Author Archives: Steve Murray
Doctor Who: The Witch’s Familiar Review
As someone who watched old Doctor Who reruns growing up, I’m quite fond of the multi-episode arc that Doctor Who traditionally used to tell stories. It’s something we rarely see from modern Doctor Who, at least not to the extent that it used to be used as a story telling device. In fact, this is only the second two-part season premiere of Doctor Who since the revival.
The problem with a multi-episode story arc is that you really need to have a good payoff to the individual episodes and the story as a whole. I’m not convinced that The Magician’s Apprentice and The Witch’s Familiar two-parter really fulfilled either side of that.
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Life is Strange – Episode One Review: If I Could Turn Back Time
With the final episode of Life is Strange, Square Enix and Dontnod’s surprise hit episodic adventure game, coming out on October 20th, I think that’s as good an excuse as any to play through it and get it all reviewed between now and the release of that last episode. Critics adore this game and review scores are getting better with every episode. My interest comes in that I find that my reviews often contradict the critics in that where critics see improvement, I see it differently. Will I see a game floated as a game of the year contender differently that the rest?
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Doctor Who Villains Through Time (Infographic)
With Doctor Who back for another season, it’s time to bring back our weekly look at some of the lighter fare in the Doctor Who fan-verse. This week, this regular feature returns with a handy little infographic that looks at the many, many villains that The Doctor has battled over the course of over 50 years and 12 lifetimes.
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Video Game Voice Actors Could Go on Strike
The video game industry could be getting a massive behind the scenes shake up. Video game voice actors are voting in potential strike action as negotiations between their union, the Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), and video game publishers continue negotiations over several issues, including compensation and residuals.
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Absolute Drift Review: Get a Little Bit Sideways
Racing games tend to be very complex. It’s not just the Assetto Corsas, Forzas, and Gran Turismos of the world that are complex. Even the likes of Mario Kart and even all the way back to the old NES racing games that seem fairly simple and arcadey have a lot of different moving parts (pun intended).
But what happens when you strip away most of those moving parts? What happens when you build a game around a car, a track and your right foot? Absolute Drift attempts to answer that by taking the drifting game and distilling it down to just drifting.
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Doctor Who: Magician’s Apprentice Review
Nine months on from Christmas, Doctor Who Christmas is upon us. Okay, I’m not sure what a Doctor Who fan would consider to be the biggest event of the year but it’s my review so I’m going to say it’s the season premiere. With no new characters to introduce, we instead get reacquainted with a couple of The Doctor’s old nemeses. What good is a hero without an equally strong villain, after all.
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A History of The Avengers (Infographic)
One thing that often happens when comic book movies come out is that fans will compare the comics to the movies. Sometimes, the comparisons are favourable. Sometimes, less so. I’d like to think that the likes of The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy were better movies than the comics. Spider-Man and the later X-Men movies, on the other hand, should probably have stuck to print.
Anyway, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has a very limited number of Avengers through the first two movies. That’s in direct contrast to the never ending members of the Avengers throughout the years in the Marvel Comicverse, including to this very day. To see who is and has been part of the Avengers through the years, we have a handy little infographic for you.
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The Meaning of Lightsaber Colours (Infographic)
Fans of the Star Wars movies know that there are four colours for lightsabers. The Jedi primarily use blue and green saber blades with Mace Windy rocking a purple saber. The Sith use their trademark red. If you’re fans of the Star Wars expanded universe of novels, comics and games, you could have another seven saber blade colours, each with their own meanings.
So as we continue our march to the December premiere of The Force Awakens, here’s a handy infographic that looks at the meaning of the colour of lightsabers.
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Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Comes with a Ridiculous Pre-Order Scheme
Sometimes, it really pays to read beyond the headline. For example, if you were sent a press release that says “Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Launch Date Revealed,” you would think that the press release was mostly about the game’s launch date and a little bit about what is available for pre-order.
That what I thought it was until I got to the subheading of “Player Choice Prevails with Augment Your Pre-Order Campaign; Collector’s Edition Unveiled.” At first glance, player choice and pre-order bonuses seems like it’s a long-awaited change to the typical pre-order plan. Then you see how Square Enix has put it together and you can’t but help but hit your head off your desk.
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The Evolution of Star Wars Prequel Costumes (Infographic)
With a new trilogy of Star Wars sequels upcoming starting this December, it’s time for us to look at the prequels! Wait… What?
The folks over at HalloweenCostumes.com are probably doing a build-up to The Force Awakens so nobody panic. Other than Revenge of the Sith and the Episode One: Racer video game, I’m not sure that anybody is going to be doing too much celebrating of the prequels. That being said, they do have a fun little look at the evolution of the costume design of the big three characters from the prequel trilogy. Even if some of the dialogue, story and CGI were shaky, the movies were certainly visual tours de force.
et geekera 