Reel Opinions Podcast: Episode 23- Death in Blockbusters

 

Review: The Great Wall

When you first hear the positively absurd premise for The Great Wall, your mind will naturally jump to one-of-two disparate conclusions. Either it will be so-bad-that-it’s good, or it will be a great, albeit batshit crazy, popcorn flick. There’s seemingly little room for anything outside of that binary. After all, this is a film about Matt Damon as an Irish (I think) mercenary teaming up with an army of colourfully attired, bungee jumping power-ranger lookalikes, in order to battle mythical lizard creatures that are trying to scale the Great Wall of China. I’ll give you a second to re-read that crack-pot rambling. Go on. Take your time.

One can only assume that this is loosely adapted from a collection of incoherent delusions, found scrawled upon an asylum wall in the author’s own shit. Which sounds promising as hell to me! Oh and it also has Willem Dafoe in it! So how can this be anything but majestically entertaining?

Soundtrack Analysis: Game of Thrones (Season 6 Finale)

Review: Game of Thrones (Season 6, Episode 8)

This was originally published at The Edge SUSU on June 14th.

Spoilers Ahead!

Episode 8 of any Game of Thrones season can often feel like an hour-long build up to the awesomeness that is Episode 9. Still, after last year’s standout arrived early, in the form of ‘Hardhome’, it felt like HBO had decided to surprise audiences and shake up their signature dramatic structure. There was subsequently no reason to believe that this year’s eighth episode couldn’t be just as exciting and eventful as next week’s ‘Battle of the Bastards’ promises to be. Alas, ‘No One’ is actually one of the weaker instalments of this season. Which is honestly fine, because even the lesser episodes of Game of Thrones are well above average. ‘No One’ might not contain any truly shocking narrative twists, or much in the way of spectacle heavy action, but it’s still a solid piece of television, bolstered by great performances and subtler, character driven scenes.

Review: Game of Thrones: A Telltale Games Series: Episode 6- The Ice Dragon

This was originally published at The Edge SUSU on November 28th. 

Spanning over roughly 12 hours of gameplay, the first season of Telltale Games’ Game of Thrones adaptation has finally come to its spectacular conclusion. Up until this point the series has had its ups and downs, and has been marred throughout by small technical hiccups. Despite this, the narrative has been engaging enough to keep people coming back for more.

This Week in Gaming

This was originally published at The Edge SUSU on November 16th. 

The lead up to Christmas keeps the AAA releases pouring in, with a couple of major tie-ins appearing. Everyone’s a winner. Except your bank account. And of course, if nothing tickles your fancy, you can just continue on with Fallout 4. Truth be told I could comfortably write that for the entirety of the next year and it would still feel warranted.

Review: Game of Thrones: A Telltale Games Series: Episode 5 – A Nest of Vipers

This was originally published at The Edge SUSU on July 23rd.

Last month I bemoaned that a certain choice in the 4th episode of Game of Thrones promised devastating consequences, but failed to deliver on that account. Generally the experience has felt a little railroaded throughout, with only minor changes to dialogue and character animations seeming to occur based on your choices, but this particular instance from the last episode felt like a flat-out slap in the face. Offering the player a significant choice, only to back out at the last minute and tell them that it’s wrong isn’t ‘player directed narrative’.

Review: Game of Thrones: A Telltale Games Series: Episode 4 – Sons of Winter

This was originally published at The Edge SUSU on June 1st 2015.

If you think that waiting a week between episodes of Game of Thrones on TV is hard, then try waiting upwards of a month for each installment of Telltale Games’ adaptation. The period can be so long that even after the recap provided at the start of every episode, you’ll still be a little hazy as to where everyone is in terms of narrative. From what I can best recall though, the halfway mark of the series left a lot of strands hanging.

Mid-Season Review: Game of Thrones: A Telltale Games Series

This was originally published at The Edge SUSU on April 28th 2015.

 Much like their acclaimed spin-off of The Walking Dead, Telltale Games’ adaptation of HBO’s Game of Thrones is an episodic action-adventure game, that emphasizes player-directed narrative. You take control of five members of the Forrester house, a family of minor nobility and bannermen to the north (mentioned just once, in passing in George R. R. Martin’s novels). The story concerns a typical Westeros power struggle, complete with shocking character deaths, intricate politics, complex family trees and arranged marriages. An extra little bonus however, is that the events of the narrative overlap with key moments from the show. Sitting on the sidelines of pivotal affairs like a Ye Olde Forrest Gump, the player will witness (but not partake in) incidents ranging from the Red Wedding to other Spoiler-Territory occurrences. With this also come guest appearances from familiar characters, with Lena Headey,  Natalie Dormer, Peter Dinklage, Iwan Rheon, Kit Harington and Emilia Clarke all reprising their roles from the series.