length for the type of story being told. A good twist for the end even if it is shown on the films poster!

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Before Dawn (2012) - Zombie Horror Film News

Last month Before Dawn was released on DVD (22nd February I believe). Before Dawn is a British zombie film that stars Dominic Brunt; Paddy of Emmerdale fame.

Alex (Brunt) and his wife (both onscreen and off screen) go on holiday in the Yorkshire Dales to try and repair their failing marriage. Being a zombie film I can only assume the pesky undead get in their way. Teamwork to fend off the walking dead must surely be a sure fire way to repair relationship issues though?

Well there you go, that is all the information I currently have on the film other than that on the often dodgy ratings of IMDB where it has an average score of 4.8/10. The trailer is included below, it is not a good trailer but I would be very interesting to see Brunt in a horror role.

 

Axed (2010) - Short Zombie Horror Film Review

Axed is a short Australian made zombie film that doesn't even attempt to be nothing more than bleak, brutal and an exhausting experience in its thirty minute run time.

Bruce (surely a homage to The Evil Dead's Bruce Campbell?) is enjoying a family meal when the house is invaded by gas mask wearing soldiers, who march him and his family out into the middle of the woods to execute them, saying they are infected. Before Bruce is killed, the soldiers are ambushed by a group of screaming, growling figures, so he makes his escape. Chased by the howling ghouls and having to avoid the brutal militia Bruce seeks a way to escape the chaos he has become swept up in.

This is one dark piece, it starts off bleak and just goes unrelenting in its horror and panic. The whole look of Axed is very saturated, colours are dim and washed out, this coupled with frantic camera work gives the look and feel of what I imagine a nightmare would look like if it were committed to film. Violence is not spared, from many many people being ripped apart by zombies to executions, decapitations and one case of a zombie eating its own intestines this is a very bloody piece (bits of brain slithering off an axe head as a case in point!).

Plot is near non existent though this is in no way a bad thing, for the most part (excluding the first scene) you are with Bruce as he not only has to cope with the fact that everyone he loves are dead (his family, fiancée, best friend) but also that crazed 28 Days Later style rage zombies are chasing him down. His descent into madness is completely understandable, often he starts laughing out loud, a man whose mind is cracking. The zombies look great for the most part, the camera work is so frenetic that there is not much time to look at them but they come across as a real unstoppable threat swarming with numbers. The soldiers on the other hand all with their bio-suits and gas masks bring a real coldness and clinical look, you can't feel anything for this faceless monsters. Traditional living dead zombies also appear, these are not so well done, their faces just looking a bit strange with the effects on them.

A bloody, grim, action packed half hour treat that I recommend to any fans of zombie horror! The creators of Axed are hoping to make a feature film of this, I wish them luck with that. Check out Axed below.

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Bumbloods (2012) - Zombie Mini-Series Review

Back in October I heard word about a zombie mini series called Bumbloods which then promptly left my mind. The following month in November I happened to see two episodes of it at Zombiefest 2012. Now 3 months later I will finally stop being so damn lazy and do a blog post about the show!

Two room mates discover zombie apocalypse has happened in America. One is cool and calm, the other not so much. They team up determined to survive but is that possible?

Each episode is preceded by a minute long intro that is jarringly different in tone to the actual thing. The intro is serious and horror like but the actual episode itself is played for laughs such as the Afro haired guy shooting his house mates girlfriend dead and then telling him she had turned into a zombie, or the wimpy one rescuing what he thinks is a child to discover it is actually an angry midget. Not bad at all for how short it all is.

The background often shows cars driving around, and even normal people walking around which would be down to the low budget and doesn't really get in the way of things, while the zombies are effective without being overtly made up. The 4 episodes can be seen below, check them out! Would be interested to see if a 2nd series is made as would love to see more of these.

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The Social Media Zombie Apocalypse - Zombie Themed Infograph

So with the second post in a row it may look like I am now owned by Confused.com but blame it on their marketing people who keep making zombie themed advertisements. This one is an infrograph of the types of people you find on social networking sites. Reading through it the zombie connection is quite loose but at least there are some cool pictures.