Goose

I came to this off the back of the excellent Borderland 3, so it was always going to be a struggle. 

There's good stuff here but it's also painfully generic and I found myself getting bored of the scenario almost straight away. It's a shame as I'm a really big fan of People Can Fly. There's not that much difference between this and Remnant, which again I enjoyed but got bored of quickly. The powers were good fun and I found myself using those more than the actual weapons.

Might come back to it later in the year, will see how it pans out.

EDIT: The opening is incredibly disjointed, with the game switching to cut scenes with ridiculous frequency. This got better after the prologue but I still had breaks in the game where I’d get a ten second scene of the character knocking a door. The lack of customisation of your character in the cut scenes also broke the immersion, but I imagine that’ll be fixed.

District 10 is finally in the works, with news from Neill Blomkamp that he, Sharlto Copley and Terri Tatchell (who co-wrote the original as well as Chappie) are working on the sequel to the 2009 picture. Nothing else is known about the project at this time, but it's been hinted at (and anticipated) since the surprise hit of District 9. Since then, Blomkamp has struggled to maintain that earlier promise, with Elysium and Chappie both disappointing. 

He then moved on to short films, and there was talk at least one of them would be made into a feature. He was also heavily involved in a Robocop sequel but dropped out due to MGM wanting to fast track the film's release. 

https://www.comingsoon.net/movies/news/1164942-neill-blomkamp-announces-district-10-sequel-script-in-progress

Have you seen Cage's Lord of War? If not, that's well worth a watch.

The Running Man isn't a great movie, and I absolutely love it. I must have seen it 20 times at least. 

IIRC, the book is much, much darker

Major Spoilers

Looks to be more a cult this time, than inbreds.

Anyone seen this yet?

I know he did tonnes of great work, but I always loved him for Dragnet.

Oh man

Be sure and seek out Rituals. Stunning movie.

What a great haul - and a great thread!

There's a new light gun rom dump out there (I think it's been out for a while). Looks to be an independent arcade game from around 2011 called Friction. No story, no intro just straight into the action. Plays like most on the rails shooters, few different weapons and three levels to choose from. Gunplay is solid enough but the game doesn't have any personality at all. 

It can played via mouse, and runs on the Demulshooter emulator (which was included in the pack I got). It also has gore on and off settings and lets you play at 1080p.

Anyone seen Psycho Goreman? Two kids find the ultimate evil alien in the backyard and discover the gem that controls him. It's made by the guy who did The Void (great first 40 minutes, great effects, then....) and it's a bit all over the shop. I'm struggling to make it through the first 20 minutes despite it seemingly reviewing well. Less a tribute to the 80s, more one to the early 90s.

Bloody Hell was good fun, enjoyed that a lot. The lead had a great confidence and charisma that really went a long way. 

I wouldn't say it's strictly horror, and does have some laughs. However, there's plenty of blood and I think if the film didn't have some kind of comic foil, it had the potential to be incredibly dark. I mean, it is incredibly dark, but it's very well balanced. It's not original but it knows the material, and knows how to play it to its best potential.

The only thing I'd change (major end spoilers)

Just seen this. It's an interesting picture, and it has a lot more heart than I expected. The main leads are solid enough, though this is essentially Anthony Mackie's picture. Once the concept is introduced, it's a fairly simple story and I think after The Endless, I was hoping for a bit more. 

It's one of those things whereby there's another story going on, but the film decides to keep it on the periphery, and perhaps tell a more generic one that just happens to feature the concept as a means to an end. You'll also work out where it's going some time ahead of it going there, and I think that left me disappointed - again because of how Resolution and The Endless were. It's definitely no mind-twister, but it plays out well enough, and there's a couple of quite touching moment, buoyed by Mackie's performance. 

This is apparently getting some good notices - streaming from today - 

Bloody Hell

Quote

The film centers on a man with a mysterious past as he flees the country in hopes of escaping his own personal hell, only to arrive somewhere much, much, much worse. In an effort to survive this new horror, he must rely on the help of his personified conscience.

I saw Underwater turn up on a few horror lists so thought I'd give it a go. I have no idea why to be honest.

There's not an original bone in the picture, as it tries to be Alien, Titan Find, Deep Star Six, The Abyss and some kind of Cthulhu mash up.  Kristian Stewart gives her all, and I did like a world weary Vincent Cassell as well. To be honest, no idea what TJ Miller was doing in this as he stuck out like a sore comedic thumb. It kicks off immediately and doesn't really let up. It's not scary in the slightest and completely unoriginal, but I honestly didn't mind it. The cast do their best, there's too many jump scares and dark scenes, but I liked the diving suit design and a lot of tension can be gained just from the claustrophobic effect of being trapped in water, in a suit. 

Half decent out of ten (bear in mind I think I've seen about 4 films in the last year)

Worth watching back to back with Commercial Breaks.

I came across this by accident as it was linked to a story about the directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead signing on to direct the Moon Knight TV show for Marvel. I really liked the The Endless and Resolution certainly had its moments. 

The trailer looks fairly spoiler filled, but with these movies, who knows? It turns up on streaming services on Jan 12th 

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When New Orleans paramedics and longtime best friends Steve and Dennis are called to a series of bizarre and gruesome accidents, they chalk it up to a mysterious new drug found at the scene. But after Dennis' oldest daughter disappears, Steve stumbles upon a terrifying truth about the supposed psychedelic that will challenge everything he knows about reality -- and the flow of time itself.

ETA Prime (who's a good youtuber for guides and such) discusses the emulation options 

Basically no issue with PSP, PS1, GC and Wii emulation, at 1080P. But once you get to PS2, it starts to struggle, even at native resolution. It's basically an overpriced Ryzen machine in terms of emulation.

11 hours ago, JohnC said:

Marion Ramsey, perhaps best known as Laverne Hooks in the Police Academy movies.

I remember when I was researching to write about the movies. She was the reason that Bubba Smith didn't appear in the last one (IIRC). She'd fallen on hard times so he asked the producers if they could bring her back, as the fans had always liked her. When they said, Smith dropped out of the production. 

Neil Marshall's new movie, The Reckoning. 

A young woman finds herself accused of being a witch by the brutal witchfinder (played by Sean Pertwee). This is making a few waves as Charlotte Kirk has been involved in a scandal that saw two top studio execs quit.

Tanya Roberts has passed away - 

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/tanya-roberts-bond-girl-and-that-70s-show-star-dies-at-65

Just completed Wilmot's Warehouse and absolutely loved it. 

You begin with 4 different products that are delivered by truck (usually a total quantity of around 25). You get 2 minutes to sort them out however you want, before the counter opens and you have to serve four people the items they want (and in the correct quantity, within a time a limit). The round ends, and you're then given four more items and time to sort them before the counter opens again.

After three rounds, you're allowed to do a stocktake, giving you infinite time to rearrange the warehouse how you want. The faster you serve people the more stars you're awarded, and these can be used to buy a robot helper, the ability to carry more items or remove pillars from the warehouse to create more storage space.

That's about it. The idea is to be able to handle 200 different items and serve the customers within the allocated time. I found it to be incredibly additive and relaxing at the same time. The items can be sorted however you want - some resemble real things, while others are simple shapes. Trying to get them sorted and in an order you're going to remember is rewarding.

Really enjoyed it, and I've just completed a 200 item run, ending the game. The only real downside is there's nothing after that. I was hoping you could just continue taking in stock and serving the counter. Still, a great game, well worth seeking out (it's on Gamepass and was given away free on the Epic store some time ago).

If I wanted to connect a PC to an arcade joystick, would I just need a zero delay USB device? 

I've got an old PC and I was tempted to put something like Coinops Diamonds on it - a windows based front end emulator thing. At the moment I've got the arcade machine set up as the above pictures. If I remove the cables, and wire them into the zero delay (then connect to the PC) will the joystick work via the PC? 

Wow, this ends suddenly. I skipped a cut scene by accident and suddenly