In another video where I run away out of the house, I ended up standing like a numpty in King’s Cross Station on the 13th of October, just after trying out for the first time the new swanky Playstation Vr thingy that Sony wants us all to drop serious cash onto. Turns out they also had the PS4 Pro being demoed too, with some actual games, so there was chance to meh out on that thing too;
NOTE: Yes I put the wrong year for when this was recorded in and only noticed way after the fact. It was 2016 and not 2017! Anyway, enjoy campers!
Everybody, after three. One, two, three: BATMAN, dun dun dunnah, BATMAN….
I am astonished.
Really I am.
It’s not a joke.
How did Warner Bros actually do this? To recreate in essence, an extended version of the 60s version of Batman, with terribly corny dialogue, insane premises and in jokes about itself with some of the original voice cast in animated form? A Batman film which at only 80 minutes, surely should have been about as entertaining as scratching your arse with a cheese grater?
In a world where we apparently want gritter, more adult versions of things we were used to years ago, remarkably I found myself in a special screening of what has unbelievably has been the best Batman film of the year that I’ve seen so far! Granted the slating of Batman Vs Superman would have lent itself to mean that even playing with belly button fluff would have been better at the time.
It just baffles the mind of how this project got greenlit and basically it seems come out of nowhere.
We have the original Batman, Robin and one of the Catwomen, who let’s be fair, are getting on a fair bit. A much more meagre budget than the aforementioned mega-head-f**k of Batman Vs Superman, which as a result, it seems everything got outsourced to China judging from the end credits. But with frankly an excellent writing team, excellent music and it seems some real love in the project, they managed to produce something which was much much better. Continue reading →
Well it was that time of year again campers where I wandered around the halls of the NEC in Birmingham to look at what’s upcoming in the gaming world to lose even more of my precious life too, only to regret the time wasted on my death bed! But for the very first time, I produced a badly edited together video of highlights from the show about what I tried and what I thought about various things, which you can see below;
But that wasn’t all, there was a few games which I managed to try after the recording of the video, which I would love to share some thoughts with you all now;
Sonic Mania
To make another game like this, seems to take Sega ages…..
Right after making the EGX video, a spot opened up for playing one of the two Sonic the Hedgehog games due for release in 2017. Sonic Mania is the attempt to rekindle the time when Sonic could do no wrong, and those were the days on the Mega Drive back in the 90s.
The graphics hark back to the 16-bit days and the music certainly sets the tone too. This demo had two levels featured, a revamped Green Hill Zone and a new zone which seems to take further the Casino Nights levels from previous Sonic games and instead make them akin to a TV / movie studio. In essence, this game plays incredibly well! To the point of wanting Sega to shut up and take my money now!
The fast pace of the movement, the level design, the music, the bosses too, they all come from people who loved the previous Sonic 2D games and wanted to create something new, but familiar. There was no slowdown, and the controls with the Xbox One controller were just fine. Everything quickly made sense, and this is certainly one to visit next year if you can. Whether or not the 3D Sonic game will be in the same position, remains to be seen. Continue reading →
I’m not a number, I’m a free man….. who apparently has never used a computer before in this film.
This is a rather strange situation to be in. I saw this along with countless others free thanks to ShowFilmFirst at the beginning of October, and yet it’s taken me all this time to actually want to sit down and write the mini meh about it to begin with. There’s a bloody good reason; this is one deeply depressing film. It’s also probably the reason why there were so many free screenings of I, Daniel Blake all around the UK not too long ago, as who the hell would have watched this otherwise? This certainly won’t go down well in the rest of the world either.
The director, Ken Loach and writer Paul Laverty seem to have gone out of their way to highlight a real problem in the UK at present (as if there weren’t enough with the impending clusterf**k that the actual Brexit Process will bring, basically just judging from the MPs’ babbling meh or how much the Pound has tanked). The problem is how people who actually needs help from the government are treated badly and in essence, viewed as third class citizens.
And so the story is set for us to have a gander at one Mr. Daniel Blake, played by Dave Johns. He’s a 59-year-old joiner in the North-East of England who basically had a heart attack and has been informed that he can’t go back to work any time soon by his doctor. Off our lovely Daniel goes to the jobcentre, asking for sickness benefits. Continue reading →
For this next film, there was an air of uncertainty on the choice as I wandered through the empty cinema, clutching my newly acquired ticket. After all, the film stems from people who worked on the previous effort from New Zealand, What we do in the Shadows. When I catched the film on Netflix some time after release, I could see where there were some amusing situations, and the set up for it wasn’t too bad but a lot of it was just not my cup of tea. Sadly I barely remembered what happens to be honest aside from something with beans at some point. So in many ways, expectations were set lower before heading in.
Just as I was heading for the entrance of the screen, a ton of people were just leaving another screening. That screening of course was of the latest chick flick type thingy, Bridget Jones’ Baby. The crowd themselves were an onslaught of hip and happening women, who also dragged their boyfriends along. You could have just played “Here Come the Girls” as they walked out, where it then turns out to be an advert for sanitary towels from Boots and then you’d have the idea of what it looked like to me.
Wandering into screen 1, I was greeted with the presence of only four other people, who basically also didn’t want to see Renee Zellweger destroy the English accent again. I instantly knew I had made the right choice here. Continue reading →
Last week, I went to Birmingham to attend day one of the EGX Expo at the NEC, but seeing as I had some time as well to kill, just before breakfast on the Friday morning, I decided to wander over to the canal and record a new Not My Front Room video blog while walking around the place.
Looking back at the footage, it appears I also forgot to wipe my nose which of course if what everyone wants to see. This was not the only video to be recorded last week, and a video log of EGX will be uploaded soon, along with some writing about some games I managed to play during the day. For now, enjoy the below!
In the news today, there was an almighty tussle on stage in New York State, where Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton first went head to head during a presidential debate, broadcast to around 100 million people. The outcome was staggering, with many onlookers still nowhere near deciding who is the least bad option.
But we’re not going to care about that.
Nah, it’s much better to remark on something we truly don’t care about. The world of sport! You see, in the world of ball foot, this happened;
Yes, another England manager bit the dust due to being caught out for lies, treachery and bad impressions, which means that the FA is on the lookout again for yet another soon to be ex-employee. Seems Sam Allardyce should be more careful in future when attempting to be corrupt. Not to worry, he will find his feet at the local McDonalds drive-thru soon enough.
But hang on a moment. Maybe this is an opportunity. Well, given how much they seem to pay and I have zero experience, why not me? So below, is my video job application for the England Manager job. Which I tweeted to the FA. I really did. Well they never did leave any address to post the CV to…..
It’s been a while since we last went to the cinema to check out another opus from Hollywoodland, and this time, we’re going off the beaten path to look at a film that got its premiere at this year’s Sundance Festival and on the face of it from the trailer, just looked as if it had award bait written all over it. Directed by Ira Sachs, who has never come up on the radar before at all, and therefore I wasn’t sure what to expect either.
However, rather than be about men with small penises which the arts world would cry over, Little Men actually is about two boys, played by Theo Taplitz as Jake Jardine and Michael Barbieri as Tony Calvelli. it’s the first time seeing them on screen, and I couldn’t help but think that half the time, Theo Taplitz looked like the chap with the broken legs from Game of Thrones.
Anyway, the two likely lads became best friends when a death of Greg Kinnear’s father brings two families together, as one family takes ownership of a shop the other’s mother (played by Paulina Garcia) does business in. In essence, this film is about something which could happen in real life and how what happens gets dealt with along with the meh of going to school and pretending to give a s*it about other people in and out of the classroom. Even to the point of getting into a fight when someone thinks your best friend is gay. School and the people in it even as years have gone by, are still a**holes.
The two boys get on like a house on fire, despite clear differences in their attitudes on life and behaviour. But as mentioned, slowly we see life get in the way, as basically Greg Kinnear (playing Brian Jardine whose father passed away) and his sister find they need cash and therefore have to charge three times as much rent for the store as before. This causes Paulina to get hostile and basically make personal attacks at Greg, until finally notice is served for her to leave. Continue reading →
It’s been a couple of weeks since last Ooh Sometimes got updated again, so in the meantime you lucky blog readers can catch up again with the latest couple of weeks worth of “Not My Front Room”, the weekly-ish video blog series I recently started where I’m somewhere other than my front room, remarking on my surroundings before going back to what’s new and hip from the past week.
This week’s Not My Front Room came from a tree stump on Shepherds Bush Green, where in between waiting for PC parts to be tested and drinking a coffee from the great tax avoiders known as Starbucks, I decided to waffle on about how I was getting on and also what games I had been playing. Enjoy!
