Folks!  Welcome back!  To say this has been the busiest August imaginable is an understatement, possibly more’s been going on the past few weeks than the rest of the year thus far combined.  The summer convention season is over, we’re into autumn and it’s a straight run between now and Eirtakon.  Seatbelts: on.

Nom-Con happened in the Burlington Hotel this year in leafy Dublin 4, on the second last weekend of August.  Not far from the previous home of the D4 Hotels and a significantly different venue layout.  In those terms it was the most compacted convention I’ve been to since the first Eirtakon – everything was within a minute’s walk of the main entrance, one room beside the next.  So it was impossible to get lost, really!  Makes a nice change from getting lost in hotel corridoors.

Andrew Partridge, of Kazé and basically the living breathing heart of the anime industry in the UK, gave his annual state of the industry address.  I unfortunately missed it, but his realistic account of ‘we’re all done for, the industry is tanked’ sounds lamentably accurate – difficulties with license costs, distribution issues, illegal downloading and slow turnaround times are affecting the industry as badly as they were 5 years ago with no easy end in sight.  What I like about conventions is it gives fans an opportunity to buy the merch, DVDs and manga that is otherwise unavailable to them.  It makes a small difference but I always hope it adds up to something more.

Everything at Nom-Con ran on time, the hotel staff were very accommodating, there was a good number of events and there was a very positive atmosphere from all the attendees.  Their system of handwriting sales dockets for every paying attendee didn’t make any sense to me, especially given the lanyards could have just been numbered instead.  I’m sure there was a reason for it though.  Moving venue isn’t easy and so much as getting the doors open without the hinges falling off can be a miracle, never mind packing the place with events.

I think at Eirtakon, we sit back and watch the summer events unfold.  I’ve seen various committee members at Q-Con, Nom-Con and Arcadecon and I know plenty were at Brocon and a few gaming-specific conventions over the last few months.  It gives plenty of food for thought and ideas often form while perusing a trade hall, or sitting in on a screening.  We had a meeting the first week of September and there were enough ideas flying around to keep us occupied until January!

Myself and our Social Media Officer (and unofficial secretary, insofar as nobody has yet bestowed the title upon him) spent a few hours last Friday tacking together the timetable for Eirtakon 2012.  At this stage it’s no more than 75% complete; we have most of the major events laid down and about half of the panels/workshops/etc.  We’re looking at over 80 individual events this year, not including screenings.  A fair increase on last year and plenty of new and exciting events still to be announced.

Increasingly, Eirtakon is moving towards including attendees as much as possible in our schedule.  I think it’s pretty cool, the fans make it what it is!  Probably about half of what’s planned for this year is being run by the committee; everything else is up to the fans.  We supply the venue and the logistics and attendees supply their knowledge and expertise.  This is only possible because people are more willing than ever to get stuck in and help out (and getting up on stage for an hour is a lot of fun); even 5 years ago there wasn’t an appetite for that in Ireland.  It’s nice to see that kind of progress.

Let’s give out a few secrets, shall we?  Go on then!  As well as the return of Cosplay Blind Date and Eirtafortunes for Saturday evening, we’re going to host our own version of Blockbusters on Sunday!  We’re also looking into the possibility of a few musical guests, along with confirmed panels for retro gaming, Gundam model making, a sewing workshop, origami, an attendee-chosen film, corset making, a new tabletop games area and an all-new expanded Fair-takon!  We’re also going to be incorporating a collection of retro consoles for free play and maybe even a tournament or two, but I’ve said enough for now!

We’re getting a lot of inquiries from local press types about coming to Eirtakon to conduct interviews, cover the event for their newspaper and so on.  It’s very encouraging to see that level of interest build every year and we’re starting to see some international press express interest in coming over, which I find amazing!  I’m not sure where it will end but we’re aiming for the top with national coverage someday.

Like I said, for us it’s a straight run to November 9^th.  We have weekly committee meetings, tech discussions with The Helix and a hundred and one different bits and pieces to pull together over the next few weeks.  A lot of late nights and tight deadlines looming.  I can’t wait!

Until next time,
Mark

It’s oft been mentioned how modern cinema is becoming increasingly derivative and unoriginal. One could argue that it’s nothing new, that cinema has been replicating itself since the 1980′s. Some of that era’s greatest hits were, in fact, riffing on films from the black-and-white era and further back into the silents. SCARFACE is a remake of the 1932 film. BODY HEAT is, in fact, an all-but-remake of DOUBLE INDEMNITY. The list is endless. It’s rare that original – truly original – screenplays are even made and produced in modern cinema. No producer or studio wants to fork over big money and have it blow up in their faces. LOOPER is not necessarily original. It’s an intelligent sci-fi thriller that deals with time travel. Time travel is an oft-covered area in both sci-fi and cinema. And yet, in spite of this, it manages to take it in places never before thought of. This makes LOOPER wholly original.

The year is 2042. Time travel will be invented in the next thirty years and immediately outlawed. However, this will not stop crime syndicates from using it for their own advantages. Because of ID scanning in the distant future, killing someone in that time period is near-impossible. The solution? Send people back in time to be disposed of by assassins in 2042. These are ‘Loopers’ – their job is simple. Kill the target. Never let him escape. Dispose of the body. Throughout the film, the rules are stated in clear, concise terms to underline how rare is it for them to deviate from them. Joe (Joseph Gordon Levitt) is one such Looper. However, in recent months, many of his colleagues are being forcibly retired. How? Their older selves are sent back to them with a cowl over their heads. They’re shot, the Looper gets a special payout and continues on their path until time literally catches up with them. Joe is the last remaining Looper. There’s a fascinating sequence that describes both how his older self (Bruce Willis) came to be where he is and – for the most part – logically explains the film’s mind-boggling central premise – that the younger Joe is hunting his older self. It’s hard to speak about LOOPER in specifics without giving away huge tracts of information that are central to the film’s quality. It’s not a case of spoilers so much as simply being needed to be experienced and understood by the viewer themselves.

Joseph Gordon Levitt continues to perform with his charms and laconic manners that is marking him out as a talented actor. Bruce Willis, likewise, gives a surprisingly emotional performance as the older version. He manages to convey the price of being young and reckless and its eventual cost mixed with an underlying heart and hope for his future. The similarities between the two isn’t immediately recognisable. It’s a shame that they didn’t alter Willis’ look slightly to look more like Levitt instead of the other way around. However, it’s a minor complaint and there are some scenes where the mimicry is more pronounced than others. It’s a tough act considering how well-known Bruce Willis is and how most people know what he looked like when he was Joseph Gordon Levitt‘s age. As mentioned, Levitt pulls it off reasonably well. Rian Johnson, who previously directed Levitt in BRICK, also wrote the screenplay. Johnson is a consummate filmmaker and is able to perfectly blend humour, action, intelligence and wit – both in the script and in his direction. His use of deep-focus photography, unusual camera movements and a rich palette of colours makes LOOPER gorgeous to look at. LOOPER is a fascinating sci-fi film that works on many levels and is perfectly rounded off with an intriguing climax and ending. The praise being heaped upon it may seem little a much. Calling it “the next MATRIX” is completely wrong – it’s nothing at all like THE MATRIX. It’s far more intelligent than that film, certainly better acted by Levitt, Willis, Jeff Daniels and Emily Blunt and will not – hopefully – spawn awful sequels.

DROP-D RATING: 8.5 / 10

Given how original ideas in modern cinema are becoming increasingly rare, PREMIUM RUSH is already ahead of the other summer blockbusters of 2012. And yet, surprisingly, even though it’s an original screenplay and an original context, the genre itself is as old as cinema itself – it’s a chase movie. A good old-fashioned chase movie.

The plot of PREMIUM RUSH is threadbare, but never more than what it needs to be. Wilee (Joseph Gordon Levitt) is a bike messenger in New York. A law graduate who isn’t read to don a grey suit and settle down, Wilee races through the city on his fixed-gear bicycle delivering messages. Without brakes. The film’s central thrust is simple and astoundingly effective – Wilee gets a delivery that corrupt NYPD detective Bobby Monday (Michael Shannon) wants. As the film progresses, the nature and importance of the delivery becomes clear as well as Monday’s desperation and Wilee’s recklessness. As previously mentioned, the film is innovative in that basing a film around bike messengers – but also is very much like a chase thriller of yesteryear. The plot’s simplicity is what drives PREMIUM RUSH. As Wilee is wont to repeat, almost like a mantra, “brakes are death”. When the film slows down and begins to explain why it’s so important for Monday to get the package, it loses its charm and drive. A film like this works best when it’s going full-speed. Thankfully, the slow moments are few and far between.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who is enjoying a well-deserved hotstreak with THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, LOOPER and LINCOLN, holds the film together. His character is straightforward, direct and needs no more development than is absolutely necessary. It’s the flashback scenes and the explanation of why he does what he does that the film loses focus and slows down. It’s true – the film would make little sense if the motivations weren’t made clear, however it would have more interesting if there was an element of mystique about it all. It’s only a minor complaint and doesn’t really detract from the film as a whole. Michael Shannon gives one of his most energetic performances as the cackling Bobby Monday. Sweating profusely as he criss-crosses New York trying desperately to keep up with Wilee, Shannon’s Monday reacts exactly how most people react to bike messengers – he hates them. They’re a plague on the city, a nuisance. Much like Wilee, the character is developed up until what’s necessary for the story to make sense. Shannon gives an impressive performance and really vents and portrays his frustration at Wilee constantly slipping from his grasp.

David Koeep’s direction is decent and he keeps a brisk pace throughout. That this is his first action / thriller film is very impressive. However, there’s an unmistakable feeling that the film should have been directed by someone more experienced with faster editing and more adventurous set-ups. Nevertheless, PREMIUM RUSH is a very decent thriller that is both original and inventive. In today’s cinematic landscape, that’s something to be commended.

DROP-D RATING: 7.5 / 10

Given how John Hillcoat has made a career out of making bleak films that focus on survival against the backdrop of harsh landscapes, LAWLESS is nothing new for him. Nevertheless, Hillcoat’s assured direction and past works mean that you can be assured that it will be anything but a light and frothy film. LAWLESS, much like THE PROPOSITION, is a film of extremes mixed with stunning, natural beauty.

The story takes place during the Prohibition era and follows the true story of the Bondurant brothers. In fact, the source novel was written by the grandson of one of them. The brothers three make their living by producing illegal moonshine that they sell from town to town. Naturally, the local authorities are aware of their activities and are duly bribed in order for the business to continue. However, with the arrival of manic-obsessive Special Agent Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce), things begin to unravel. Rakes’ brand of ruthless justice begins to scrape against the Bondurants’ inability to bow down and, of course, bloodbaths ensue. As with all John Hillcoat films, there’s a healthy dose of gratuitous violence that is both unnerving and economic. Any moment of respite or things going according to plan are soon turned into scenes of mayhem and carnage – all meted out by Guy Pearce’s unsettlingly perfect rendition of Special Agent Rakes.

Tom Hardy‘s performance as the most well-rounded of the three brothers is significantly restrained and poised. A simple look or a measured response is enough to convey an iron conviction that makes for the film’s central conflict with Guy Pearce. Shia LeBeouf, who plays the youngest of the brothers, is – undoubtedly – the weakest link of the film. Desperately trying to distance himself from Hollywood with this and his work with Lars Von Trier, LeBeouf is attempting to build up credibility and display his acting abilities in more diverse roles. Unfortunately, LeBeouf has no acting ability and therefore acts merely as a distraction from other, more convincing performances in the film. Indeed, when he is on-screen with Gary Oldman‘s fellow bootlegger, Floyd Banner, the gap in ability between the two actors is startling. The real stand-out performance in LAWLESS comes from Guy Pearce. Easily playing one of his best roles in the last five years, his snivelling, grisly portrayal of a brutalising force in an already-harsh landscape is breathtaking. It’s a real shame he doesn’t get the same level of quality in terms of screenplay and directors.

As mentioned, John Hillcoat‘s direction is on par with his previous work. Mixing both the natural beauty of the landscape, earthy colour-tones and flinching violence, Hillcoat has perfectly captured the dangerous days of bootlegging and given the film a warmth that’s been lacking. His choice in pacing and tone, and making deliberate attempts to slow the story down can be a little grating. The second act is reduced to a snail’s pace before quickly bringing the film to a bloody climax that’s on par with THE PROPOSITION in terms of body-count. Nick Cave, serving as both screenwriter and soundtrack, has adapted the book well and given all the pertinent details an airing without casting judgement on either side. The Bondurants are criminals and their actions are just as violent as Rakes’ – except that Rakes’ are in service to a larger authority whereas the Bondurants serve only themselves. It’s an interesting topic that hasn’t been covered in these types of films and Cave’s deliberate attempt to juxtapose the opposing sides is to be commended. Overall, LAWLESS is a dark and intriguing film but suffers from pacing issues that lie with the director’s style choices.

DROP-D RATING: 7 / 10

Remakes are common currency nowadays. The trend of rehashing old films, old comic books and old stories has been written about extensively, railed against and has not been met with critical uptake or praise. The original TOTAL RECALL was atypical of late 80′s / early 90′s action films. It was loud, it was directed by Paul Verhoeven, it had one-liners and a healthy sense of humour. It’s telling somewhat the remake is atypical of sci-fi action films of today. This is overly produced, hugely expensive, overwrought with CGI and very, very bland.

The plot of TOTAL RECALL is more closely based upon Phillip K. Dick’s WE CAN REMEMBER IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE than Verhoeven’s wafer-thin plot. The world has been devastated by chemical attacks and, as such, the world has split evenly into have and have-not. The 1% live in the United Federation of Britain, in luxuriant cityscapes while the Colony – which consists of the entire Australian continent – live in dank, dirty urban environments. Doug Quaid (Colin Farrell) is a factory worker who’s continuously plagued by a recurring dream. He’s a spy who’s on the run from government forces, there’s a woman and he falls. His long-suffering wife, Lori (Kate Beckinsale) tries her best to console him and comfort him. Then, in one night, he decides to visit Rekall – wherein the story begins. Much like the remake, Quaid is not who he thinks he is. He is, in reality, a government agent whose mind was erased for the purposes of removing him from active duty. This screenplay, written by Mark Bomback and Kurt Wimmer, really doesn’t push the possible alternate reality that the character is facing. There is no hint of delusion and the idea that it all may be completely unreal is jettisoned to make way for action sequences. It’s such a shame because this is where the film could have been different and more intelligent than what it is.

Colin Farrell gives a decent enough performance and, of course, he has the action chops to prove it. It’s unfortunate that the film and screenplay don’t call for real acting or emotions. It’s simply a case of Colin Farrell being chased through a level of MASS EFFECT by Kate Beckinsale and robots. This is one of the few times Beckinsale plays a (spoiler alert) villain and she does it reasonably well. There is a mean streak that comes out in between the aforementioned action sequences that, if time had been given to develop, could have been interesting to watch. Instead, it’s a series of shoot-outs, car chases and fist-fights loosely scrabbled together by a thinly-fleshed out plot. Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston and Bill Nighy turn out bland performances with no real effort. It’s true, there are worse villains than Bryan Cranston – however, like everything else in TOTAL RECALL, he’s criminally underused and under-developed. His motivations for being a villain aren’t even discussed further than one single scene. Len Wiseman‘s direction is impressive, however. His use of design and the difference between the gleaming skyscrapers of the UFB in comparison to the wet, dank Colony cityscapes is intriguing. As well, the idea of living space becoming the resource that humanity is fighting for is also intriguing. There are many different areas in TOTAL RECALL that could be interesting if they were given time to develop and become more fleshed out. Instead, TOTAL RECALL is just a bland retelling of an old story. It has little depth and even less staying power. It’s forgettable.

DROP-D RATING: 4 / 10

Wow, what a month it’s been; I don’t think July could have been busier!  We had Arcade Con in Dublin, Brocon in Limerick, MCM Expo in Manchester and a host of other events across the UK.  Just goes to show that despite a lot of manga/anime distribution companies going to the wall in recent years, the community is flourishing!

I’m tipping a hat to the Arcade Con organisers, despite only being in its second year they managed to run everything smoothly and without any major hiccups.  Hosting a weekend long convention is difficult enough but running it well is even harder!  You can have the best ideas with some amazing events planned but if you can’t get the stage show started on time, or you have no idea how to use the PA equipment, then there’s almost no point in organising anything to begin with.  So my respect to the Arcade Con crew.

It’s difficult but you need to run everything to the highest standards.  Remember, people paid into your event and gave up their weekend to be there, so they deserve the best service.  Running 2 hours behind schedule or cancelling shows for no apparent reason isn’t going to be good enough.  I’m looking forward to seeing what Arcade Con come up with for year 3.

At casa del Eirtakon, we’re into twice monthly meetings and constant contact via email and our forum.  We announced our cosplay guests a few weeks ago as Parle Productions, who are making their first trip to Ireland!  We can’t wait to have them over.

Soon we’ll be in talks with our venue The Helix to discuss staff requirements, opening times, food, tech equipment, timetables and a lot more in between.  It’s really absolutely vital to be in constant close contact with the venue in the months before an event – if they don’t know what to expect, how can they cater for you?

One positive aspect of meetings with venue organisers is that it can help give a sense of perspective and clarity for the weekend.  When bogged down by a hundred and one things flying about constantly, to spend a few hours in the venue itself chatting to the managers can really help clear your head.  It’s also a good way to mentally plan layouts and figure out crowd control & queue management.

Something that often confuses me is conventions having issues with counting attendees.  I’ve heard of numbers getting mixed up, tickers not working, somebody losing a piece of paper with number counts on it, files crashing and even tickets simply not being counted!  All these problems, and how they arise, confuse me.  A dedicated front desk manager should handle all of this with a plan laid out well in advance.  Getting a bit dry here but stick with me, it’s worth the read!

When Eirtakon started out we printed tickets that we hand numbered on the back, however more recently we’ve been using Tyvek wristbands.  Tyvek wristbands are made of plastic and, despite feeling like rice paper, are incredibly durable and hard wearing.  They’re also sequentially numbered!  Simply note the lowest and highest numbers in the batch and distribute them to attendees.  If you have 1000 Sunday tickets, starting at 10 and ending at 1010, and you’re at 900, then you can safely assume you’ve sold 890 Sunday tickets.  Double check and count how many are left to the end of the batch.

Keep a laptop at reception where the front desk manager notes sales every hour (two columns – one cumulative and one since the previous hour) based off the wristband numbers.  That way you know how many you’ve sold and roughly how many are in the venue at every hour.  If there’s a fire limit this can be tightened to only allow a certain amount to be sold.  Always keep an off-site backup (i.e. backup the file onto a USB stick every hour)!  It’s a simple enough system but if you slip up at any stage, some number-based mayhem will likely ensue.

But Mark!  What if my attendee badge of choice isn’t numbered?  Simple!  Get a marker and start writing on the back from 1!  Keeping count of numbers is pretty important for a variety of reasons and if you follow the above, you should have a very accurate set of numbers.  Some conventions (none in Ireland or the UK that I know of, mind) count turnstile numbers, i.e. if you buy a weekend pass then they count you 3 times.  That seems like a white lie to me.  If you sell a ticket then it’s 1 ticket, not 3, and that’s as far as Eirtakon takes it.

So what are we looking forward to?  Well!  We have Nom-Con on the weekend of August 24^th and it will take a natural disaster to keep me away!  Eirtakon is announcing plenty of competitions and more guests over the coming weeks, along with info on traders, new events, returning old events and plenty more.  August will fly by and we’re coming to a boil – see you in a few weeks!

Until next time,
Mark

Franchises being renewed, revamped or rewritten is now a mainstay of modern cinema. Sometimes it works – sometimes it doesn’t. The total sum of failures and victories in rehashing franchises can’t be measured, but one thing is for certain. People are slowly starting to become more and more unimpressed by big studio’s attempts to cash in on existing properties. With THE BOURNE LEGACY, you have a franchise that was well and truly put to bed. The trilogy was rounded out by THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM which neatly tied off any chance of sequel and put a satisfying conclusion on a series that had reinvented action cinmea. Now, five years later, we’re back again with THE BOURNE LEGACY.

Jeremy Renner plays Aaron Cross, an ‘Outcome’ agent who finds himself swept up into the events of the previous film. The film isn’t so much as sequel as a side-story to THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM. Working as a faceless assassin for the CIA, his program is suddenly terminated by Edward Norton and Stacey Keach to prevent any information spreading. Naturally, this sets the film off as Renner is soon hunted across the globe. The plot isn’t as layered or as intelligent as the previous films – even though the writer / director Tony Gilroy worked on previous films. Helping Renner survive is Rachel Weisz, one of the scientists who developed the pills that the assassins regularly take to keep them amped up and give them their powers.

Tony Gilroy’s camerawork is very impressive. Whereas the last two BOURNE films were near-unwatchable due to the constant ‘shakeycam’ / documentary feel, this has a much more polished look. Thankfully, the adrenaline hasn’t been sacrificed in order for you to see what’s actually happening. The chase scenes and fight sequences are all choreographed and filmed well. However, the film falls down in terms of pacing and the script itself. THE BOURNE LEGACY takes well over an hour to really kick off and that hour is spent on developing Renner’s character. Or rather, lack thereof. It’s true, they are trying to set him up as being different from Matt Damon‘s character – that he’s capable of independent thought and has a personality. However, what made Jason Bourne so interesting was that he was a machine. It almost felt like he was THE TERMINATOR and he was slowly, over the course of three films, becoming human. That was what made the original trilogy so capitvating – along with a far better script.

Jeremy Renner is a very good character actor, but this isn’t his area at all. Considering how he was supposed to be taking over from Tom Cruise in the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE franchise, it’s clear that they’re trying to mould him into an action star. While he can handle himself throughout the film, it just doesn’t resonate as well as it should. He’s too affable and doesn’t really have the hard edge that these films call for. You find yourself waiting for Matt Damon‘s thousand-yard stare to show up and turn the film around. While THE BOURNE LEGACY is a decent actioner that doesn’t tax the brain too hard, it begs comparison to the films that came before it. And, sadly, it comes up lacking.

DROP-D RATING: 6 / 10

I’m looking through the various features on Steam, and one in particular that is crying out for attention is the popular action RPG Dark Souls; this edition is aptly name “Prepare to Die”. Here is the tag-line;

“Dark Souls will be the most deeply challenging game you play this year. Can you live through a million deaths and earn your legacy?

Am I the only one who thinks this doesn’t sound like any fun at all? The game’s whole marketing buzz here is based solely on its unreasonable difficulty level. Dark Souls isn’t alone, of course, but it does depress me a little because it’s a game I wanted to play. There aren’t many good expansive fantasy action RPGs out there – the Elder Scrolls series is a popular one, and then you have the Witcher with it’s eleventy seven different submenus and potion brewing statistics. I like the overall style of Dark Souls more than a lot of games.

This is a game that I haven’t played, but I’ve had recommended to me several times, like it’s some kind of experience I shouldn’t miss. And herein lies the problem – if it’s something everyone should experience, it should be more accessible. By definition, a game that is more difficult will be less accessible as some people just won’t have the patience for it. I would like to play Dark Souls, but I doubt I’d be able to get very far in it. There are some games – STGs/Bullet Hell Shooters(Danmaku) for example, that base themselves around difficulty, it’s an inherently hard thing, so it’s more understandable that it won’t be as accessible. Even then, there are still plenty of STGs that the average gamer can complete on easy.

It’s not an uncommon idea to represent – games are too wimpy nowadays, how about a real challenge, that’s where the real fun lies. The problem is that generally it isn’t. “Difficulty” in video games often equates to repetition for all but the naturally most talented. How much time you can sink into doing the same thing over and over, and how you keep your cool during this repetition. Dying a million deaths might be fine if the game offered me a million new experiences – but chances are, it doesn’t. And people are slow to criticise this or point it out, because it means they’re the wimpy gamer. You’re expecting to live up to a tough guy image of appreciating frustratingly hard games. And sure enough most defences for Dark Souls blame gamers for being “stupid”. To me, that sounds like making excuses. Just admit it’s not a very accessible game.

This isn’t something new for video games, it’s just that in modern times it’s something that’s celebrated. A lot of people fondly remember the 8 bit era, and as a composer of music often reminiscent of those games, you might think many of my favourite titles are to be found there. But in reality, many of those games were of pretty poor quality and a big factor of this was using artificial difficulty to pad the game’s length – something you don’t have to do with modern titles.

I’ve heard this called the “one more go!” factor, but this only applies to those games that were actually fun and you felt yourself getting further in – which are usually the easier games like Super Mario Bros. et. all. There are games that are moderately challenging. Then there are games that just throw a lot of shit at you and expect the player to put up with it – Ninja Gaiden for example, a famously difficult game. One thing people probably miss from the retro era is games that you couldn’t clear in your first go – even the first Sonic the Hedgehog is pretty difficult, though a lot of people forget that. But again, that depends on the replay value of the game and whether you feel yourself getting further each time, instead of just frustrated by the same problems shooting you down again and again.

One game which particularly gets my goat on this is the indie title “Super Meat Boy”. It’s been called the best platformer of this millennium, etc. etc. as these hipster sort of games often are. Honestly, no it isn’t. First off, I’d be reluctant to call it a “Platformer” in the sense that we’ve come to known. It’s meant to be remiscant of NES era games – many of the ones I’ve suggested we should be forgetting. Is it a fun game in parts? Yes it is. And sometimes it does feel challenging, like you have to sit down and focus and get through this part.
But other times, it’s just obnoxious. The jump key doesn’t work half of the time, this is an acknowledged problem but it has not been patched(nor have the severe, game-breaking bugs in the Mac version on the hospital level). And this is the thing – when a game is very difficult, it often shows up the seams; makes them stick out like a meat-grinder in the face. If the player doesn’t feel in control, it doesn’t feel like their loss.

The idea that a twitch platformer can work up such an audience with such poor controls is a testament to how naive people are over “difficult” games. “When I die in Super Meat Boy, it feels like my fault” – people delude themselves with this. Maybe it was, or maybe the controls or wobbly physics engine fucked up again(it’s not just about momentum – Super Meat Boy’s physics don’t work realistically or like most 2D platformer physics engines we’re accustomed to). There are games I’ve played that feel like that. Super Meat Boy is absolutely not one of them.

People have almost forgotten that very hard difficulty levels in some video games were actually meant in jest – remember “Nightmare” in Doom? They were intended to be unfair and borderline unplayable. But in slightly more recent years, you have for example the famous Extreme mode of the European PS2 Metal Gear Solid series, famed for their “Nightmare” like difficulty. You have parody games like “I want to be the guy” – getting serious Youtube Let’s Plays/playthroughs when it was meant to troll such gamers in the first place.

On contrast, I can appreciate a difficult game like the Touhou Project series (actually one of the less maddeningly difficult Danmaku titles), even though I don’t think I’ve properly finished a title yet. When I was really into playing these games, I could actually feel myself getting better at them, instead of stroggling on to the next checkpoint. You start to learn bullet patterns, find blind spots, build better reflexes, get used to how and where you can move. That’s a really important feeling that’s lost in a lot of “difficult” games. Moreover, they have an “easy” setting, while you can’t get the true ending you can at least get to and beat the final boss in most titles. It’s a difficult game that’s made itself accessible, unlike Dark Souls or Super Meat Boy, which honestly, don’t give a shit and are more than a little pretentious in how they go about it.

Video Games should be fun. Instead of focusing on a game being too “easy” – did you enjoy the experience? Even if you weren’t at great risk of dying over and over again, did you still feel positive after playing it? IGN have said in their review of Dark Souls that it’s not one to play if you play games for fun. It’s amazing how often this can get overlooked in games – for example is the multiplayer in Call of Duty “fun” for the majority of people? Someone stepping into it just gets sniped over and over, and any complaints will be met with the same defences difficulty in video games always gets. To me, again, it’s an excuse – it’s difficult but not impossible to create a shooter that anyone can jump into – Team Fortress 2 for example. Often developers that focus on difficulty and high skill ceilings don’t set the bar very high themselves.

It’s easy to make a game that throws far too much at the player and through a strange kind of natural selection, pushes away players who can’t adapt to the stress or poor controls. It’s harder to make a game that’s genuinely fun and challenging. I think a lot of games are better at striking this balance than people give them credit. A lot of the time – it’s an issue of interface design; usability. In the world of software design, these are big issues – unless you’re Adobe and have the market sewn up, these are important issues. But in games, because of the attitude of gamers, they get overlooked – another example being the PC version of Skyrim’s UI. Gamers can get in the way of games being good because they don’t want to come off as weak or entitled.

Maybe Dark Souls isn’t quite as bad as it’s reputation – it is amusing people calling it the “hardest game of all time”; such talk makes me feel quite old. But it is marketing itself on a facade of difficult games having some kind of grand integrity to them, when often the reverse is more accurate.

Play games for fun, not to prove what a double hard bastard you are. The next time you catch a friend getting hyped up for the next big stressathon, just ask them “Are you sure? This skill level isn’t even remotely fair.”

Humour, like film, is an entirely subjective experience. What one person may find hilarious could be branded as crass and sophomoric by someone else. Seth McFarlane has made a handsome living out of making big, brash and loud humour with FAMILY GUY, AMERICAN DAD and the slightly less-successful CLEVELAND SHOW. What some may not realise is that Seth McFarlane was also responsible for the huge popularity of intelligent and more adult-tinged animation comedies of the late 1990′s, shows such as DEXTER’S LABORATORY, COW & CHICKEN and JOHNNY BRAVO. As such, it’s fair to say that he isn’t especially new to creating comedies that have a broad appeal or that target a wide demographic. With TED, his first live-action film, Seth McFarlane sets out his stall.

The story follows John Bennett (Mark Wahlberg) and the titular character (voiced and motion-captured by Seth McFarlane) as both go through a series of ups-and-downs as they struggle with moving on without each other. The plot of the film is, admittedly, perfunctory and well-worn. Bennett is a thirty-something going nowhere with an implausibly attractive girlfriend (Mila Kunis). In order for them to move forward with their lives, Bennett has to set aside his childhood friend, Ted, and make a serious commitment to being an adult. Waiting in the wings for Kunis’ affection is Community‘s Joel McHale, here playing the role of Kunis’ boss. The film’s strength, naturally, doesn’t lie with the plot. It’s fairly wafer-thin and is merely a vehicle for the comedic set-pieces throughout. Mark Wahlberg is by no means a comedic actor and the role he plays isn’t particularly taxing. Anyone could be put into the role and turn out a similar, if not better performance than he. McFarlane is effectively playing Peter Griffin in a bear suit. Loud-mouthed, foul-mouthed, prone to taking drugs, messing around with prostitutes and other unrealistic and highly inappropriate scenarios. McFarlane’s script, together with his voice performance, is what makes the film. The comedy is very much at the same level as FAMILY GUY – the film references it once or twice; both with a drawn-out fight scene and the fact that Ted, well, sounds like Peter Griffin.

The script and direction are both reasonably standard. This is Seth McFarlane’s first feature-length film and it shows. There’s no huge cinematic flourishes or over-wrought camerawork here. The scenes, cinematography and the layout is very much narrow and straight to the point. Like the comedy, it’s easy to take in and understand. There’s nothing taxing about TED in any shape or form and that’s a good thing. McFarlane is clever enough to know that he doesn’t need to push the boat out too far in order to get huge laughs – which the film definitely has. He keeps to his strengths and doesn’t go overboard on the more dramatic scenes. Indeed, some of these scenes are genuinely touching. They may be clichéd and obvious, but when put next to Sam J. Jones – yes, FLASH GORDON – they strangely work well.  TED will undoubtedly be a huge success and it’s plain to see why. McFarlane’s debut may not have broken the mould or done anything new or exciting. But it’s very, very funny.

DROP-D RATING: 8 / 10

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MASSIVE SPOILERS

There are endings in films that will transcend what came before it. When you think of films like SEVEN, THE FRENCH CONNECTION or many others, you remember the ending and not what came before. The end is what sticks out the most. With THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, the ending is such a shock to the system as to stun you into silence. However, what precedes is so vast, so epic that the ending will be as it should be – a part of a whole.

The film is set eight years after THE DARK KNIGHT. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is now a recluse and Batman is no more. But, when Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) stumbles onto a huge plot that will literally destroy Gotham, Batman comes out of retirement. The plot of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES is so huge as to transcend summary. There is too much to cover and too many plot devices, characters and events that need to be compartmentalised. The film clocks in at just under three hours. This isn’t a film, it’s an experience. It is a document. The film’s strength lies in many different areas. Chief amongst them is the story. The story is a document. Great films are a mirror of the times we live and this is no exception.

Bane (Tom Hardy) is destruction incarnate. Enacting his grand scheme of ending Gotham’s perceived injustices and bringing “balance” to the world, he locks the entire city down and crushes the police and city government under rubble. Bane, like Ra’s Al Ghul, wants the city to return to harmony – by freeing everyone in it of law and civilisation. Indeed, he calls his plan “the second era of Western civilisation”. The finer points and allegories in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES could be picked over for days. Is it a libertarian’s wet dream? Or is it saying that society needs a fascist overlord in order to reach its full potential? Nobody knows. Christopher Nolan has put forward many different viewpoints, but one thing is clear – it cannot be taken in with one viewing.

The cast leave everything on the screen. Christian Bale gives his most nuanced and balanced performance yet. Here, Batman is not some superhuman smart-alec but a fully developed human being who is ravaged by his own burden. Michael Caine acts as the surrogate father who begs him to see reason before he does the unthinkable. Anne Hathaway is not the disappointment you think she is. Her role is that of societal individualism – she looks out for herself and nobody else. She acts as a counterpoint to Batman’s complete selflessness; how he is prepared to give everything and anything to people he doesn’t know. And he does.

We come to Bane. To say that Tom Hardy’s portrayal is terrifying is an understatement. The man is not a man – but a beast. In what is one many jaw-dropping scenes in the film, Bane crushes society in Gotham with such scale that harkens back to vintage epics like BEN-HUR and BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI. His commitment to Bane being the physical equal of Batman is self-evident. He hulks muscle and – you guessed it – breaks the Bat. The fight scene between them is harrowing to watch and is sufficiently brutal. What follows after is what makes the film the best out of the entire DARK KNIGHT trilogy.

Christopher Nolan has done something nobody thought possible. He made comic-book heroes socially relevant. It’s been said before that how comic-book heroes attach and stick with viewers is by rewriting them from literary greats. The Hulk is really Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Superman is really the immigrant experience in America. With THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, it’s Charles Dickens and A Tale of Two Cities’. Bruce Wayne is Charles Darnay – an aristocrat who is broken by a revolution and returns to champion his city, despite a grave cost. Nolan’s direction is flawless and brave. The sheer scale of the film and his commitment to limiting CGI in favour of in-camera effects is evident throughout. When the police and the revolutionaries battle, it’s not a collection of pixels and models clashing together – it’s real people.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES is, arguably, the film of this generation. We live in a world of “one-percenters” and the 99%,where high finance dictates law and lives and governments seem ready to collapse at every turn. This film doesn’t address those concerns or give comfort. If anything, this film feels like a cautionary tale of what could happen if everything stopped working. A film can’t change those things – how could it? But it could get people thinking. And that’s what THE DARK KNIGHT RISES does. It gets you thinking.

DROP-D RATING: 10 / 10

Addendum: I promised spoilers. LOOK AWAY NOW.

• Talia Al’ Ghul is a character in the film.
• Liam Neeson / Ra’s Al Ghul features in one scene and that’s it. It’s a fairly pivotal scene.
• Cillian Murphy / Scarecrow has an extended cameo.
• The Joker is never referenced. This was done out of respect for Heath Ledger.
• Robin is mentioned… once.