Grave of the Fireflies - DVD Review

Every now and then a film comes along that’s more than just entertainment and escapism for 90mins. Every now and then a film comes along that envelops you so tightly and completely that you simply can’t escape its grip. Grave of the Fireflies is this type of movie. It’s not a happy film. You won’t want to eat popcorn while watching it and I defy you to not start crying. In fact, I would be willing to bet money on this film making the hardest and coldest of hearts melt.

Read on for a full review.

Grave of the Fireflies is not a new movie. In fact, it was released in 1988 and is an adaptation of a semi-autobiographical novel by Akiyuki Nosaka. Knowing this makes the film all the more gut wrenchingly powerful. It’s just taken me a long time to get round to writing this review perhaps because I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t be able to do it justice.

This film had a profound impact on me when I first saw it years ago and I’ve never forgotten it. I was expecting a light & fun anime full of quirky characters and a surreal storyline. But that’s not the experience I had. It was the first film to make me realise the affect of war on ordinary citizens because that’s what this film is about. It’s not about the million dollar explosions. It’s not about the technology or some super-bad kick ass hero who wins the day and gets the girl. This is the story that those films don’t show you. It’s a story about the relationship between two orphaned children, a younger teen Seita and his even younger sister Setsuko. It simply charts the struggles they go through to survive post the Kobe fire bombings in Japan towards the end of World War II. Forget Hurtlocker – this is the ultimate anti-war film ever made. It shows how indifferent people can be to even the needs of desperate children – and this includes their aunt. It is, given that it is based on a semi-autobiography, a damning depiction of the negative consequences of war. This story is probably being experienced right now throughout the world's war zones. And if that isn't a damning indictment on how the world works, then I don't know what is. At the best of times I have a very dim view of society and its sense of false morality and this film, through such a simple and moving portrayal of the experiences of two children, does nothing to make me change my view.

I’m trying really hard not to say too much about the film without giving anything away. All I can say is that if you’re in the ‘right’ frame of mind for an intelligent film that is truly an emotional experience, then this is the film for you.

Treehouse Rating: 5/5

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I didn't realise I wanted to be a cowboy..

..until now. Why have I previously been so seduced by roaming devastated post apocalyptic dystopia with silly laser guns and radioactive mutants? Or rain slicked city streets, to get on trains and go to bars, in a grotesque mimicry of my tedious real life? Why the hell have I not been yearning a simpler existence? - the open fields, the picturesque creeks, the lonely mountains? The sound of blowing off an outlaws heads with a shotgun, hog-tying a bank robber and a-spitting to-baccer? No, I clearly haven't been paying attention as this, looks, awesome.

Red Dead Redemption just buzzed into my game-dar in a massive way. It had always been a little blip - "oh Rockstar are making a cowboy game" I mused, idly munching on a piece of toast while reading the paper "that will be cool" - but this multiplayer mode is tantamount to a cowboy MMO! You know what that means?! It means I can totally ambush douchebag x-bot posses with my superior l337 skills and infinite, badass patience. The potential is undeniable! A totally free roaming single player world, teeming with players and gangs of xbox parties? I will happily hunt pigs in the hills by some lonely mountain pass, in the mere hope that some bunch of lost douchebags will come by to be picked off with a sniper rifle and the carefully laid explosive I rigged on the bridge. "Oh no" they will shriek into their little headsets, "its Munial, the posse hunter, an he dun shot ma horse!".

Ok so I'm sure there's fun to be had actually forming a posse, but that's just not where the romance is for me. Real cowboys (bearing in mind - I'm English, we don't have cowboys, we have show jumpers, so my concept is limited) are lonely figures; dark tormented souls who find solace for the crimes they done, only in the arms of the forgiving gal he just paid for or at the bottom of a bottle o' redeye. The only good posse was the Young Guns posse and look what happened to them. Well, Billy was ok, but only 'cos he was a loner really.. No, a gang may be the best bet for survival but to really live, a cowboy's got to go his own way. Or at most, find his-self a Sundance Kid. Yeah, actually , that's the cheese. The way I figure it, that's some mighty fine ambushin country up ahead. If I stay here, and you get up on top o' that ridge, we'll see them sumbitch's coming before they even done had their biscuits.

This is going to be so much fun. Ya'll take care now..


Yeah single player looks pretty amazing too...



Epic..



Treehouse Do-want rating: 6/5

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Out with the old, in with the Who

As I’ve alluded several times, I was no fan of Tennant’s Doctor Who. I consider his time at the helm to be the dark days of Who, masterminded by a no-talent prancing puppet master, who had his banal characterisation dance about onscreen like some incredibly annoying know-it-all office clown. Aside from the odd enjoyable episode here and there, usually written by the now in charge Steven Moffat, Tenant’s time as the Doctor was plagued by poor writing, bad acting, toe curling self congratulatory self indulgence and awful, shameful, raping of beloved character’s memories. Perhaps the most upsetting thing was that I seemed to be the only one who thought so – nearly everyone universally applauded his shenanigans – I felt like I was taking crazy pills! So it was with much baited breath, and hope in my heart that I watched the first episode of the new series, with the shiny new Matt Smith as the Doctor, along with the promise of a shiny new companion and a shiny new Tardis. Surely now these mugs (ahem, that’s you, gentle reader) would now be reminded that Who can be a thing of greatness, not the risible kids show it had transmogriphied into, that used its status as a kid's show as an excuse for mediocrity. And after watching, and I don’t want to get ahead of myself in declaring that Matt Smith is an infinitely better Doctor than Tennant ever was on the strength of a single episode, but I can say with some assuredness and without hyperbole that Matt Smith, is an infinitely better Doctor than Tennant ever was.

Straight away, he’s more interesting to watch. Unlike the nervy, trying-too hard young fella I saw on Jonathon Ross, Smith’s Doctor is refreshingly in-human - weird and oddball, without any of the “wacky zaniness” (idiocy) of Tenant or McCoy. He’s playful, mysterious, knows what’s going on without telling everyone around him that he does, and after a process of learning as opposed to going "aaaahhh its a [insert obnoxious know it all answer here]" . He's funny, he's rude to people. Of course it helps that the writing and directing is much improved. Gone are the shackles of Davies’ tedious baggage; farewell Rose Tyler and her verminous kin, not to mention the total disaster that was Donna “shoot me in the teeth” Noble; don’t come back, your ham was well and truly baked many years ago. Instead say hello to the brilliantly played, and quite easy on the eye, Amy Pond, as played by Karen Gillen.

The first episode, always a tricky one for an incoming incumbent, sees the Doctor crash land immediately after the regeneration in a sequence that worryingly bore the glitzy thrill seeking of Davies’ tenure. A minor aberration, quickly rectified by a tasty new title sequence, and we’re into the episode. A ginger Scottish child is praying to Santa for help. Straight away; great – you wouldn’t get that kind of humour from Davies, he’d probably think people wouldn’t get it, or be worried it might offend someone. The Doctor appears, struggling out of the upturned Tardis, to declare “could I have an apple?” Regeneration has made him hungry it seems, but unsure what he likes, they set about cooking most of the fridge’s contents. It’s been a while since I actually laughed at an episode of Dr Who. This is looking promising.

So the story proper eventually sets in, Amy has a crack in her wall through which she hears voices. It emerges that a rip in space time (again, really?) is in her wall, and on the other side is some kind of alien prison. Prisoner Zero has, it seems, escaped. Just as the investigation is underway, The Doctor is called back to the Tardis which is , post regeneration, about to explode – a minor inconvenience, a quick 5 minute time travel will apparently sort it out. So off he trots to return directly, only by the time he gets back, in an immediately obvious to all but him kind of way (he didn’t have the benefit of the trailer after all) several years, not minutes have passed, and little Amy Pond is now a leggy ginger kissogram who looks rather handsome as a policewoman.

As the realisation that the mysterious Doctor character of her childhood has returned sets in, the mystery of the escaped alien picks up where it left off – having been happily hiding out for years in a room unnoticed by all due to some psychic dampening field or some-such, the toothy snake-like alien has been resident all this time in Amy’s spare bedroom, occasionally venturing out in the guise of patients of the nearby hospital where Amy’s nurse boyfriend works. But now the Doc’s back, the alien is revealed and the pursuing prison wardens, giant floating eyeballs natch, are looking to flush it out by incinerating the whole planet, so now he has but 20 minutes to save the planet, without a Tardis or Sonic Screwdriver which inconveniently exploded moments earlier in another thumb of the nose to Davies’ reliance on the handy gizmo as a solution to all situations.

It was a very promising start. Smith is charming and unusual with his wacky big face and a great ability to deliver lines in odd ways, Pond is (also) charming and believable as the frustrated Scot out of water, with a great range in equally nutty facial expressions. In their scenes together, there was already a nice chemistry, a plausible rapport between them- undoubtedly the benefit of casting decent actors and giving them vaguely sensible dialogue, not to mention an actual story/history together that developed nicely throughout. The new Tardis looks, well it looks okay, didn’t get a great look at it – it looks a bit cluttered to be honest, like its not quite finished yet – maybe it’s not? The aliens were hammy and Doctor Who-ish, but not in an offensively trite way (see; the Slytheen/the Ood/face of Bo/any one of Davies' dumbass brainchildren) – the shape shifting creature mimics groups of people, and gets confused about which mouth to speak out of, leading to man and dog barking furiously, or woman and children sharing one voice – logical, amusing, a bit creepy – hurrah, Dr Who is back!

So what didn’t I like? The bow tie. The hacking the internet to chat to NASA etc to get the "zero" message out was all a bit daft, in a Russel T kind of way, although Patrick Moore is always welcome. And even though Smith ultimately revelled in the victory, it was funny and not obnoxious, as Tennant inevitably was every time he opened his fat know-it-all face. Sorry, its my problem I'll deal with it - anyway, yes that was about all I didn't like, which is a fantastic turnaround from a programme I'd all but given up on - great start, keep it up kids!

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Review: Perfect Dark

The year 2000 was a splendid time for a happy go-lucky Nintendo fan. For that summer, they were blessed with the long awaited spiritual successor to the legendary Goldeneye, indubitably the finest console FPS of all time. What they got didn’t disappoint; a deep single player campaign with bond-esque objectives and gadgetry as well as a multiplayer mode that once again pushed the envelope and rekindled the sweaty 4-way fisticuffs typical of a marathon Goldeneye session. To revisit it now on its native N64 is an exercise in disappointment. Sure the look, feel and sounds are all present and correct, but the framerate and murky textures are not what you recall. No, back then all was laser sharp, tangy neon and inky blacks and you certainly didn’t have any framerate issues when you set off 20 remote mines at once. So the rebirth of Perfect Dark onto Xbox Live has been even longer awaited by those who know, promising as it did, the genuine article with HD graphics and, well, that’ll do actually. And now it’s finally here, available at a surprisingly restrained 800 points, has it survived the transition from our sepia toned memories..?

argh, she got me..

Short answer, yes. Its back, it’s looking better than ever and it hasn’t been mucked about with. Forget the ropey sequel spawned of a wholly different era and ethos, and look back to this lovingly crafted original which in many ways remains surprisingly advanced and more forward thinking than most fps' churned out these days. Here, mission structures are difficulty level dependent; meaning the difficulty you select from the menu directly affects the tasks and mission content you’ll see in the mission. (why isn't that a more common concept?) The fully worthwhile cooperative mode returns, now playable over Xbox live, as well as the way-ahead of it's time Matrix style "player 2 plays all the bad guys" mode, again reminding us just how much of a progressive title this was. The familiar blocky headed scanned faces of the old Rare team adorning the henchmen and characters have sadly been replaced by more contemporary fizzogs, and the textures updated, but the overal look remains firmly intact, and the synthy soundtrack and terrible voice acting is better than ever.

I- I haven't seen you before..?

The story is pure sci fi hokum- you are agent Dark, the sassy Victoria Beckham-alike protégé of the mysterious Carrington, a fat beardy Scottish bloke with piles of cash and a secret militarised organisation. Set in the not-too distant future of flying cars and blade-runner style city scapes (as much as that was possible in 2000, this is no Mass Effect 2), your mission is to uncover the conspiracy of a shady industrial organisation that may or may not (may) have something to do with aliens, the US president, and the intervention in an intergalactic war between 2 alien races (maybe). What you bring to the table are an assortment of smashing weapons and gadgets that were an improvement on Goldeneye’s Herculean inventory. Pistols, rifles, laser beams, bombs, mines, launchers, knives, crossbows, heat-scoped rail guns (oh yes) they’re all here, and each one featuring a secondary fire mode that often changes their dynamics in unexpected ways. The legendary laptop gun for example transforms your rifle into a deadly turret, gunning down enemies for you on sight, while you flick through the latest copy of FHM, (ok you’re Victoria Beckham, Cosmo then). And yes you can have it in multiplayer.

..my gun!

The levels are sprawling, meandering mazes, difficult to navigate in comparison to today’s subtly signposted worlds. The opening mission sees us join Agent Dark on top of the Datadyne building which we must infiltrate to retrieve a defecting doctor in distress. For part one of the mission, you descend down through the tower taking out security as you go. Part 2 is the infiltration of the secret basement laboratory, while the final section has you working your way back up the tower. This clever approach to the use of space, revisited a couple of times in later levels, never feels like recycling so different is the challenge for the remix sections. They can feel aimless at times however, and it is only due to the careful training veterans had back in 2000 that we can easily find our way – a newbie gamer today might be tempted to cry in frustration on learning the mission has failed because they didn’t plant that bug on a random console back at the start of the map. We've all been there agent.

But.. I cant throw a bug that high..

Where it was neither progressive nor very successful was in it’s enemy AI. These goons are fresh from an Austin Powers super villain lair; spot you and they’ll either start shooting in 4 second bursts (unless you get one of the buggers that just walks at you firing continually) and then they may leap to the side in a bid to dodge where you’re most likely firing. Half the time their gun may jam, much to their astonishment, before uttering a brilliant soundbyte as you finally off them. No there are no flanking tactics here, no retreat and regrouping – they will run at you until they get shot. What they lack in nouse, they make up for in deadliness, certainly on the fiendishly difficult Perfect Dark agent level, where if they sneak in a hit you will find half your health gone.

Any questions? No, good!

For all the leaps and bounds in the FPS genre over the last ten years, you’d be forgiven for assuming Perfect Dark is a pointless addition to your heaving collection, but you’d be sorely mistaken. The little touches remain as brilliant today as they were then. The way Joanna tilts her pistols sideways, gansta style if you get close enough to a bad-guy. The way you can disarm and knock- out every henchman if you so choose, some of them throwing down their guns pleading for you not to kill them. The ever entertaining shooting gallery, the spy-cam, and the spectacular return to what you thought was just a pretty hub world. No, Perfect Dark remains a quite brilliant and relevant shooter; never less than fun and full of invention, and with quibbles only worthy of mention because the overall standard remains so high, this is an essential purchase.

Treehouse Rating: 4/5

Ah, our star agent..

Perfect Dark is available on Xbox Live for 800 of your Earth points

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Kick-Ass Review

I’m the kind of guy who eats desert before dinner. And so, in keeping with this tradition, I’m going to tell you what I think of Kick-Ass before I review it for you. In short, it has a bad ass script, it has graphic violence, dark x2 humour, one of the coolest 12 year old’s ever, plenty of laughs and thrills and geeks who rock. This is, in short, one hell of a movie. I really enjoyed it – A lot. Go and watch it. Now. I command thee in the name of all things 'Kick-Ass'!

For the rest of the review … read on my friends.

Truth be told, I’d never heard of the comic book of the same name by Mark Millar and John Romita so I’m not sure how much of a faithful reproduction it is. I’ll have to read the comic now and let you know. The screenplay is written by Matthew Vaughn (who also directs) and Jane Goldman (wife of Jonathan Ross). This is the same writing team/director from Stardust which, in my view, wasn’t that great so I was a little apprehensive about Kick-Ass. However, I needn’t have been. Surprisingly, Kick-Ass is only Matthew Vaughn’s 3rd film but he’s clearly at natural at directing. He builds tension, keeps the angles tight and knows instinctively how to show off great action. He’s definitely one to keep a close eye on and he has a new fan in me.

Anyway, the story is very simple and revolves around Dave Lizewski (played by Aaron Johnson), a nerdy teenager who wonders why no one has ever decided to become a real-life superhero. Don’t we all want to help when we see someone in trouble but don’t intervene because we’re too scared about our own safety he muses? How many of us have later stood in our bedrooms later and replayed the moment only in our own versions, we kick some butt and manage to snag a girl in the process? I know I have. So the story is grounded (somewhat) on a premise that we’ve all considered. Dave buys himself a costume and tries to fight crime very unsuccessfully. In fact, he nearly gets himself killed in the process (he’s pretty crap). However, once he’s captured on film trying to protect a total stranger from a beating he (or his alter ego, Kick-Ass) becomes an internet sensation.

While trying to help Katie Deauxma (fellow class mate and love interest) played by Lyndsy Fonseca, Dave ends up in an awkward spot trying to fight a bunch of violent criminals and is rescued a young girl named Hit-Girl (wonderfully played by Chloe Grace Moretz) who kills all the attackers in many violent ways and saves Dave sorry ass. There is a separate story here about Hit-Girl and her father, whose alias is Big Daddy (played by Nicholas Cage in his best performance for ages). Add now to the mix one serious crime lord Frank D'Amico played by the ever watchable Mark Strong and his wannabe gangster son, Chris D’Amico played by McLovin’. Erm I mean Christopher Mintz-Plasse who also doubles as the superhero Red Mist.

What we have is a story about a good guy wanting to do good and along the way he inspires people, get’s his ass kicked and also kicks ass. The set pieces are a hoot. The gags come thick and fast and this film hardly puts a foot wrong. It’s not bogged down with a heavy, political story line like Watchmen and you can just recline, switch off and enjoy.

Treehouse Rating: 4/5
'Kicks Ass' by name and kick ass by nature (Lame pun I know but better than saying this film kicks ass!)

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A new era for consumers loom

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Nope, it's not Superman either. It's cloud based gaming and cloud based movies, music and any other type of entertainment you might want. This is fascinating stuff (even if I do say so myself!) and her is my brief view on some of the dramatic technological changes coming our way in 2010.

Look out for an announcement on June 17th as a new service that allows consumers (gamers) to play any game, at any time and without a console is officially launched. As consumers, we’re getting used to video/music/film on demand but gaming has not, so far, really taken hold in the same way. But I like my shiny black PS3 under my shiny black TV. Munial likes his Xbox360. But imagine a world where such hardware is not required. Imagine a world where all you need is a small adapter that plugs into your HD TV and your broadband connection and you have access to hundreds of games. No need to download them. They are just there. They exist in the mysterious ‘cloud’. All we mere mortals have to do is pay a monthly subscription fee and in of we go and play whenever we want (on our TV, PC or Mac). The service called OnLive and brainchild of Steve Perlman (WebTV, QuickTime) promises that it “will change the way that entertainment applications are created, delivered and consumed.” If it takes off and has mass market appeal, I do believe it could just be the single most important development for gamers worldwide. It would, quite literally, change the entire gaming landscape.

If this happens, what would Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft and for that matter, Apple do in a world where their hardware becomes obsolete? Would they try and compete with their own digital offering? What would stores that rely on the sale of tangible gaming DVD’s and Blurays do? Would they try and compete? I would argue that they could be surplus to requirements. Ancient business models in a world where technology is developing at a frightening pace. Don’t believe that such changes can happen so quickly? You only need to take one look at Kodak to see that you ignore a changing technological future at your own peril. In 1988 Kodak employed 145,300 people and made a profit of $1.17bn on $13.3bn in revenue. By late 2009, the payroll nose-dived to 19,900 with a quarterly loss of $111m. And why? It’s because Kodak failed to see the impact that the digital camera would have on its business. What’s worse is that Kodak invented the digital camera! But Kodak has fought back hard and expects strong demand in Asia to lift its digital revenues to about $7bn a year from about $5.5bn within three years. It’s been a painful transformation though for them but they had to learn the hard way. Another example is EMI. Whether companies can learn to change and adapt given they have strategies laid out for 5-10 years can make all the difference.

There is also an interesting development by the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), a coalition with support from every industry involved in digital entertainment. It’s claimed that this new system will provide a revolutionary new way to enjoy movies, TV shows and other entertainment. The consortium, which consists of companies such as Alcatel-Lucent, Best Buy Co Inc, Cisco Systems Inc, Comcast, News Corp's Fox Entertainment Group, Hewlett-Packard Co, Intel, Lions Gate Entertainment Corp, Microsoft Corp, General Electric Co's NBC Universal, Viacom Inc's Paramount Pictures, Philips, Sony Corp, Sony Pictures, Toshiba, VeriSign, and Time Warner Inc's Warner Bros Entertainment are working on a "uniform digital media experience". The group wants "interoperability of devices and websites" and fair usage rights that will allow consumers to copy content for household playback devices as well as burn their purchased content to physical media for playback or storage. Each consumer would also be given a "rights locker", a virtual library where all video purchases would be stored and available for download again if ever lost. DECE will also have a logo that can be places on products and websites that will inform consumers on whether that site or product is compatible with DECE standards.

Both Sony and Microsoft have already started making strides towards a more coherent digital downloads market but as the competition heats up for this 'cloud' and all its content, I think it will be hampered by fragmentation, different technical standards and different DRM solutions. But, competition is good. There is likely to be consolidation in the industry with a company, perhaps like Amazon or Apple providing new leadership in this so digital of ages.

Let'sbe honest, I’m not a fortune teller. But even if OnLive or the DECE project don’t work commercially, important strides are being made to change the way we consume content forever. Whether we like it or not. Personally, I like it. My life is becoming more and more like Star Trek all the time.

Beam me up (to the cloud) Scotty ...

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Heavy Rain Demo Impressions

There has been a lot of noise in the gaming world about Heavy Rain. I must admit, I wasn’t sure about it myself and wanted to reserve judgement until I had at least played the demo. Well, now I have and if you like being sucked into a game head first, to not just play but be in it, to revel in the atmosphere and find yourself in a moody, dark film noir thriller reminiscent of an interactive ‘Se7en’ – then this game is for you.

Heavy Rain is developed by Quantic Dream of Omikron and Farenheit fame. First things first, this is not a game for kids. There are serious, adult themes covered in this game (these are clear from the demo). There will eventually be four playable characters - an FBI profiler, a retired private detective, an architect, and a photo journalist. The aim of the game is to find the serial killer known as "The Origami Killer". Sounds like fun...

In the demo of the game you play as the FBI and the retired private dick. Hmmm. In the words of Dr Dre and Snoop, ‘Hold up’ (from The Next Episode). Should I call this demo a game? It wasn’t just a demo of a game. It was an experience. When my character had an asthma attack, I panicked. When my character was in a fight, I panicked. The music is excellent as are the visuals.I was experiencing an interactive movie of sorts. My heart rate shot up, my sphincter tightened and I was gripping my controller for dear life. All from a demo! Wow. The gaming mechanics feature Quick Time Events which mean that at certain key moments you have to make the right motion on the joystick or press the right button in synch with what’s happening to your character. It sounds lame. It sounds terrible. I thought it would be awful but it works very well. This isn’t mindless ‘X’ bashing but mimicking your actions on screen and it’s not easy. So, when you’re climbing a slippery, water logged and muddy hill, your QTE’s correspond to left leg, right leg, push up etc. *sigh* that is an awful description. I admit it. My writing skills have deserted me (again). But the gaming mechanic works. It’s not the same as the QTEs used in the God of War series or Heavenly Sword. Seriously, it works. Take my word for it. Or better still don't listen to me. The Demo is available on the PSN store. Download it. Play it. Live it. Let me know what you think. And then agree with me. I'm always right. Especially when I'm wrong. Which I never am. Ahem.

Treehouse rating: N/A
It’s not just a game, it’s an M&S game (sorry to those outside the UK who don’t get that).

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Mini Review: Chime

I’m not sure what it is that makes Xbox Live and music games such a good fit, but there it is, here comes another one. Brighton based Zoe Mode’s “Chime” popped up a couple of weeks or so back, and like Rez before it, is a unique, if less dramatic foray into interactive music games. It is a gorgeously simple and satisfying game, that is a lot easier to play than it is to explain. The player is presented with a silent grid into which you place blocks of various size and shape, in a Tetris stylee. All the while a “beat line” sweeps across the grid, which upon reaching your recently placed blocks , creates a sound. Fitting blocks together into rectangles creates “quads” which claims part of the grid for you as "coverage" – the aim of the game being to get 100% coverage of the board. These quads create musical phrases when the beatline hits them, and their complexity and point value is determined by how big you’ve managed to build your quad before it “expires”. As you play you gradually build the music track up and push it along through it's sections and verses. There's a bit more to it than that, but you can learn more at the game’s excellent website, or watch the trailer after the break.

All sounds a bit dry, but this is a bona fide little gem. The success or failure of such a game is always going to hinge on the music and how well its implemented, and here Chime is resplendent. While only 5 tracks are on hand, each is an auditory joy and provided by artists of real clout; we’ve got Lemon Jelly, a guy from Orbital , Mark Schulz (dunno him, but it’s a nice track, if the weakest) and er, Moby with a toe tapping working of electro pop “ooh yeah”. Crown jewel for me though is Brazil from Philip Glass – an epic orchestral reworking that’s all dramatic strings and woodwind, and wouldn't have sounded out of place on the Punch Drunk Love soundtrack. The interaction with the music throughout Chime is exceptional; you have real influence as you claim more and more of the game grid, starting gradually with plonky bloops and bleeps, gradually building the song up to tumultuous crescendos, all of which are seamlessly integrated into the gameplay, the rendition will vary each time you play it.

It’s no picnic either, it’s deceptively difficult to clear the board within the time limit, although with practice you can do this several times within a round. I found it initially difficult to shrug off my tetris mentality of fitting the shapes together, it’s not necessarily the best way to get the coverage you crave - those pesky quads won't go round corners, and it's easy to misplace a piece ruining your multiplier. The experience as a whole though is deeply relaxing, the music builds and builds, flutey trills and phrases bubble up as you put the quads together with hypnotic little visual flourishes, and before you know it the timer is running out and you’re cursing because you hadn’t noticed and you’ve only covered 98% of the board.

Even more remarkably for what is a fully formed, highly polished game, this is going on Xbox Live for a mere 400 MS points, or a little under £3.50 – an absolute steal which probably undervalues it – I’ve paid a lot more for a lot worse. Furthermore a portion of that goes to children’s charities via One Big Game Could this be the perfect game? Go buy it.

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All hail the arrival of the iPad …

I haven’t seen so many geeks so excited about a gadget for an eternity (myself included). The Internet has literally been oozing with desire, rumour and conjecture about the iSlate/iTablet – and now we know … it’s the iPad. Not since the very first sex toy was revealed have people wanted to glide their sweaty hands over a piece of erm functional technology so badly. Shame about the name. Still, this can’t be a review since I haven’t managed to get my hands on one (yet). So, what’s all the hype about?

Well... let's have a look. What are we waiting for?!

Let’s be honest. The iPad is a sexy beast. It’s everything we have come to love about Apple. They make user friendly, innovative, functional sexy shit that makes other companies panic and run around like headless chickens trying to emulate Apple. My instant gut reaction is that I want an iPad and I don’t even know why! Apple claims it’s “The best way to experience the web, email, photos, and video. Hands down.” Wow! I don’t know about that but did I mention it might be the sexiest way to do all those things? I’ve read the specs, I seen the video, I’ve marvelled at the design but … (there is always a but) the question is would I buy one? To be honest, It looks like a big iPod or iTouch and you can’t exactly call that a criticism. Some might say 9.56inches is big and be proud. I say, it’s small. Handy. A good size. And with a width of 7.47inches – it’s going to be small enough to cart around very easily. It’s a veritable pocket powerhouse promising extreme intuition for the user and features we’re already familiar with only better. My mum can use it. My Nan can use it. My dad can use it.

As the blurb says, it does everything you can do normally – only better. If I listen to my heart as it thuds ever so delicately in my chest, I’m already whipping out my credit card as I type (yes, that’s right, I can multitask). But if I listen to my head and stop to think, I don’t think I’d buy it. It didn’t blow my socks off quite as much as I thought it would. You could say that my expectations were too high but if you have an iTouch or an iPhone – why would you buy an iPad? If you want a bigger screen, more speed and an ability to play more games then I guess you might be tempted but it doesn't offer much more than the iPhone. And it is missing features. No camera (I double checked and still find it hard to believe it doesn’t have one) so no pics and no video conferencing. As a photographer, I was tempted to get one to dump my photographs on when I’m travelling and use it as a portable hard drive. Oh no, wait, it doesn’t have an SD card slot? Shoot. Never mind, I’ll use the USB port as a connection. What? There isn’t one? Hmmm. Of course, you could look at it the other way and say that, since it's just like the iPhone/iTouch, it's instantly usable by millions of people. A bit like Windows without the glitches *coughs* And the iBook feature which looks super amazing. That I am interested in.

Now Apple has a loyal army of hardcore followers that must have the latest Apple gizmo so I don't need to be psychic to know that this gadget will sell. But I’d rather wait for the new iPhone and get that instead. Or, if I really want one when I finally manage to caress one in a shop, I might wait till the 2nd or 3rd incarnation. Or, if the exchange rate works out in our (UK's) favour, I might still get one anyway and live a little - $500 for the basic iPad is around £350. *sigh* I'm normally so decisive.

Decisions, decisions. What should I do? Views? Opinions? Will you all be getting one?

Treehouse rating: N/A (For now)

Could be a chronic case of iron pyrites or golden Apples ...

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2009 we barely knew ye..

2009 was a great year for cool stuff, and now that we’re firmly into 2010, we can safely look back without anger, and assess our favourite moments of all the cool stuff, and work out which was coolest. Cool films, cool games, movers and shakers, all the best bits. Come on through to see my roundup of both stuff and things that went well in 2009, and a little look forward to 2010 too.

Best Film

It was a fantastic year for sci fi nerdy joy with an avalanche of hotly anticipated brilliance right throughout the seasons, from Watchmen to Star Trek to Avatar, but who could’ve predicted it would be a (relatively) low budget, deeply personal and political buddy movie that would see them all off? Yes, my sci fi movie of the year has to go to District 9. By turns hilarious, disturbing, thrilling and moving, District 9 is that rare gem of a movie where you expect little and come away with so much. Of all the movies released in 2009, with perhaps the exception of Avatar, District 9 is the one people will remember years from now as being an important milestone both in the genre and in the creation of a force to be reckoned with in 1st time director Neil Blomkamp.

Best Comedy Character

In the year of Hangovers and Brunos, laughs were generally pretty thin on the ground in 2009. Perhaps that’s why the movie that made me laugh more than any other came so far out of left field, being as it was Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds. Sure there was plenty of wincing too in this uber violent jew-ish-fulfillment vengeance wet dream, but punctuated with moments of such comic brilliance to make it stick out firmly in the mind. Brad Pitt's drawl. The pipe. The headbutt. Colonel Landa generally. In fact lets just make him best character of 2009 and be done.

GOTY

Best game is a tricky one as I spent most of 2009 playing Fallout 3 – technically a 2008 title, but one of such breadth and depth, it took me that long to get through it. Add in the expansion packs and cor blimey guvnor that’s more gaming than you can shake a Chinese officer’s sword at. But rules is rules, so for a strictly 2009 only GOTY, look no further than Batman Arkham Asylum. With a sublime mix of stealth and brawling, both masterfully implemented, never before have we felt so Batman-y. If God is in the details, Batman Arkham Asylum is a religious experience, the beautifully crafted asylum is choc full of delicious nods to Batman’s glorious comic book roots, with villains and in jokes under every flowerpot. Throw in some truly out-there set pieces, flawless voice acting and a combat system so tightly implemented, dropping into a room full of thugs and walking away moments later, the assailants soundly snoozing with broken limbs a-plenty, has never felt so rewarding.

Best TV moment

A fire burns in a ceremonial bowl. A young man silently weaves at a loom. Now he’s on a pristine beach, catching a fish and cooking it on a stone, before eating it from a banana leaf. Up trots another slightly shifty looking man, and they have a chat, an ongoing argument. The shifty man asks him if he realises how badly he wants to kill him. The man replies he does. “Always nice talking to you Jacob”, and as we pan back, we see the man sits in the shadow of the enormous Egyptian statue until now glimpsed only in the distance, and all those years ago, by Sayid as merely a foot. Yes its Lost, yes it’s still amazing, and yes it will all be over soon. What will we do without it? The reveal of Jacob, the mysterious secret keeper of the island as a simple island dwelling fisherman at the start of the season finale was typically brilliant Lost. It told us so much, and yet so little. The later reveal about who a certain character wasn’t what we thought either was equally thrilling. Where do we go from here?

Biggest Tearjerker

Aside from the moment in Avatar when Jake flies for the first time (oh wow!), there was only one other movie moment in 2009 that jerked my ducts, and that was UP. In a sequence of unprecedented genius (actually, Pixar have a long history of genius so perhaps not totally unprecedented) we see our youthful protagonists grow up and grow old together, and heart breakingly, one of them pass away, all in the space of a 3 minute sequence in the first act of the film. We don't know these characters well yet, having only been introduced to them moments earlier, and yet the sequence is so powerfully moving, people in the cinema were openly blubbering, and we suddenly fully understand a character for the entire rest of the movie, who would otherwise have been rather unlikeable. It's testament to Pixar's brilliance that they would even consider putting such a sequence in a film like UP in the way that they did, but to get it so right, so emotionally spot on, is just mind blowing.

Best news for real Doctor Who fans

Ok, so I know I'm kind of in the minority here, but I for one am very pleased to finally see the back of Tennant and his leash holding idiot savant ego maniac scribbler Russel T Davies. Yes Davies re booted the Doctor, yes without him we wouldn't have had the success that was Eccleston and the handful of good episodes turned in since his departure, but he has also subjected us to some of the biggest stinkers. He single-handedly destroyed the Master, reduced from a hirsute arch nemesis to a blathering bin-man mug. His plots revolved around whatever zeitgeisty dross he had happened to read about in the Metro the day before, thank Christ Tennant to his credit had the good sense to veto the "Harry Potter" episode, where magic became real and guest starring JK Rowling. Jesus. And the Doctor meanwhile turned into the trendy geography teacher who always knew what was going on, never had a worry, and had 2 expressions - smug or wide eyed. His finale was a typically painful affair, spewed from Davies' backside and loaded with nonsensical drivel as everyone wondered what Timothy Dalton was thinking, the climax of which saw Tennat simpering, " I don't want to go..". On that pay I bet you didn't, now piss off. Early indications for 2010 are rosy, new boy Matt Smith under real writer Steven Moffat looks a good fit, although his penchant for shouting Geronimo is a littlle worrying. Watch this space..

Best game featuring a turntable based peripheral

Perhaps surprisingly the winner for me in this heavily populated gaming genre is Freestyle Games' DJ Hero. With a solid deck in the box, a set list of such quality I need to get it on my Ipod, and game play so intense there will be whole generations of wannabe DJ's with massive right arms and an affinity for flickering colourful patterns. A true innovation that is a start to what I hope will be a massively successful series, the joy of decks is alive and well. DJ battles over Xbox live prove a hit and miss affair - poor losers are prone to ditching when the tunes not going their way, but when it works, its a blast. Pure toe tapping, carpal tunnel inducing goodness.

Best phone that wasn't an I-phone

Slightly biased as I didn't do a whole lot of exhaustive testing, but the winner here is, my new phone, the HTC Hero phone. Its a lovely bit of kit, but I mention it here because of its awesomeness in the pocket gaming arena. Thanks to a healthy homebrew community, the android phone can play existing collections of roms for all of your old favourites from the Nes, Megadrive, Super Nes, master system and more. Duckhunt is now a regular fixture on mine, yes it supports the lightgun games. The caveat for the freedom of distribution is you must own any rom you download, otherwise its just bare-faced piracy. Luckily my games collection is extensive, but now they come with me in my pocket..

So that was 2009, but what of 2010?? Well, there's plenty afoot , but for now, lets just make do with..

Most hotly anticipated film of 2010

The only film on my radar, obliterating all others, is this remarkable looking monster from Christopher Nolan. What. Is. This? Not since the Matrix has there apparently been a film of such broad vision that we knew so little about. One of those rare cinematic experiences where you cannot know what you are going to see, you have to see it for yourself.



Most hotly anticipated game of 2010

With a solid 11 months til the appearance of Natal, I’ll have to come up with something else to look forward to in the meantime. There are a few things that spring to mind, most of them sequels disturbingly, all though 2009’s finest were mostly sequels too come to think of it. So there’s Mass Effect 2, Battlefield BC 2, Bioshock 2 lets hear it for the 2’s! Also Heavy Rain will finally fall, and I am very interested to see how that turns out, will it be the catalyst to the final PS3 purchase? No I'm still pretty sure the Last Guardian will see to that, and that remains one of my most eagerly anticipated games ever. But as we’ve covered it elsewhere, lets pick something new.. hrmm, ok, how about Metro 2033. From a team composed largely of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R crew, and set in the crumbling metro/bomb shelter under Moscow, this ruskie apocalypse game is set to be right up my proverbial. That said, I will miss the open fields and the melancholy trees of Stalker-ville, so maybe I should just opt for the imminent S.T.A.L.K.E.R instalment, call of Pripyat. Means I’ll need to upgrade my rig though, damn..




There's plenty more to look forward to of course, but what are you hoping to get out of 2010? Tell me now!

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