Beat Hazard- Indie Game

‘Beat Hazard’ combines the two best things into one, no it is not sex and extra violent movies, it is music and games. ‘Beat Hazard’ is created by ‘Cold Beam Games’ and can be bought on computer ($9.99 for full game, $12.99 for full game + all dlc), PS3 ($9.99 for full game + all dlc) and Ipod/Iphone ($2.99 for full game).  

Gameplay

In ‘Beat Hazard’ you are a little space ship in space and random meteorites and enemy space ships attack you. The controls are very basic, all you have to do is move, aim and fire (unfortunately the IPod/IPhone version auto aims). When the game starts up you are given the option of how do you want to play which are single player, local multiplayer and online multiplayer (IPod/IPhone does not come with multiplayer). Once selected, you get to choose your game mode which are a basic mode (game goes for one song or until you run out of lives), survival (game goes through your entire library of music until you run out of lives) and free mode (game never ends and you have infinite lives).

Then the unique part comes in, you get to choose a song from your music library to play on. Each song will have its own unique feel. Depending on the intensity of the song, your level will be harder the more intense the music is but your lasers will be stronger. Various upgrades are dropped from enemies like increase the sound of the music making your lasers stronger and also a power upgrade which also increases your lasers damage. The game has a very awesome arcade feel to it by having a point system so you can compare to your friends and beat their high scores on various songs.  

When you start to rack up your points, you could trigger a random boss battle. These boss battles can be very annoying but fun at the same time. Also, with all the different coloured lasers flying across the screen, it makes you feel like you are witnessing a colour explosion (probably because your spaceship just exploded).

Graphics

The graphics of the game are very basic because it is a bird’s eye view game but the amount of colour in the game just blows my mind. I have honestly never seen so many colours on my screen at one time.

Overview and rating

‘Beat Hazard’ is defiantly a unique Indie Game and I just love the game. I could play it for hours. Also the freedom it gives you by getting to choose one of your own songs from your computer, PS3 or IPod/IPhone just makes the game feel very personal and I just loving destroying enemies while rocking out to my favourite song. Down sides are the insane difficulty some of the boss battles you get and also that you have no health, one hit and you’re a life down. But I say that this game defiantly needs to be played by more people and I just love the feel of the game.

That is why I am giving ‘Beat Hazard’ a

9/10

Review written by Will

The Hunger Games DVD Review

Last week The Hunger Games was released for DVD rental so having read the book and not having seen it in the cinema I decided to view it. This is my thoughts on the movie. It’s a very good adaptation of Suzanne Colin’s book.  Both the film and the book received lots of hype and anticipation when they were released.

Gary Ross is the director of the film and he executes it well but he overuses Shaky cam a lot in action scenes to make it seem more action packed than what it actually is. At the beginning he uses a lot of hand held camera works that give the film a very raw feel. It was awesome to see Katniss come to life on screen. Katniss acted by Jennifer Lawrence did an amazing performance as the bow and arrow wielding survivor. I felt like I was in the arena with the contestants but a lot of the time I felt like I was just camping in the forest.

There was so much information in the book on the characters and details about the plot that something was lost in the translation. When reading the book it’s from Katniss’ perspective so you know what she’s thinking. If you watch the movie after you've read the book, you have this understanding of the thoughts of Katniss. However you will still enjoy the movie even if you haven’t read the book. Also Peeta and Katniss’ relationship isn’t as strong in the movie as it is in the novel.

It’s a fantastic film but it doesn't have as much detail as I had hoped. It didn't meet all my expectations but delivered on most. I wish there was more character development but that will hopefully develop in the next two films. The movie is like ‘The Truman Show’ meets ’Gladiator’ and it’s also like ‘Battle Royale’ which is similar but has major differences. I enjoyed the movie very much. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a good idea to get on it.

And remember…” May the odds be ever in your favour.”
7.9

Monty Python and the Holy Grail Review

Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a 1974 British slapstick comedy film created by the group Monty Python and consisting of Gramham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin who all wrote the script. Graham, John and Terry J. star in it and the directors are Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones. The movie parodies the legend of King Arthur's quest to find the Holy Grail on a low budget. Each of the knights encounters dangers on their quest that follow many shenanigans and silly problems they have to overcome. There is the ‘Knights who say Ni’ and ‘The Three Headed Knight’. Also Galahad a knight of the round table ventures to The Castle Anthrax filled with women who wish to do him sexual favours but is ‘rescued’ by his fellow knights. 

It is one of the most funny and interesting movies I've seen in a long time. It is a bundle of sketches sown into a movie that is bound to spike an interest. One of my favorite quotes from the movie is when the villages bring a ‘witch’ to Sir Bedevere and they have an argument if she is a witch or not and one of the peasants shouts “Well, she turned me into a newt!” “a newt?” Says Bedevere “…I got better.” replies the villager. Another hilarious part of the film is the use of coconuts hitting together as a substitute for real horses and the interestingly strange characters. If you like this movie I recommend you watch ‘Monty Pythons Life of Brian’ and ‘the Meaning of Life’. The parts of the movie I didn't like were where it skips large sections of the movie but that’s a part of its charm. 

The theme is hard to discover but it is how we exploit the medieval times with our modern views and glorify it also to never give up to what you thrive for. The running time is about 91 minutes and the film was also nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1976. The whole movie’s budget was $365,274 it’s a sticking point for today that you don’t need millions of dollars to make a fantastic picture. It is a very amusing, humorous movie. 8/10

The Dark Knight Trilogy Review

Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises is directed by Christopher Nolen, and stars Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard and Cillian Murphy.

The Dark Knight Trilogy all began in 2005 in Batman Begins with the follow up from the shocking “Batman and Robin.” it was going to be very hard to bring Batman back from that monster of a movie. Fortunately, after his success with “Memento”, director and editor Christopher Nolan was hired for a reboot of the franchise. While writing, Nolan told Warner Bros that he would bring a dark, realist feel to the movie and that he would finally bring audiences a proper Batman origin on the silver screen. The studio loved the pitch and agreed for him and his crew to work to make this movie.  This movie boasted a stellar cast with Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman along with Michael Caine as Alfred, Liam Neeson as Ra’s al Ghul, Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes, Gary Oldman as Lt. Gordon and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox. The story follows Bruce Wayne and the physical and emotional journey he takes to become the Batman. When watching this for the 1^st time I saw movie take on a much darker demeanour and a more realistic tone than the camp, comic book movies. I had never seen this before in a superhero movie. It also brought some memorable moments such as your introduction to the Batman, stalking ‘bad guys’ and the chilling and perfectly executed line “I’m Batman”. Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman bring out some comic relief but also characters we can relate both taking on yet another fantastic role. But the real shiners of the movie are Gary Oldman as one of the few uncorrupted Gotham City police officers and Liam Neeson as mentor for Bruce Wayne. To sum it all up it was an exciting instalment for the first part of the trilogy that leaves you on your knees begging for more.

9.5

On July 31, 2006, it was officially announced that the sequel to “Batman Begins” was in the works entitled “The Dark Knight.” After the success of “Batman Begins”, Warner bros. had seen that they onto something with Nolan, so they brought him back along with his team and most of the original cast for the sequel including some new players such as, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart and Maggie Gyllenhaal. The Plot follows the events concluding ‘Batman Begins” and follows Batman and his war on crime. With the help of Lt. Gordon and new District attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to end organised crime in Gotham forever. But soon all of them find themselves in peril to a rising criminal mastermind known simple as “The Joker.” The Joker pushes Gotham into total anarchy and forces Batman into crossing the fine line between hero and vigilante. While working on the script Nolan expressed his thoughts saying that it is heavily influenced by “The Long Halloween” and the “Killing Joke” graphic novels which are pivotal stories in the Batman comics. He also took inspiration from the movie “Heat” saying that in the film, the city was part of the story and that the story was of a city. Unfortunately on 22 January 2008, The Dark Knight lost a magnificent actor that night which brought pain and misery throughout the world. Warner Bros. payed their respects to Heath ledger making all the marketing towards his performance as the Joker.

'Interrogation'

 

Watching it the first time was very difficult for me because the themes were very dark and psychological and my parents felt it was uncomfortable letting their 11 year old son watching a psychopath killing innocent people at random. Eventually, I persuaded my cousin to download it to his I-pod (which had the smallest screen!) so I could watch it in his bedroom for 2 and half hours and boy was it worth it! Watching Batman flip a truck over and kick ass had never been more rewarding and that pencil trick blew me away. However, when I look back on to it, it’s a lot deeper than that. The whole theme of the movie was based around escalation; things have to get worse before they get better. It brings Harvey Dent a man so devoted to his work to bring justice back in to Gotham after its horrible days in “Batman Begins”. I also bring along the Joker, a character dedicated to the idea of chaos and anarchy and that he just wants to see Gotham in complete madness. This then leaves Batman right in the middle trying to bring back justice to Gotham while working outside the law. This then results in big choices and discussions that will break Batman for better or worse. With the cast and crew doing another magnificent job once again mixed with the score of the immensely talented Hanns Zimmerman coupled with direction of Christopher Nolan this movie became not only a comic- book movie but the comic-book movie.

9.8

After smashing numerous box office records and winning countless awards The Dark Knight became one of the greatest movies of all time. So on the 9^th of February Warner Bros. announced that the sequel to one of the best comic book movies had been written by the director and that it would end the story for Batman! After the great news, fans wondered and discussed over YouTube and other websites what might happen in the final instalment from Christopher Nolan? Soon, however, more news came out and that everyone from “The Dark Knight” was returning and that Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard and Anne Hathaway will be joining them. The Plot is set eight years after the events of “The Dark Knight” and it shows a retired Bruce Wayne doing nothing with his life. But when commissioner Gordon stumbles upon a terrorist’s plot to destroy Gotham from within, Bruce is forced to became Batman once more and join up with Catwoman and cop John Blake to stop the leader of the terrorists known as Bane. But what Bruce Wayne doesn't know is that Bane already knows his deepest secrets and wants to tear him piece by piece. After this, fans rejoiced and chanting “In Nolan we Trust!” but there was a little concern about Anne Hathaway playing  Catwoman for the idea of a Disney girl being a sexy love interest for Batman was an alien one .  But on 21 of July all answers were given, I went to see the final batman movie by Christopher Nolan and I got very over excited, inviting too many people spending lots of money and being 5 mins early to the screening but it was worth it. From the very start of the film were on the edge of our seats, watching moments that you couldn't tell what’s what. This was the very emotional Bruce Wayne story that we needed from a Batman movie and that is was full of action and twists galore. And once the credits rolled the whole room silenced and I yelled out “THE DARK KNIGHT RISES!” and everyone looked at me and smiled and applauded. It was an amazing experience. With the cast and crew doing an amazing job again, with the score of Hanns Zimmerman and direction of Christopher Nolan I just had to watch it again. That’s why the following weekend I watched it again and noticed that it wasn't Batman’s story this time, it was more Bruce Wayne’s story and that ending dead on what the message was. That is why I am giving “The Dark Knight Rises”

 A perfect 10

After 7 years in the making the dark knight trilogy is now regarded as one of cinemas greatest films. With cast and crew house hold names and that breathe taking score by Hans Zimmerman. And who could forget those cameos by Cillian Murphy. Overall I could be talking about these movies for days so to sum it up, these movies makeup for a turning point in comic book movies and that these movies are not regarded as comic book movies but as masterpieces.

-Nandos -Quips -Plainost