• Ben Folds @ Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, Belfast

    May 14, 2018 - By 

    Ben Folds is a consummate master of contrast. Equally adept at playing plaintive ballads as he is at belting out looney tunes rock and roll, he comes across as a younger, only slightly less grizzled Randy Newman. Folds’ lyrics certainly have the same bite, and are similarly coupled with ear-worm melodies that belie the sardonic nature of the subject matter hiding in plain sight. So, during this evening’s lengthy set the audience is treated to particularly poetic versions of ‘Still Fighting It’, a beautiful tableau of a father-son relationship, and ‘Fred Jones Part 2’, another of Folds’ character studies whose…

  • Wolfenstein II: The Adventures of Gunslinger Joe (Bethesda, Multiformat)

    February 4, 2018 - By 

    What is it that makes Wolfenstein II so enjoyable to play? Is it the slick as oil mechanics, the relentless gunplay, the responsive controls, the ludicrously over-the-top action sequences, the treasure trove of collectibles, the dark sense of humour… or is it the seamless way in which all of these qualities are woven together? Wolfenstein II remains one of the best – perhaps, the best – games of 2017, a superlative product that was made with both the highest standards and a deep love for the franchise. In comparison with similarly themed shooters like Destiny 2 and the much-maligned Star Wars Battlefront 2 and the most recent iteration of Call Of…

  • Okami (Capcom, Multiformat)

    February 4, 2018 - By 

    Capcom may continue to mine their back catalogue for titles to re-release, but if that means that a wider audience will get to enjoy this beguiling adventure, it would be churlish to complain too much. As most gaming folk know, Okami draws heavily on Nintendo’s superlative RPG The Ocarina Of Time, although the nods are more homage than plagiarism, but pushes the genre in a bold direction thanks to the inclusion of several innovative touches. Firstly, there is the influence of Japanese mythology and culture. Playing as Amaterasu, a sun deity incarnated as a white wolf and tasked with ridding the land of…

  • Paddington 2

    November 30, 2017 - By 

    After a month when the media has been dominated by stories of bullies and predators, how refreshing it is to revel in a film whose central message is kindness, courtesy and respect for others. To some, the idea of an animated movie about an eternally polite and optimistic bear might sound cloying, the visual equivalent of peanut butter sticking to the roof of one’s mouth, yet Paddington 2, a rare instance of a warranted sequel, effortlessly strikes the right balance between gentle humour and warmhearted whimsy. The result is a film that not only recaptures the blithely anarchic spirit of the…

  • Assassin’s Creed: Origins (Ubisoft, Multiformat)

    November 17, 2017 - By 

    Have we been spoilt by videogames? It is a question that often wanders into the mind, particularly when playing franchises like Assassin’s Creed, in which long gone historical eras are casually presented to us in graphical form as if this is the most normal thing in the world. So inured are we to the alchemy of the craft that we are presented with a moving, to all intents and purposes living, representation of Revolution France, Renaissance Italy or, in the instance of Origins, Ancient Egypt, and we still find room to complain that it is not real enough. Perhaps our desires will…

  • The Evil Within 2 (Bethesda Softworks, Multiformat)

    October 31, 2017 - By 

    …in which we are once again plunged into the broken mind of Sebastian Castellanos. He may sound like an extra member of The Strokes but he is in fact a self-destructive police detective with, naturally, a drinking problem. You already know the drill: Sebastian is a maverick who bucks the system and is going to get his ass in a sling, but underneath his grizzled exterior he’s a sensitive soul who is searching for answers at the bottom of a bottle and trying to forget something very sad that happened to him a long time ago. One might argue that…

  • Dishonored: Death of the Outsider (Bethesda, Multiformat)

    October 17, 2017 - By 

    Nobody should need a second invitation to return to Karnaca, the vividly realised fictional world where much of the action in Dishonored 2 takes place. With its disparate influences of European architecture, Steampunk machinery, Victorian science fiction, few videogame locations are quite as appealing. So, it is with no small amount of joy that we gladly accept a return ticket to this very destination, courtesy of the wizards at Arkane Studios. In Death Of The Outsider, the gamer does not play as royal guard and assassin Corvo Attano but as Billie Lurk, a badass cross between a Final Fantasy heroine and a T-1000: her mechanical…

  • Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (Sony, PS4)

    October 13, 2017 - By 

    Not many development houses can boast the same consistent track record as the one trail-blazed by Naughty Dog. The Santa Monica company may not have many intellectual properties to their name but when those franchises include Crash Bandicoot, Uncharted and The Last Of Us, they can afford to be choosy. Each of these releases is markedly a team production, the result of many hours of designers, writers, voice artists, illustrators and coders collaborating to make the best game that they could possibly make. Also, unlike so many rivals who exploit their respective fanbases through drip-feeding perfunctory add-ons or usurious micro-transactions, Naughty Dog expansions appear…

  • Cuphead (Microsoft, PC / XBO)

    October 12, 2017 - By 

    To paraphrase Bill Murray’s character in Ghostbusters, here’s something you don’t see everyday: a side-scrolling shoot-‘em-up presented in the lovingly hand-drawn visual style of 1930s Max Fleischer cartoons. An unhinged fever dream in which Betty Boop is reimagined as a vindictive mermaid with an octopus sitting on top of her baby doll head, frogs in boxing gloves duke it out in a riverboat speakeasy to the manic strains of a hopped-up jazz soundtrack, and a sambaing screen-sized flower pelts its enemies with explosive carrots. This is just a taster – an amuse-bouche, if you will – of the consistently inventive and…

  • The LEGO Ninjago Movie

    October 10, 2017 - By 

    While not quite as surefooted as previous cinematic LEGO outings, this family-friendly romp still offers a colourful dose of inspired lunacy. From the outset, it is important to acknowledge that the Ninjago franchise, albeit hugely popular in its minifigure form, is not as appealing as the Batman universe, yet that in itself liberates the filmmakers to try something a little different. At no point does this addition to the LEGO roster claim to be as subversive or slyly satirical as this year’s hilarious puncturing of the Bruce Wayne mythos nor as a piece of animation does it set out to…