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The Walking Dead Review – 2.02 ‘Bloodletting’

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Good news, zombie fans – AMC have announced that The Walking Dead will return for a third season next year. But will we still be watching? Kieran Mathers weighs the pros and cons of the latest episode…

Like the final floundering heartbeat of a zombie plague victim, this episode only manages sporadic moments of life. When it’s good, it’s very good but when it’s bad it’s ugly.

In this episode, Grimes has to get his son to a doctor. Realising they don’t have the correct equipment to save him, Shane and a companion head back into town, where an overrun FEMA hospital might provide the equipment they are looking for…

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The Walking Dead Review – 2.01 ‘What Lies Ahead’

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A bitter struggle to survive. Mindless, shambling antagonists. A dwindling team facing a bleak and uncertain future… But enough about the backstage politics! What did Kieran think of the Season 2 opener?

I can’t imagine The Walking Dead being made by a major network. The offspring of such movies as Day of the Dead, it’s very much a work of horror and lends itself to graphic dismemberments and decapitations, so credit goes to AMC for being brave enough to push the boundaries.

And, until recently, the gamble seemed to be paying off.

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Video Games Review – ‘Mortal Kombat’ (2011)

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Beat-em-up classic Mortal Kombat rose from the dead earlier this year, looking better than ever. But, after almost twenty years and some bad mistakes (including those dreadful movies starring Christopher Lambert), has the game that launched a thousand headlines retained its power to shock? And, more importantly, is it any fun to play? Christopher Bell finds out…

I’ve been playing the Mortal Kombat series since it made its gore-soaked, parent-and-politician-bothering debut way back in the early 1990s and, considering that I’m now 27, that would put me at around nine or ten years old when MK1 first arrived.  Don’t panic; my folks were OK with it, and I didn’t become the ultra-violent little so-and-so that the naysayers claimed I would.

Skip forward to the here-and-now.  The digitised actors have been replaced by fully Unreal Engine 3 rendered, three-dimensional punch bags, albeit on a 2D plane; the ninja costumes are no longer re-colours (the original suit was white, and the colours changed depending on the character), giving a greater sense of visual identity and, last but not least, the series’ trademark Fatalities are much more grisly.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Because the biggest change is not merely technical.

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Video Games Review – ‘Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine’

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Olivia Cottrell gives us the lowdown on Space Marine, published by THQ for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC and released on September 6th 2011.

Well, it was inevitable, really. Having reviewed the promotional game Kill Team, it seemed only natural that I try Space Marine when it came out- at least, that’s the excuse I used. Released on Friday last week, Relic Entertainment’s vision of a grim, dark far future where there is only war is a surprisingly enjoyable romp that incorporates some of the best things about the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

The story of the game is simple enough. The player is put in the clunky armoured shoes of Brother-Captain Titus, an Ultramarine (the best kind of space marine, apparently) captain tasked with liberating a strategically vital world from the orks. Things develop quickly and, though I won’t spoil the climax, there are some pretty fun action sequences that have to be seen to be believed. Combat is standard hack and slash/point and shoot, though the game’s decision to omit the now-ubiquitous cover mechanic means that unwary players can quickly find themselves mobbed. You can only regain health by performing finishing moves on enemies- initially this seems alright but you can still be attacked while doing so, which can be very frustrating.

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Doctor Who Spoiler-free Review – 6.12 ‘Closing Time’

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Caleb Woodbridge previews ‘Closing Time’, episode 12 of Doctor Who by Gareth Roberts.

Two hundred years later, and the Doctor is preparing to meet his end at Lake Silencio. As part of his “farewell tour”, he calls in on Craig Owens (James Corden from The Lodger) to make a social call, but with mysterious power shortages and disappearing shop attendants, he can’t resist investigating one last mystery…

After exploring the darker side of travelling with the Doctor in The Girl Who Waited and The God Complex (don’t forget to check out our audio commentaries on those episode), we’re back to a much lighter action-adventure in this week’s encounter with the Cybermen. The domestic humour combined with something sinister in a department store harks back to Russell T Davies-era Who, especially the first episode Rose, which is no bad thing in my book.

As might be expected from the pen of Gareth Roberts, who brought us last series’ The Lodger, as well as the witty The Unicorn and the Wasp and The Shakespeare Code, the jokes come thick-and-fast. The bromance between the Doctor and Craig reaches new levels (and the return of the so-called “Gay Agenda”!) One of the Doctor’s new abilities from earlier in the series provides a great running gag too.

James Corden is one of those comedy guest stars, like David Walliams last week or Catherine Tate before, who tend to polarise opinion. I really enjoyed both Gavin and Stacey and The Lodger, and Corden’s turn as the hapless but likeable Craig Owens is just as entertaining a second time round, though sadly Daisy Haggard only gets a cameo as Sophie. There’s a fun reappearance for Lynda Baron, making her third guest showing in Doctor Who: she was Captain Wrack in the Peter Davison story Enlightenment, and sang ‘The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon’ all the way back in 1966 for The Gunfighters!

Some might find the ending a bit too sentimental – the Doctor says as much! But I really enjoyed it – it’s fun, touching and scary in the right places. The Cybermen get treated properly as monsters and are nicely effective, even on a small scale.

Although an unashamedly fun episode, the shadow of the Doctor’s impending death looms large, and the closing moments lead directly in to the events we saw back at the start of the series, where the Doctor was struck down by the Impossible Astronaut. Closing time indeed…

Check back on Saturday night for our audio commentary on ‘Closing Time’ and to let us know what you thought!

Doctor Who Review – 6.10 ‘The Girl Who Waited’

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James Willetts brings us his review of ‘The Girl Who Waited’! Don’t forget to check out our commentary, and let us know what you think!

What can you say about The Girl Who Waited? Well first of all, it’s brilliant. Secondly though, it’s yet another chance for the cast to showcase just how great they are.

I was speaking to someone the other day who complained that since RTD left Doctor Who hadn’t been the same. They were right. It’s got better. This has been touted as a little bit like Turn Left, but it’s as superior to that as the Original Trilogy is to the Prequels.

This isn’t just look what happens if the Doctor dies, if you make the wrong choice, go through the wrong door. This is what happens if that wrong decision is compounded again and again. None of it malicious. This wasn’t a trick to make things deliberately worse. This wasn’t a world threatening sequence of disasters. It was one woman who pressed the wrong button and ended up in a different time stream. That’s it.

In fact the whole theme of this episode was choices. It opens with Amy making the wrong choice of what button to press (but it was one that Rory and the Doctor could easily have made too), hinged upon Amy making the decision to work with Rory to save her younger self, and ended with the Doctor leaving Rory to make the choice about which wife to save.

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