Reviews

Yes it did actually.

You want more? Happy to oblige :-D

Right then, at the end of the previous film we were left with Lt. Ripley killing herself (and the alien queen inside her). So naturally we were left to think that was that. Oh but how we were wrong!

Fast-forward many, many years and the company from the earlier three films have been disbanded and now there is an Universal Military unit who are in charge of all things spacial and the like. However they still have some scientists who meddle with things they shouldn't meddle in. And this is where we start our journey...

We see Ripley undergo an operation to remove the Alien Queen from her chest and also see a pirate-type crew (featuring Winona Ryder and Ron Perlman) ready to board a big mother space-station.

What's this? Aliens on board the space station? BREEDING THEM? WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?! Yes, you guessed it. The scientists decided to breed the Alien species from the specimen out of Ripley's body. They'll regret that. And they do.

We see Ripley, good to see her alive. But something's not right. Ripley has now super-strength, fast reflexes and acts a bit.....alien. The DNA from the Alien Queen has fused with Ripley's and also, as we find out, Ripley is actually a clone of her former self. Taken from blood drops or something.

Anyway, long story short, the Aliens decide to break loose and kill the scientists (after a sacrifice session). Ripley joins the pirate crew in an attempt to track down and kill the Aliens after they go postal. Again. When will those scientists learn? Ripley then falls down a long shaft and comes across a large area. Some may say it is a breeding area as there is a HUGE Alien Queen giving birth to something quite breakthroughable. Yes it is a new word heard here first!

As Ripley has got part Human-Alien DNA, the Alien Queen inside her (which is now the adult) also has part Human-Alien DNA and so can give birth like humans instead of eggs and facehuggers. Wait...What is that thing coming out of her...looks like...no....surely not...WTF! Yes, it is a hybrid \o/ who then kills the Queen and thinks that Ripley is its mother.

After some more carnage, the hybtid, Ripley and the remaining pirates go aboard a little ship to return to Earth. Of course the Hybrid wasn't invited as it is still an evil bugger! Cutting to the chase, there is an emotional scene as the mother Ripley has to see her "offspring" die being sucked out of the window. Quite touching. Although you are still glad that it is dead. Evil bastard that it is!

Film finishes back on Earth. It was a much better story and acting than the previous film. It also went back to the darker setting which worked so well for Alien and Aliens. I liked it a lot better than the last one and it deserves to be in the film series (unlike the poor Alien 3). I liked the hybrid Alien and the idea of Ripley being half and half.

Some bits weren't great, some of the acting was a bit off but it did not really retract from it too much to notice. The ending was a bit random but it had to end somewhere. Will be interesting on what Ridley Scott has up his sleeves for Alien 5.....

Score: 76%
Recommendation: Rent it.

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New Recommendation criteria
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0% - 50% : Don't bother
51% - 70% : Download it
71% - 84% : Rent it
85% - 100% : Buy it

I'm not sure Fuel is a game. It looks like a game, it's ostensibly about "racing", and it has gaming trappings like achievements and bad rock music.... but it's cleverer than that. It never explains the point. Why am I entering these races? Why do none of the roads actually go anywhere? What is the purpose of my existence in this game? I think Fuel might be the first ever game of existential nihilistic racing.

Go here! Go there! Enter a race and beat some similarly purposeless people! Or don't! it makes no difference to Fuel. There are no prizes other than a slightly greater variety of more purposeless races and cars. And the genius to this game is that the racing is actually a chore. It's so slow and ponderous and all the vehicles behave like toy cars on ice, whether you are in a bike or a monster truck, and regardless of whether you are off road or on tarmac. When you're not racing, you can also just drive around. This is clearly meant to be a big part of the game, but it doesn't look like the developers were able to think of a reason why this is.

And the things that do work are so incidental and irrelevant... Fuel has the best skies ever seen in a videogame. There has clearly been a whole team dedicated to sky. Why couldn't that team have worked on the in-game GPS, which looks like it was constructed from Powerpoint clipart?

But there will be a time when you'll boot up Fuel. It'll be late in the evening, and you'll be all alone. High strength alcohol will have been consumed - my guess... cheap bourbon. The digital game world will roll by and as you drive from point to point to no clearly defined end you'll have plenty of time to question exactly why you're gaming alone in this utterly pointless world. Rarely has a game so accurately represented the ennui of the gamer. I personally have spent several hours with this game and am no closer to achieving anything whatsoever.

I was really looking forward to this film. Having been on holiday over the last few weeks, I escaped the reviews and just strolled in - one of those "blank canvas" situations where you don't know what to expect. A few friends said it was darker than the others, so I brought my partner along (who hates Harry Potter) in an attempt to convince her that I don't read children's books. My attempt failed and our long lasting Harry Potter standoff came abruptly to an end.

It got off to a great start. The opening scene was everything I hoped for and had the audience geared up for something a bit different. I got the same feeling as when I sat down to Casino Royale - nice and gritty and less cheesy. So far so good.

(Harry refers to himself as a "tosser" - Suzie starts enjoying it too).

Then it begins - Harry flirts with the waitress, Dumbledore tells Harry he needs a shave - Harry Potter hits puberty. Boom! The girls behind me, also having recently hit puberty, start giggling. Uh oh. "That was never in the book" I whisper in Suzie’s ear. I felt obliged to defend myself when it started turning against me.

It continues. It gets better, it gets worse, but generally drones on. I know they start fancying each other, but oh god do they over do it. Lavender Brown (Jessie Cave) is magnificently crap. "That was nicely shot" - I defend myself further. 2 hours 33 minutes later, I walk out with Suzie and have one of those situations where you don't really start discussing the film until you've exited the cinema - you just walk out in near silence, wondering to yourself whether your going to say the film was bad or really, really bad.

As I began justifying myself, I came to three conclusions. Firstly, the book was always going to make a bad film. It's a "background book" - not much happens, the reader learns a lot about the past - one of those books which explains a lot that the other books didn't. Secondly, it's not the director's fault the acting was, almost without exception, a bad joke. Most of the actors were cast when they were ten. Who knew whether they would be any good when they grew up? Thirdly, it's a children's book at the end of the day. Ten year olds started watching these films - they're now in their teens - maybe the pubescent politics needed to be that obvious.

All in all? Junk. I’m still going to see the next one though :-)

4/10

I've always been a fan of cats. They know where it's at - what with the exploring, and killing things. But even I was surprised at the quality of these cats.

The story is very well realised - cats are born, 18 weeks ago; two brothers break it out on their own and make an incredible journey to the Sheffield cat shelter. Once there, we see their rise to the top, being pampered by staff all day. I almost cried with happiness at the bit where they went from soft food to crunchy biscuits.

But as always, the plot took a sinister twist. Just as our heroes were living the good life, they were struck down with a case of flu, making them all gungey in the eyes. The staff turned sinister. They began injecting them and slipping drugs into their food - before they knew it, they were unconcious a lot of the time.

*SPOILER*

Thankfully, this story has a brilliant twist. It turns out that the brothers were not the subject of cruel animal testing after all. Rather, the staff at the Shelter were nursing them back to health, and giving them their jabs to stop them getting ill from other things. So they were being looked after all along.

Then, they finally get their big break that sorts them out for life. After all their trouble, the brothers are introduced to two 'big people' who usher them into a mysterious box. The box starts moving and shaking - strange images appearing outside the grill of the door.

When they left the mysterious box, they found themselves in a warm house, made of reclaimed materials, with a warm Aga to sleep on and a Christmas Tree still standing to play with. All over the place there were toys to play with - it was a real tear-jerking ending. The two big people kept the food bowls full and the litter tray clean and they all lived happily ever after.

The performances were incredible. Samson's air of elegant grace was balanced well with Luca's sense of wonderment. They really are perfect for these roles.

Now all I need to do is watch 'Its a Wonderful Life' again and I'll have finished my transformation into a girl.

Ah, P K Dick. I have a soft spot for the guy. Something about him was so tragic; perhaps the crippling depression, or the nervous breakdown. He was something of a troubled genius, in the most classic sense.

His books had both a sort of innocence and a profoundly deep quality to them. He was an ideas man, but he could be terrible at setting the scene - in that sense he wrote almost like a child.

Ubik is no different. In fact, that innocence is more apparent in this one than any of the others I've read. It seems that everything must be described as wildly different, even clothing. He'll take time out to describe how someone's pyjamas were 'multicoloured, and the sci fi staple, 'meal in a pill'. Frankly, it prevents you from ever really believing his vision.

However, you don't read Dick for the elegence of his writing. You read him because of his plots, and the subtexts they inevitably contain. Ubik takes the idea of life, and what really defines it; it's a twisted tale that never really allows you to guess what will happen.

The novel follows a group of 'inertials' - people who are able to cancel out other people's psychic powers - through a strange journey, where the world is regressing through time... and here, in the synopsis, I hit a problem.

You cannot say anything of use about this book without revealing a critical part of the plot. Nothing is redundant, and so is valuable information that reader learns at the right time. Nothing can be said about it without reducing the readers enjoyment.

But it does take a long time to get going. He takes an age to try and set up the situation, without really rewarding you. All the while, he keeps throwing childish visions of the future into his descriptions that prevent you from really connecting.

It's worth sticking with it, though. This really isn't his best book, but as ever, it does make you think. Dick's books always show you something profound - but in this one you just have to wait a little longer, dig a little deeper, a forgive his style a little more.

It seems endlessly popular nowerdays to lean towards the socialist side of the economic debate. I have been, for quite some time. I still do. Not so much now, though, not after this book.

Ayn Rand, a laissez faire capitalism purist, is a damned fine writer. Let's start from there. Her style is refined and intelligent. For me, it strikes the perfect balance between economic and descriptive. You never feel like a word is wasted, but you also feel as if her world is meticulously described and as such becomes almost concrete in its reality. It's the type of writing that demands repect, because frankly it cannot be faked. It's the writing of a supremely intelligent person.

The premise behind Atlas Shrugged is just as well considered and constructed. The book follows a selection of powerful industrial leaders in North America; in particular a woman called Dagny Taggart in charge of the country's biggest railroad, and a man called Hank Rearden, of Rearden Steel and associated companies. It also follows the people who live off the efforts of these leaders - the "looters" as Rand puts it. These are the men from Washington, and the people who try and pull favours to run a business, rather than actually make anything themselves.

This is all a round about way for Rand to make her point that the Government should never get involved in economics, at all. The story is grim, and epic (my copy runs to over 1100 pages of the smallest type I have ever seen). It covers every topic you can think of - art, business, sex, politics, cars, mining, engineering, how to run a good grocery store... it even has a pirate in it, if you can believe it. It's just that big a book. When pressed, though, I'll quote a line from the blurb on the back of the book. "Atlas Shrugged is a book about a man who said he would stop the motor of the world - and did."

The pace is perfect. It rarely gets slow, and often has you on the edge of your seat. Never before has a book made me misty eyed with joy, or outright angry about anything. Only very occasionally does a character go on a long monologue to detail the finer points of Objectivism, Rands personal philosophy.

It's a philosophy that contains a large number of flaws. In a very basic nutshell, she believes in the "virtue of selfishness", believing that if each person focuses entirely on getting what they want, then we will all be better off. There are a few conditions that make it work, though. You have to be a producer. That is to say, you shouldn't steal or loot from others. In this way, money becomes a regulatory system that ensures each mans effort is measured according to what it is really worth. When you earn money and then spend it, you are essentially saying, "I will trade my effort for yours". Nobody should ever have to support someone elses life.

And while that's all very nice, it's not realistic I know. Of all the topics in this book, it doesn't mention what happens to the elderly or disabled, for example. Even so, it's rare that such a pro capitalist view is put forward in such a compelling and thoughtful way. It makes me realise that to only be informed in one side of the argument is not really to be informed at all.

A long review for a long book. I could go on, but I won't. Give it a go, and see what you think. For me, it's in my top three.

My previous experience with hacker games consists entirely of my time playing Introversion's 'Uplink'. It was a superb indie game that became thoroughly addictive.

My second ever hacking game, exoSyphen's 'BS Hacker Unlimited' (which, I have to say, suffers from chronic bad naming syndrome) is not at all perfect. It is, however, compulsive - and once again generates the same feeling of satisfaction that Uplink did.

It feels altogether more mature than its earlier rival, forgoing the glitchy, but hollywood-stereotype-hacker interface for a slightly more 'real' feel. It's all worked through a console screen, where you type commands to solve the various problems you come across - there are really no 'graphics' to speak of. It's actually getting close to a text based adventure.

However, given the subject matter, this lack of graphical flare makes it feel authentic, like you're using some tools you downloaded off the internet to break into someone's computer somewhere. There is very little in the way of bleeping, pulsing buttons or lights to shatter the illusion that you are doing all this for real - whether it be breaking into school computers to delete your records, or re-building the internet after it fell to pieces.

However, it does feel limited. It may be because I'm not too far in, but it appears that every computer is broken into in the same way, and once there you can only download, upload, or delete files. You can't, for example, create your own programmes to retrieve information, or any of that other stuff you think about when you think of hackers.

Even so, they've got around this in a brilliant way. They're hoping to tap into the mod community that is just begging for games like these by making scenario and custom mission creation very, very easy. You can, quite literally, create your own story just by writing it out in wordpad and filling in some information that the programme will look for. I'm working on a story where you accidentally end up, through a long, complicated process, finding out God's email address. You can ask him the meaning of life, if you want. But I won't spoil it.

A really interesting game. Keep an eye out for this genre - it's fascinating.

Let's start with a bit of a background on how I got around to watching Alien 3. Last week, I decided to buy the Alien Quadrilogy boxset as I have only watched the first film in the series.

Last night it was Alien 3's turn in the DVD player and I did have quite high hopes after the fantastic Aliens. Alien 3 is about Lt Ripley crash-landing on a prison planet (Fury 161) that is full of 25 inmates and a couple of guards and medics. These men are multiple murderers and rapists, generally bad people, and have lived in isolation without women for years.

Whilst crash-landing in the new planet, Ripley ends up in a coma and finds out that her crew are all dead. After being taken into the prison infirmary, Ripley finds the chief medic who explains the whole situation. Meanwhile...

Some inmates find an ox / dog (depending on which version you watch) which has suddenly died. What killed it they do not know but they find a nearby dead facehugger...oh bugger.

As the crew's dead are burned in the furnace, an alien pops out of the animal's body and runs into the abyss. I'm going to shorten down the rest of the plot now so basically the inmates happen to stumble upon the alien, get killed by the alien, then Ripley goes hunting along with the other inmates. The alien decides not to kill Ripley as she has found out she is carrying the next Alien Queen.

So there is a wild goose chase all along the prison, the alien outfoxes most of the prisoners and kills a lot of them. They then find the alien and trap it in a waste container which has no way out. End of story. Well it's never that easy though is it?

A crazy inmate breaks out, and goes into the container after killing some of his mates which lets the Alien out. The Alien then goes on another rampage and kills loads of people whilst Ripley and the crew decide on a plan to kill the Alien. Alien gets trapped, Ripley survives. Alien dies. The "company" come along, attempt to take Ripley back after deciding they want the Queen for research but Ripley decides against it and jumps in the fire to kill herself and the queen.

Well I expected quite a good film and the main problem with this film is that its predecessor was amazing. The plot of this film was not great, got boring at times, and was very different from the previous two films in the franchise.

I don't like the fact that they killed off the survivors from the last film in the first scene. And it was quite predictable how it ended. The Alien also was too CGI based as well, so was nowhere near as scary as the other films. This may have something to do with the lighting in the film to be wholly different. This film has lots of bright areas, whilst the other films has lots of dark areas.

It wasn't too bad though and there were a few entertaining pieces. But it's not a film I would recommend. Pretty much like Predator 2.

In the end you find that you are not as bothered about the Alien anymore, it's not a scary monster, it seems too fake. Which is a shame.

Overall 62%

Personally, I'm not really one for fan fiction. I feel this way for the same reason that I don't normally like games based on film licenses - they are normally lazy, amateurish affairs that require a knowledge and loyalty to the thing it's based on in order for you to like it.

So I started reading this with some trepidation. I was expecting it to be all plasma, explosions, and cheesy heroics. I was expecting impenetrable references to the EVE universe that only residents of the game would understand. As a fan of Phildickian Sci-Fi, where the escapism is based in the oddball minds of the characters and the alternate realities they inhabit, EVE belongs to a genre that wouldn't normally interest me (as a book, that is - I'm quite enjoying the game).

However, this surprised me. Yes, there are battles, and yes, there are numerous mentions of the word 'plasma', along with other staples of the space opera novel; but these instances fit into a well balanced and thoughtfully considered political context. Make no mistake, this is a book about war - but it's more about the build up, the negotiation, the diplomacy, and the history. It builds quite nicely to a rolling, realistically dramatic peak and then concludes quite satisfyingly in the same way you might expect from a real diplomatic situation. It's like Vietnam in space.

This has been done before, of course - my favourite example being The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (1974) - but while The Forever War was making a very strong political statement, EVE is an altogether more sedate, more thoughtful book on a grand scale. The story of Tibus Heth, a miner turned revolutionary turned leader, is an excellent example of how to develop what could have been a very one dimensional character. Essentially an evil man, you can find yourself sympathising and occasionally even rooting for him. Nothing is simple here, and everything feels like it has realistic roots.

And this all makes perfect sense, when you play the game. As an MMO, EVE is not so much a game as a mirror of our own society - with the focus firmly on economy, cooperation, business, and the conflict that emerges as a result. So for me, this book represents a far more desirable way of continuing a universe created by another medium - to capture the feel of the game, rather that make a thousand obscure references. It also did something rather surprising too, by taking a game mechanic designed as a throwaway explanation for how people who get blown up can come back to life and looking in depth at how this would affect us in reality.

Cloning - the issue in question - is explored in depth, asking questions about whether an exact copy of yourself is really you, or if a change of body is a change of person. In the case of this book, this is illustrated beautifully with the death of a tyrant, waking up in a new body with no memory - and how he gradually comes to hate who he previously was. There are hypothetical issues too, such as the class gap between those that have become immortal through cloning, and those who haven't.

It has its share of problems, of course. The writing can be a little rough around the edges, and it can take a while to really get going. Certain characters (such as The Broker) are so improbably powerful that you wonder just why they don't run the whole universe. But when you place qualms like these up against the thoughtful exploration of several completely different and far more realistic characters, it can be forgiven.

So I suppose was wrong to assume it would be some hokey sci-fi rubbish. It's a solid book in its own right, and Tony Gonzales does a good job of keeping the EVE brand alive as a more mature MMO alternative. Well worth a read.

[Review originally by Doopus]

I'm currently eagerly waiting the release of Lego Batman for the Wii, and as I'm waiting I find myself going back to Lego Indiana Jones.

The game itself is brilliant in its sheer simplicity. At its core its a platform game, but then you have all the little twists added to give it the uniqueness that will have you wanting to play it more and more.

The main aim of the game is to play through each of the first 3 Indiana Jones films, each level will see you using a pair of different characters, normally Indy will be one of them, but at times you'll also control some of the other main characters including Short Round, Dr Jones Senior and Willie.

Each different character also have their own special abilities, Dr Jones Senior can translate hieroglyphics, Short round can get into small spaces and can repair things, all the female characters can scream to break glass objects and can jump higher than male ones, and with Indy you get the whip.

Each of these abilities means that for the different puzzles you come across you have to use a combination of the characters to get to certain objectives.

Throw into this that some characters then have their own fears, taken from the films, so Indy is scared of snakes, Willie doesn't like bugs and Dr Jones isn't too fond of rats. If your running along with one your characters and you come across one of their fears they will just stop and cower and you have to swap to your other character.

The main game itself takes you through the film storylines stage by stage, linking up the levels with quite funny cut scenes from the films redone in Lego.

Once you've completed a film you can then watch back all the clips together to see a cut down version of the film itself, and some of these clips are superbly done with a good twist of humour added (afterall it is in Lego).

With this game I found myself actually not looking forward to completing it as I wanted to keep playing, and thats where the beauty of the game comes in. The re-playability of this game is immense. A key part of the main game is collecting Lego Studs, with these studs you can then buy bonus items that can be used in the game such as treasure detectors or x2 modifiers to the amount of studs you collect. With each level completed you then also open up all the characters from that level, including the baddy characters and with your studs you can then buy these characters and play with them when you go back into a level. Each level then also can be played in a free play mode where you can choose which characters you want to take in, which by combining abilities from different characters which you didn't have first time round, can open up hidden areas and new levels. On top of this, each level also has 10 artifact pieces hidden throughout it and a power brick which you have to find, so although you may complete the storyline mode, the game itself will have you coming back time and again to complete fresh challenges.

The format of the Nintendo Wii doesn't make too much of a difference. The game is the same on the XBox 360 as well, the main difference being on the Wii you can 'crack' the Wii-Mote to use Indy's whip which at first is quite fun, but you soon realise its just a gimmick and get back to actually getting through the levels.

Overall I loved this game. If you like platformers its a certifed winner. If your an Indy fan you'll love it too, if just for the Lego cut-scenes. Even if your not a big fan of platformers you'll probably still end up coming back to it, its just that type of game, so i'm giving it a resounding 10 out of 10.

Now lets just hope the Lego Dark Knight is just as good...