Author: David Hogan

Doctor Who: Alternating Current Review

David HoganLeave a comment

Day two of the Multi-Doctor catch up marathon and it’s another Tenth / Thirteenth Doctor crossover, and weirdly it follows on from the last one from the perspective of Doctor 13 but the Tenth she encounters is from a different point in his timeline, so we get a repeat of the earlier Doctor meeting 13 for the first time from his perspective scene (due to the whole earlier incarnations not remembering multi-Doctor stories thing) Ah well, either way it’s another quick four-issue jaunt though this time its more heavily connected to an actual Thirteenth Doctor TV story rather than a Tenth, so that’s … something! Let’s take a look…

Continue reading →

Doctor Who: A Little Help From My Friends Review

David HoganLeave a comment

It’s time to kick off this multi-Doctor catch up marathon with a bunch of Titan comics due to going in reverse release order and Titan just having a thing with multi-Doctor stories, including two different 10th / 13th crossovers that partially lead into an 8th / 11th one, so for the sake of a better flow I’ll review these in story order rather than release order. “A Little Help From My Friends” is a rather amusing title given it was basically “the Thirteenth Doctor comics aren’t selling well so let’s stick the most popular Doctor in with her”. Is the story better with a little help from her past self? Not really, no. They even threw in the Weeping Angels AND the Autons and yet it still isn’t terribly engaging. Let’s take a look anyway!

Continue reading →

Doctor Who: Once and Future – The Union Review

David HoganLeave a comment

So as to not spam two Doctor Who reviews in one day let’s take a look at the last (until next year…) entry of the Once and Future storyline before my daily Multi-Doctor story marathon kicks off tomorrow. Thankfully “The Union” was a really enjoyable story with some fun cameos and twists, to the point where I can’t help but think adding on a second hour with similar themes to the other Once and Future releases leading into this and just releasing it stand-alone would’ve been much better than the mostly weak monthly releases we’ve had, but ah well… let’s take a look!

Continue reading →

Doctor Who Multi-Doctor Catch Up Marathon Starts Tomorrow!

David HoganLeave a comment

It’s time for one of those rare (nowadays) marathons on this blog, this time counting down to the Doctor Who 60th Anniversary on November 23rd, where I’ll be putting up a list trying to rank all the Multi-Doctor stories, and much like when I did that with the Christmas stories a few years ago I’ll be reviewing all the Multi-Doctor stories I’ve yet to review on the site in the run up so the list can have review links on all the entries, rather than just the ones that I’ve happened to review over the last few years.

For the record I class a Multi-Doctor story as having to have at least two different incarnations of The Doctor in it (even if one or more of them are just mental images or digital constructs) and they have to actually communicate with each other in some way, even if only briefly. I’ll also be reviewing them in reverse release order as otherwise I’d start with classics like The Three Doctors and The Five Doctors and end with a rather flat run of Titan Comics stories.

They’ll be going up every day at 8:00am BST just like this announcement, that way I should have enough time to make sure everything is updated before I head to work most days, and if a regular review ends up going up it still can in the more common times of the day I tend to do those things without throwing multiple reviews at you at the same time…

See you tomorrow for the start of the aforementioned flat run of Titan comics! … Yay?

Castlevania: Nocturne – Season 1 Review

David HoganLeave a comment

The eagerly anticipated follow up to Netflix’s unexpectedly good Castlevania cartoon (or “adult animation” for those who are for some reason embarrassed by that term, though written by Americans and animated in Texas means it’s not an anime!) Castlevania: Nocturne sees lightly adapted bits of game lore sprinkled in amongst an original story set in revolutionary France. Now lacking the sometimes comically bad dialogue found in the original series but still occasionally trying to emulate the “banter” Nocturne does a lot of things right, especially the animation quality, but it’s not perfect. Let’s take a look!

Continue reading →

Doctor Who: Intelligence for War Review

David HoganLeave a comment

A seven-part full cast audio drama set during Season 7?! The crew at Big Finish would have to work pretty hard for me not to like this one and thankfully they delivered a really good story regardless. Fits the criterial of being entirely Earth based and having a cast of mainly human characters or human-looking characters even though budget obviously isn’t an issue here plus threw in plenty of fun twists and turns. Let’s take a deeper look!

Continue reading →

Star Wars: The High Republic – Tales of Light and Life Review

David HoganLeave a comment

Tales of Light and Life is a collection of short stories set both during Phase 2 and just before Phase 3, making this sort of an epilogue and a prologue at the same time, and like all short story collections there are some good ones and some bad ones, as well as some really quite pointless middling ones. Still though, I love me some High Republic so I couldn’t pass it up, even if it was mysteriously not available on the UK Kindle store unlike the rest of the series… Anyway! Let’s take a look!

Continue reading →

Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War Arc (Episodes 14 – 26) Review

David HoganLeave a comment

The anime adaptation of Bleach’s final manga arc (I guess that’s still technically accurate…) continued with 13 more episodes of the Thousand Year Blood War arc, not only adapting the manga faithfully but adding brand new scenes created by Tite Kubo himself to plug some plot holes and make sure to add more shine to the Royal Guard for good measure. The only issue is that this is where the arc in the manga took a dramatic down turn that it never corrected out of, instead just offering up some fun fights here and there, and while the new material helps it a bit, a lot of the narrative mistakes are still present here. Want to know more? Read on!

Continue reading →

Doctor Who: Once and Future – Time Lord Immemorial Review

David HoganLeave a comment

The first of two Once & Future releases this month (Yes, oddly Big Finish aren’t releasing one in the anniversary month itself…) “Time Lord Immemorial” is quite the muddled mix of things, which I know is a valid description of all the previous Once & Future stories but this time it REALLY is. The previous Tenth Doctor one was hastily crammed into the existing storyline and just about worked but now this was hastily crammed in between the previously hastily crammed one and the long-established end point and it really shows, and what’s even weirder is the plot if far more high-stakes then the overarching storyline yet its treated as a bump in the road. Well, enough rambling, let’s take a look!

Continue reading →

Final Fantasy XVI (PS5) Review

David HoganLeave a comment

I wasn’t sure about Final Fantasy XVI for a while, I knew I wanted to play it but I wasn’t sold on the visual setting and the more “gritty” style so I waited until it was a bit cheaper and I had the time to dedicate to it. Now I’ve played the game all the way through I have to say that it’s an odd one. There were times when I was thinking of either giving it up or just running through the main missions, then by the end I did every side quest and monster hunt available before hitting that final chapter, so it got its hooks into me at the end, but if someone were to say to me they gave up half way through I’d understand… Want more detail? That’s lucky, I’ve written a whole review, so let’s take a look at it!

Continue reading →