Review Category: Reviews

DESPERADOS III

DEVELOPER: THQ NORDIC / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Classed as a ‘real-time tactics’ game, this genre, forgotten to time, is truthfully more of a puzzle game than a strategy game. It’s a genre that was really made famous by the Commandos games back in the late ‘90s, with the Desperados series taking it to a western setting and adding some much needed story elements. The gameplay is in some ways similar to Hitman, but you instead control multiple characters, and have far less freedom of how to achieve your goal. Each character has a specific set of skills such as sniping, ability to climb, as well as few more ‘out there’ skills later on in the game. Using a combination of these skills, you must take down the enemies, most commonly in a covert fashion, and progress past them to get to your objective.

Although it is level-based, the game does an excellent job of hiding that, utilising multiple levels to feel like one huge area, seamlessly moving you onto the next one once your task is complete.

The gameplay generally encourages trial and error, as you get a big timer at the top of the screen constantly reminding you how long it has been since your last save. You are expected to make mistakes, die a lot, and repeat challenges over and over until you figure out exactly how best to accomplish your task. The most interesting feature is the ability to pause the gameplay, and plot out multiple moves across numerous characters, and then hitting execute, watching as your vision comes to life. If it works, you’ll feel a sense a pride in your puzzle solving skills, and satisfaction watching multiple enemies get taken out in perfect stealth co-ordination.

If you were and still are a big fan of the first games, then you will no doubt enjoy what’s clearly the best game in the series. If, however, you’ve never played them, or haven’t in a couple of decades, maybe revisit them first and see if this niche genre still has a place in your life in 2020.

COME AGAIN

AUTHOR: ROBERT WEBB / PUBLISHER: CANONGATE/ RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Kate Marsden met her future husband Luke when they were both teenagers at university in York and they were together for twenty-eight years. But Luke has recently died, struck down by an undetected tumour lurking in his brain. Kate, now a tired forty-five-year-old, is devastated, rattling around the disintegrating Clapham home she shared with Luke, knocking back booze, ignoring offers of help from her friends, unable to see the point in going on. She has some damning visual evidence that will incriminate her insufferably smug boss with the unsavoury activities of a notorious Russian gangster but she can’t decide what to do with it. She goes to bed one afternoon, determined to take an overdose when she’s slept off her hangover. But when she wakes up, she’s suddenly eighteen again, back at York on the day she arrived at university but with all her knowledge of her adult life still in her head… and armed with information that could save her future/late husband’s life if he only she can somehow make his nineteen-year-old self listen…

Comedy actor Robert Webb follows up his refreshingly raw autobiography How to Be a Boy with his first novel and it’s a dazzler. The central conceit is clever and concise and commendably vague – is Kate a time-traveller and if so, how has she done it? Or has her mind conjured up an elaborate fantasy in an effort to help her come to terms with her grief? Webb keeps us guessing right the way through his bold, witty, confident novel, populated by richly-drawn, believably realised characters in two very different worlds and his depiction of university life in the early 1990s – the fumbling awkwardness of new friendships, the shabby bars and sticky discos – is achingly accurate and clearly hewn from personal experience. Kate is an unflinchingly-raw figure, outspoken and single-minded, riven by grief and desperate to seize this extraordinary opportunity to change the course not only of her late husband’s life but also her own. Her uni friends are a colourful, extravagant bunch, vividly drawn and instantly recognisable to anyone who has spent time at one of our esteemed higher seats of learning.

Come Again (the title is inspired by a Philip Larkin poem) is a tightly-plotted page turner, an immaculate character study that makes an unexpected gearshift into action/adventure territory in its final section – a tonal about-face that some might find a bit jarring, admittedly – that sometimes threatens to upend the entire narrative but actually enables Webb to pull the threads of his story and his characters together in one final spectacular coup de grâce and to deliver an ending that is perfect in its imperfection. Come Again is written with real wit and insight and an innate sense of how to put together a clever, imaginative and innately human story of life, love and grief and little miracles. More please, Mr Webb.

LEGENDS OF TOMORROW – SEASON 5

REVIEWED: SEASON 5 (ALL EPISODES) | WHERE TO WATCH: NOWTV, SKY GO

Since its second season embraced the silliness of the show’s concept – a bunch of B-list superheroes and supervillains are recruited to keep the timestream free of anomalies – Legends of Tomorrow has become the shining star of The CW’s DC Comics-influenced Arrowverse. Taking a ridiculous, almost meta approach to the science fiction and fantasy aspects of the show, the crew of the Waverider have defeated sorcerors, demons, and, well, mostly sorcerors and demons with the use of giant plush toys and song and dance routines, returning the world to as near to normal as things get in the Arrowverse.

Following on from a Season 4 which saw fight a war against the demon Neron, the Legends return to Hell in Season 5, trying to send back a succession of ‘encores’ – history’s worst monsters given new life on Earth by John Constantine’s biggest regret, Astra. Consigned to Hell as a child after a misguided attempt by Constantine to bring back her dead mother, Astra has plotted her revenge and will let nothing stand in the way of claiming Constantine’s soul. Unfortunately for her, the Legends have grown quite fond of the magician, and they’re not giving him up so easily. As if that wasn’t enough, the team have to deal with Zari, but not the Zari who was on the team before being overwritten by her dead brother Behrad at the end of Season 4; this is a different, self-centered Zari, who may also hold the secret to bringing back the original one! As if that weren’t complicated enough, Charlie is revealed to be one of the Fates of Greek legend, and she suspects her sisters are trying to get the band back together and restore the loom of fate, with dire consequences for free will!

It all sounds absurd – and, quite honestly, it is – but showrunners Phil Klemmer and Shito Kimizu manage to keep a tight rein on the outrageous concept, and still leave room for plenty of interplay between the cast members, with Mick finding out he has a daughter, Ray and Nora trying to have a normal relationship in the most abnormal of circumstances, and Sarah dealing with the loss of one of her closest friends as the season kicks off. This is soap opera in the best way, with an experienced cast and crew knowing exactly what they’re doing, and doing it ridiculously.

Unlike some of the other Arrowverse shows, Legends wasn’t affected by the Coronavirus, and got to end its season as planned, with a hint of what’s to come in 2021 in the finale’s closing moments. They may need a few new recruits, too, as four (and a half) Legends say their farewells during Season 5, but if there’s one thing this show has always done well, it’s make new characters feel as though they’ve always been a part of the team.

Legends of Tomorrow knows what it is – it’s trash TV – but there’s nothing wrong with trash TV when it’s done as well as they do it here; there’s very little that will stay with you in the manner of recent superhero shows like Watchmen or Doom Patrol but sometimes a little disposable fun is all that you need.

HUNTER’S MOON

CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: MICHAEL CAISSIE / STARRING: KATRINA BOWDEN, JAY MOHR, WILL CARLSON, SPENCER DANIELS / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 24TH

Thanks to the ready availability of cheap and affordable drones, it seems that every low-budget horror film now begins with a tracking shot of the terrain where the film will take place. While this could be seen as homages to the opening to classic genre pictures such as The Shining or Candyman, the result is more akin to padding the movie with two to three minutes of footage, allowing the film to more readily reach feature length due to a script whose plot would otherwise barely stretch to fill the necessary running time.

That summary, in a nutshell, is writer/director Michael Caissie’s new film, Hunter’s Moon. While the story is an ambitious one – beginning as a monster movie, switching to a haunted house picture, then to a home invasion film, and concluding by returning to the monster movie theme – the actual movie itself plays out as though everyone onscreen, save one actor, is barely tolerating working on it.

To briefly summarise, Hunter’s Moon tells the story of the Delaney family, who move into a home out in the country for reasons which are hinted at early on, but never explicitly addressed until the film’s conclusion. The home was the location of a serial killer (played in a thankless cameo by Sean Patrick Flannery), who was killed under mysterious circumstances himself, thus allowing the family to snag it for cheap. When the parents leave shortly after moving in to go on a business trip, some local criminals who’ve decided to rob it make friends with the three daughters left behind, only to be stalked by something mysterious which comes out of the surrounding orchard.

It sounds amazing, but the performances are astonishingly unbelievable from the get-go. As Delaney patriarch Thomas, actor Jay Mohr is so subdued as to be nearly unconscious, with a delivery that seems as though he’s channeling a very stoned Christopher Walken. Two of the three teenage daughters – Wendy (Emmalee Parker) and Lisa (India Ennenga) – are so thinly written as to be nonexistent, and Juliet is played by Katrina Bowden. She displays some minor energy, but given that the actress is 30 years old, her portrayal of a teenager seems as though it might be some sort of joke, although the movie never appears to be self-aware enough to make that kind of gag work.

It’s not until the sheriff, played by Thomas Jane, arrives that Hunter’s Moon manages any sort of actual energy or verve. Aside from the scenes with Jane, the film merely goes through the motions, steadily plodding from plot point to plot point, as if the cast and crew were just as weary of the film’s paper-thin story as those who watch it. Happily, Jane seems to relish the chance to use an accent, gleefully delivering everything with scenery-chewing joy.

When the film finally wraps up, there’s a discussion among the remaining characters wherein they engage in a Hercule Poirot-style summary of the film that just took place, explaining everything that preceded it. It’s not as though Agatha Christie is demonstrating how cleverly certain plot points were clues to where Hunter’s Moon ends, but rather the opposite, in that the film so thoroughly fails to clue the viewer in on what’s actually happening that it has to be retconned in order to make any sense whatsoever.

Neither bad enough to warrant popcorn-throwing mockery, nor clever enough to overcome its many flaws, Hunter’s Moon is merely soporific, and the time spent watching it would be better put toward just taking a nap.

NAILBITER RETURNS

FORMAT: SINGLE ISSUE + DIGITAL (REVIEWED) | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

After 30 issues and a fairly definitive end, one would be forgiven for thinking we’d seen the last of Charles Warren and Nailbiter. But you can’t keep a good slasher – sorry, butcher – down, and Nailbiter returns in Image Comics’ Nailbiter Returns. On the basis of this first issue, the town of Buckaroo is in fine form.

Creators Joshua Williamson and Mike Henderson certainly are too, and Issue #1 is as gripping as the series has ever been. Serial killer Edward Warren and cop Sharon Crane are missing and, judging by the blood all over Sharon’s bathroom floor, the outlook isn’t good (see #30). This first issue follows daughter and Buckaroo survivor Alice as she seeks the help of Agent Finch in finding her mom. The gang’s back together and, with a neat plot twist, this sequel bursts out of the gate with a fresh mystery and angle. It’s a gripping start, and Henderson’s artwork has never been better; especially during the grotesque opening sequence, featuring a mystery victim getting their eyes burned out with acid. The writing, too, shows growth, particularly in its characterisation of Alice and Finch. This is more than just picking up where Nailbiter left off – it feels like a sequel, and its own story. If you haven’t already read those original books, pick them up right now – Nailbiter is one of the greatest horror comics we’ve ever read.

After the horrifying twists and turns of the original, one would be foolish to expect its sequel to give much away at this stage. But it’s good to be back in Buckaroo and in the company of old friends again. Which is an odd thing to say about a comic book like Nailbiter Returns – an amped up, ridiculous Hannibal meets Twin Peaks – but here we are. Welcome back.

THE JOKER 80TH ANNIVERSARY 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR

FORMAT: SINGLE ISSUE, DIGITAL (REVIEWED) | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

The Joker is the greatest of Batman’s enemies. The most iconic, the most twisted, most beloved and most overused of Batman’s enemies. 80 years since his debut, the Joker now stands almost independent from his nemesis – the most iconic comic book villain of all time. For the Clown Prince of Crime’s birthday, we get this collection of stories – love letters from such luminaries as Scott Snyder, Brian Azzarello, Dennis O’ Neil, and Paul Dini. Joker fans are in for a treat, but specifically those who enjoy his nastier, darker modern antics. Opening with a grisly horror story by Scott Snyder and Jock, the tone is set early.

Things don’t lighten up much from there, and nor do they get better. It’s the same punchline, over and over again, with little variation or insight into the character himself. With eight decades-worth of history, Joker has had almost as many (if not more) personalities and reinventions than Batman himself – it’s a shame this should be so focused on his modern iteration as a terrifying, unstoppable monster, and genius. What, no love for the Laughing Fish guy? The sole exception is Denny O’ Neil and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez’s Introducing the Dove Corps, which is lighter in tone and a bit sillier. It’s a fun return to a more old-school Joker, but sadly not one of O’ Neil’s better works. Better this than What Comes After a Joke? though, which introduces Mr. J’s new sidekick, Punchline. Mad Love it ain’t.

This collection looks good and does contain a handful of gems (particularly Tom Taylor and Eduardo Risso’s Birthday Bugs), but it’s a repetitive and forgettable book with little to say beyond cheap shocks and scares. Super-Spectacular is so edgy readers should be careful not to cut themselves on its (100) pages. Why so serious?

THE VAST OF NIGHT

CERT: 15 | PLATFORM: AMAZON PRIME VIDEO | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Attracting rave advance notices thanks to screenings at a number of high profile film festivals last year, Andrew Patterson’s low-fi, low-budget old school sci-fi thriller The Vast of Night finally arrives on Amazon Prime. It might not be quite as good as its champions have been suggesting but it’s hugely entertaining, wonderfully evocative, and a welcome throwback to the early days of sci-fi cinema, reminding us of that sense of creeping fear, paranoia and general unease that permeated classics like Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, The Thing from Another World, and The Day The Earth Stood Still.

Framed as an episode of a fictional Twilight Zone-like anthology series entitled Paradox Theatre, The Vast of Night takes place over a single night in the 1950s in the small New Mexico town of Cayuga. Everett (Jake Horowitz) is a DJ at a local radio station, Fay (Sierra McCormick) operates the switchboard. With everyone else attending a high school basketball game, Fay picks up a strange signal through the switchboard. She plays it to Everett who is broadcasting on the radio. Neither of them can identify the sound so he throws it open to his listeners and invites calls from anyone who might be able to cast some light on its provenance. As luck would have it the first call he receives is from someone who is very familiar with the sound. He’s heard it before, years ago. He knows what it means and he knows what’s coming…

Self-financed by Patterson with a budget significantly under a million dollars, The Vast of Night is a triumph of raw, lean filmmaking. This is a film that just drips atmosphere and tension. Opening with an extraordinary tracking shot that follows Everett and Kay around the bustling gymnasium, out into the deserted streets, and finally into their separate workplaces – the dialogue is dense, scattergun, and frequently hard to keep up with – the film finds its groove as it settles down and starts to explore the mystery that is its beating heart.

A charming love letter to low-budget genre filmmaking, The Vast of Night puts character and plot above spectacle (although it doesn’t skimp in delivering one key money shot) and, as we twiddle our thumbs waiting for our usual diet of summer blockbusters to come racing out of global lockdown, it’s a timely reminder that sometimes the simplest ideas and the tiniest budgets can create something very special and hugely enjoyable.

THE BOYS: DEAR BECKY #1

FORMAT: SINGLE ISSUE + DIGITAL (REVIEWED) | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Buoyed by the success of the television adaptation of his hit comic book series, Garth Ennis returns to the world of Wee Hughie and his off-brand capes for this half-sequel, half-prequel story. Dear Becky #1 picks up twelve years after the events of The Boys. An older, more cynical Wee Hughie is back in Scotland, soon to be married. The relative stability of his post-Boys life comes crashing down with a blast from the past courtesy of Billy Butcher, in the form of a letter from the big man himself, hidden inside his late wife’s diary. To get to that, however, readers must first sit through almost ten pages of the worst impulses of Garth Ennis.

The Boys was always among the least subtle of Garth Ennis’s work, a book in which his gross-out humour and cynicism was allowed to run rampant, overshadowing whatever smarts it did have. The TV show did a good job of dialling this back, focusing instead on brutal action and satire. Dear Becky is a reminder that, for better or worse, The Boys belongs to Garth Ennis. And so, before we get to its amusing but unsettling Shazam! takedown, readers are treated to nine pages of Garth Ennis’s views (via Wee Hughie) on everything from gender to Brexit and even the Coronavirus, including multiple uses of the word ‘woke’, transphobic slurs, and a character stereotype straight out of Little Britain. This is (mostly) well-intentioned but rambling nonsense, and only Ennis’s masterful writing of pub conversation and salty banter between chums makes this any different from one of your dad’s ranty Facebook posts.

As of Issue #1, Dear Becky is more of the same. Even the art, by Russ Braun, is near identical to that of original series artist and co-creator Darick Robertson. Fans of The Boys at its The Boys-iest will find plenty to enjoy here, while others will be turned off by its immaturity and bad-taste diatribes. Business as usual, then. The Boys are back in town and, with them, Garth Ennis, at peak edgelord Garth Ennis.

BIRDS OF PREY

FORMAT: SINGLE ISSUE + DIGITAL (REVIEWED) | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before… split up with and independent from the Joker, Harley Quinn takes to the streets of Gotham, teaming up with vigilantes Huntress, Black Canary, and cop Renee Montoya to bring down a gang of violent, vengeful criminals. Following in the footsteps of last year’s Harley Quinn spin-off Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of… no, still a stupid title, not writing that), Brian Azzarello brings the Birds of Prey to DC Black Label. Having created some of the darkest, grittiest Batman stories ever told, Azzarello is a great comic book writer – but is he the right person for a Birds of Prey book?

Off the bat (heh), this is a lighter, fluffier story than readers might be used to from Azzarello, similar in tone to Cathy Yan’s film. It’s also one of the least try-hard Black Label books, and feels more like the DC Universe proper than any of the other Joker/Harley-centric comics out there. At 100 pages, Birds of Prey feels truncated, and Azzarello is forced to squish a lot of story into relatively little space. This, to the detriment of the book’s villains – a gang of boring cartel stereotypes with no personality or dimension. The book’s stars are given more to work with, but it’s all surface-level, without much to say. Those hoping for more of a dive into the Birds of Prey’s personalities may be disappointed… nope, it’s just Harley Quinn, taking the spotlight again.

The book’s biggest success is in the artwork by Emanuela Lupacchino and Ray McCarthy, whose action is slick and cinematic, and does a great job in creating a blend of both movie and comic book universes. This is essentially just a rehash of the film, created to entice fans into picking up a comic book – but it’s a very good-looking one. Birds of Prey is a gorgeous, fun action romp, but doesn’t do much to challenge its characters or writer. Movie fans looking for a quick fix are in for a treat, but otherwise, this book is disappointingly superficial.

AERONAUTICA IMPERIALIS: FLIGHT COMMAND

AERONAUTICA IMPERIALIS: FLIGHT COMMAND / DEVELOPER: BINARY PLANETS / PUBLISHER: GREEN MAN GAMING / PLATFORM: PC / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Let’s be honest – there are a lot of videogames out there with the Warhammer 40,000 logo slapped onto them. The sci-fi franchise’s slogan declares that there is “Only War,” and that makes it a prime target for violent games of any type. Aeronautica Imperialis: Flight Command is a videogame adaptation of one of the less well-known Warhammer board games, namely Aeronautica Imperialis. It’s an air-combat game; Top Gun style pilots in high-tech planes versus crude but powerful alien aircraft.

Gameplay-wise, this is very close in design to the actual board game. You’re moving your fighters in a proscribed way across the sky. You select your moves and then the results of those orders play out. Weapon fire is automatic, unless you de-select weapons as part of your order (though weapons only go off when enemies are in range). Some moves will stress the pilot out (such very tight turns or sharp descents), limiting the orders you can make next turn. The game doesn’t provide a dice-rolling graphic but it certainly feels that way. Orks and humans are playable and there are tactical differences with both, meaning that tactics for one won’t work for the other.

The graphics are okay, and this means the game will run on most PC builds. The game itself is smooth and runs well and it feels like functionality has come at the cost of making the game pretty. That said, the aircraft look like more realistic versions of the models from the board game and the background scenery is fine. Yes, the game could be prettier but it really doesn’t need that; what it delivers instead are the results of your plotting and planning very quickly, which is much more interesting. This makes it a pitch-perfect Warhammer experience.

Aeronautica Imperialis: Flight Command is good because the board game it’s based on is thrilling. The same plotting and pondering over your next move from the table-top game is here; you’re constantly second-guessing your opponent, trying to out-think and out-fly them. The world is atmospheric but there’s not much of a plot; this is a shooting things and thinking game rather than a story, which is a pity because Warhammer 40,000 novels like Double Eagle really paint a cool picture of life as a pilot in this world.

Overall, this is a fun game and should come into its own in multiplayer mode. It’s not a grim dark flight-sim, but it is quite an entertaining challenge.