Review: Red Dwarf X 'Trojan'

So last Thursday Dave premiered a brand new spanking episode of Red Dwarf, marking the beginning of the tenth series and the first proper series since 1999’s series 8 (er, perhaps it’s best to gloss over Back to Earth). When I heard it was coming back, I was both unreasonably excited and rather worried. Having been introduced to it in the late 00’s, I watched all eight series through and cried with laughter at it all. However, it had been years since it had been on air. Was it still relevant? Would it still be funny? Were the cast just too old to play the same characters again? I sat down to watch Trojan (4th October 2012) with what could be at best described as mixed feelings.

First off, check out that fancy new set eh? In true Red Dwarf style, there’s no explanation as to why everything is now red rather than military grey (or was that ocean grey), but it’s looking good. I especially like the new bunk set, let’s hope there’s more bunk scenes to go with it in future episodes.

In fact, no continuity is explained whatsoever. We dive straight in to a scene between Cat and Lister discussing moose accidents in the 1970’s. Kind of weak, but OK. After this, it becomes painfully obvious that Holly just wasn’t coming back. Sure, he/she wasn’t in Back to Earth, but they’d bring him/her back for the new series, right? Nope. I’ve heard it explained that by the end of series 5 they had run out of things for the character to do, so they had to get rid. It’s a good point, but it’s still a bit sad we’re not going to see Holly again.

As for the episode itself? Actually, it’s ok. After a rather disappointing start, and a rather overwhelming laugh track (ok guys, it’s funny, we get it!), it builds up into a good story about Rimmer’s resentment of his older brother. It harks back to the older episodes of series one and two, where Rimmer was a boiling pot of resentment and paranoia. Add in a quick dig at what I assume was Apple, and you’re onto a winner. It feels as if they’re reaching out to the old school fans, the ones who remember the show from their formative years and would appreciate this dose of nostalgia the most.

So, Trojan wasn’t the best episode yet, but it was a good opener and I have high hopes for future episodes. More please!

Deponia

Another new game? At this rate I’m going to become a relevant game reviewer...

As i've made mention of before, I'm a big fan of old school point and click adventure games, so I warn you in advance that nostalgia bias me somewhat.

Deponia is a new point and click adventure that came out on in the uk on the 7^th of august. Its made by Daedalic Entertainment the developers of some other recent adventure games, most noticeable The Whispered World.

Deponia It tells the story of Rufus, a self obsessed, rude and mostly useless resident of Deponia a trash planet living in the shadow of the beautiful Elysium. Rufus main motivation is to leave Deponia and live on Elysium but in pursuing that goal he accidental knocks an Elysium pixie called Goal, off of a transporter, damaging her brain in the process, the rest of the game becomes about 

waking her up and getting her home again.

Rufus' efforts to return Goal to Elysium turn into a crazy string of events with everything you need for an exciting story: Storm Troopers, a speeding mine bike, an evil doppelganger and weirdly flavoured cotton candy...

The gameplay is exactly what you would expect from a point and click adventure game, you point at objects and click on them, you have an inventory and you collect items and then take them where they are needed to solve puzzles. The Puzzles are pretty logical most of the time, and unlike some old school games there is no pixel hunting in this game.

This game is good, but its not great, it has a couple of mini games that did nothing but annoy me, its very short, I finished it in about 3 hours without a guide and its ending it not great, but since I've learned there is a sequel on the way I can forgive it that.

What is game has in droved though is heart, its humour is reminiscent of Monkey island, its writing is good and brought to mind the old Terry Pratchett adventure games and it even has a great little song. I felt good while I played the game, and it left me with a smile on my face. But don't take my word on it, this game is available everywhere go pick it up and try it yourself.

DON'T BE RACIST AGAINST COWS - a Lollipop Chainsaw review

Let’s talk about Lollipop Chainsaw, shall we? Chances are you’ve already made your mind up about it, one way or another. After all, it’s a game all about a zombie hunting cheerleader! You’re either going to love it or hate it, right?

Well, that’s kind of hard to say. I picked it up because I thought the idea of zombies exploding into rainbows and sparkles when they’ve been chainsawed to death was hilarious (yes, I’m fairly easy to please). I started playing and I just wasn’t disappointed.



The game centres around Juliet Starling, a high school cheerleader on her 18th birthday (very obviously mentioned so it’s ok to perv on her) who discovers her school’s been overrun by the undead. Luckily, she’s part of a zombie hunting family, so pulls out her chainsaw and begins mowing her way through them while declaring them ‘gross, undead DOUCHEBAGS!’

Joining her is her boyfriend Nick, sadly reduced to a talking head after Juliet was forced to decapitate him following a deadly zombie bite (probably best not to think about that too hard). He provides the straight man to Juliet’s ditzy, perpetual optimism. It’s actually rather funny to listen to them chatting as she’s slicing up the undead. ‘After this all over, we should come back and ride the cows!’ ‘Cows, Juliet?’ ‘OMG DON’T BE RACIST AGAINST COWS NICK!’

The juxtaposition of cheery cheerleader against decomposing zombies works really well most of the time. The zombies explode into the aforementioned rainbows and glitter when they die, and if you can slice up more than three with one swipe of your blade, you can activate ‘sparkle hunting’ for extra points. The addition of ‘Mickey’ by Toni Basil playing when you activate special attacks is also a nice touch.

I thought the obvious sexualisation of Juliet might be a sticking point, but most of the time it’s played purely for laughs, pointing out how absurd it is. The camera doesn’t miss an opportunity to disappear up her skirt or down her top, and Juliet herself pleads ‘Hey! Don’t look up my skirt!’ in the loading screens. What’s nice to see is that however hard the big bads are trying to get in her way, she always has a plan and is always in control. It’s all part of the joke.

So, nearly 400 words in and I haven’t mentioned the actual gameplay yet. Er, yeah, about that... there really isn’t that much of it. You run through six themed levels, swinging your chainsaw, and, er, that’s about it. Ok, so it’s broken up by several minigames, but for all it’s endearing quirkiness it’s not all that substantial. The story mode will take you five hours tops, and there’s a ‘ranking mode’ but honestly, there isn’t much replay value.

However, I’m willing to forgive a lot of this because it’s a refreshing change from the trend of super serious, brown games that are so popular right now. Lollipop Chainsaw is happy to point fun at everything, including itself, and is just a joy to look at as the screen explodes with rainbow colours after every decapitation. Under that is a surprisingly well written story of a teenage love affair, dealing with the boyfriend’s worries about meeting her family even as the world ends around them. I can’t help it, I really enjoyed it. If this sounds like your kind of thing, I highly suggest you grab it just for the experience.

Orcs must die 2

In another strange turn of events, I'm going to review another game this week... that is actually a new release...

I'll get back to reviewing old games and films that no one cares about soon... promise.

This long awaited sequel...

Wait that’s not true, the original Orcs must die came out less than a year ago... let me start again.

This shortly awaited sequel to Orcs must die was released on steam on the 30^th of july, since then I played the frell out of it, the reason I’m posting so late today, is because when I started the drawing for today's post, it made me want to play the game, so I played for 3 hours or so, then got back to it.

Orcs must die 2 is a tower defence game, your job is to stop the Orcs getting from the door they enter the level from, to the door they exit the level through. To help you with that task are a bunch of weapons, spells and traps. You can play it anyway you like, go completely hack and slash and kill the Orcs yourself, or set up cleaver trap combinations to kill the Orcs for you, however once the levels start getting harder and harder its only through a combination of these two techniques that your going to succeed, especially when the harder baddies start to show up.

As you can expect from a game with such a short turn around, not much has changed since the first game, the graphics and gameplay are just as they where in the first one. This is not a bad thing, if its not broke, don't fix it. The game has buckets of personality and while the story is very much an excuse to kill as many Orcs as possible, its not horrible.

The big change between this game and its predecessor is the inclusion of co-op multiplayer, now you can recruit a friend to come kill the Orcs with you. This is not without its problems, you get much less gear and traps when you play co-op so you need to get on well with the person you are playing with and come up with real strategies, if you don't work together your not going to succeed, this is not necessary a bad thing, but because you unlock things and upgrade them as you play it does mean you need to find someone who is at the same sort of point in the game as you to play with, or things can feel very one sided.

All in all Orcs must die 2 is a great edition to my game library, and one I highly recommended to everybody, even if you don't normally like tower defence games you can find a lot to love in this one.

However, put your own music on while you play, the in game music gets old fast.