Resuming the on-and-off Kingdom Hearts first ever playthrough… thing, we reach Birth by Sleep, a game originally on the PSP but in terms of this review it also got a few “HD” console ports, which is handy. Set ten years before Kingdom Hearts I, the game features three protagonists each with their own story mode that intersect with each other, which was fun (reminded me of the Resident Evil 2 A/B scenarios) and the combat was great as well. Let’s see how it fairs overall though…
Continue reading
The final two stories in the “Cosmos and Mrs. Clarke” release couldn’t be more different. “The Key to Many Worlds” sees both the return of Marco Polo and Iris Wildthyme and has a strong line of comedy running through it (as you’d imagine!) while “Inconstancy” is a rather dull affair featuring clones and lots of past-tense narration. Ah well, how well and poorly do these things effect their stories? Read on and find out!
Continue reading
Kicking off the latest Sixth Doctor audio boxset is “The Story Demon”, which promises a Dalek telling kids stories, which is a weird concept but also a fun idea. A lot of the rest of the story feels appropriately straight for a popular children’s book, with a few more grizzly exceptions, overall leading to a pleasant hour’s listen. Let’s take a look…
Continue reading
“Star Wars: The High Republic – The Edge of Balance: Premonition” (blimey, enough subtitles for you?!) is a sort of spin-off manga volume in the High Republic series rather than a Volume 3 (or 4 if you include the Phase II “Precedent” one), as it focuses solely on Yoda rather than the Edge of Balance cast (who will return in volumes 3 and 4 to finish the Manga series off). It’s good though, we get to see him take a bit more direct action and come into contact with the Nameless, as throughout most of the era he’s been a voice to council with and that’s about it (which makes sense and is fine by me as I’ve loved the original characters from this era!) So let’s take a look!
Continue reading
Hooklight is a twelve (!) part story that was released across two six-episode boxsets, but unlike the ill-fated “Last Day” double-whammy from last year this is actually coherent and enjoyable! While not perfect, particularly in the second half, Hooklight succeeds at a grander form of storytelling (even if it borrows heavily from the narrative structure of Lord of the Rings) and introduces genuinely interesting characters that have a chance to develop and breathe thanks to the extended runtime. Let’s take a closer look!
Continue reading
Another blu-ray set review from Anime UK News, this time the classic that is “Bubblegum Crisis”. This was one of those shows/films I watched on the Sci-Fi channel back in the late 90s when I was first getting into the at-that-point-obscure world of anime, so I was happy to get to review it!
The review can be found by clicking HERE.
I know I’ve skipped ahead of a few Big Finish releases here but, given its significance I wanted to get this review up a little quicker as yes: here we are, another Doctor has joined the world of Audio Drama and it’s the Thirteenth Doctor herself! “Vampire Weekend” doesn’t break any mould but what it does do is give us a fun story re-establishing The Doctor and Yaz’s personalities / relationship before, hopefully, doing some more interesting things with the characters going forward. I don’t know about a “full on Sixth Doctor rehabilitation” as some are hoping, but it’s safe to say that this era free from Chris Chibnall can only be a good thing. Let’s take a look!
Continue reading
I’ve said before on this site that I’ve been a fan of Assassin’s Creed since the very first game but Ubisoft certainly make it hard to continue to be one, and Shadows is very much a continuation of that. The gameplay is great and the visuals are absolutely stunning, but the story is non-existent and even worse ends on something of a cliffhanger that won’t be resolved until paid DLC expansions… Throw in a bunch of online challenges and currency cluttering the map and ruining immersion (that thankfully play no role in completing the game, but still…) and this is mixed bag. Let’s take a look anyway and try and see where it lands…
Continue reading
The Memory Thieves is a two-parter that has the unfortunate fate of being the other story not featured in the boxset title so kinds of falls off the radar even before its released. In this case it’s a shame really because while the titular “Hellwood Inheritance” fell off as it went along this at least kept me entertained for its admittedly shorter runtime, even if it was still very much a vanilla Who experience. Let’s take a look!
Continue reading
Catching up with the MCU now, with a film I’d been putting off for a while just because I hadn’t heard it was terrible or great, just lots of middling reviews. “Brave New World” had lots of rewrites and re-shoots and by the end of the film it was obvious that it was a bit of a jumbled mess, and hey guess what? Decidedly average, as “promised”. Oh well, at least it tied up a few loose ends in the MCU canon, that’s something, right?
Continue reading
Hogan Reviews 