Film Review: Silver Linings Playbook

In Silver Linings Playbook we don't really see much American football... Instead, we follow the story of Pat (Bradley Cooper), a man desperately trying to regain his former life.

Recently discharged from an 8 month stint in a mental hospital, Pat is trying to come to terms with the break down of his relationship after he walked in on his wife cheating on him. Through making this discovery something inside Pat snapped and, after dishing out a beating to the man his wife was cheating with, Pat is now a shell of his former self. The attention Pat gained after his violent outburst brought out the fact the Pat is Bi-polar, something he was previously unaware of. Struggling to accept this, he refuses medication and seems to resist the help offered to him at every turn. The social awkwardness brought on by his fragile state of mind leads him to speak before he thinks, often getting him into trouble with friends and family.

Pat's sole purpose in life is now to win back his wife. We discover that whilst incarcerated he has undertaken a journey of self improvement - losing weight and changing other aspects of his life that his wife used to dislike. This obsession is the driving force behind Pat's every action, and we really begin to see how much the incident has had an effect on him. His ambition often lands him into trouble as he attempts to contact her in a number of ways but is restricted from doing so by a restraining order she has had placed on him. Along with this Pat has to deal with his dad, played brilliantly by Robert De Niro, who is focused on raising funds to start a restaurant business after losing his job. He has become a professional (and superstitious) gambler, often forcing Pat to watch American football with him as his lucky charm, adding to the stress of Pat's situation.

Through a friend Pat meets an unlikely helper, in the form of a recently widowed girl from down the street, Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence). Tiffany is in the middle of her own crisis after going off the rails following the death of her husband. It's easy to draw parallels between their situations and they clash and come together with their similarity in a bitter-sweet relationship. It is unclear at the offset whether they will be a good or a bad influence on each other and this uncertainty remains throughout the film.

Comic relief is added to the film by the trouble Pat's social awkwardness brings and the addition of his fellow mental patient Danny, played by Chris Tucker, who is constantly breaking out of the mental home to visit him.

Pat's dedication to renewing his relationship with his wife often brings into question his commitment to other responsibilities and as the film goes on we see a change in Pat for the better. Pat and Tiffany's friendship grows stronger and they have a sobering effect on each other*.

*If I could make a science reference (and I will) it would be like watching a strong acid and a strong alkali mixed together, reacting violently at first and then becoming harmless. Science is awesome...

THE VERDICT

The acting is superb and the film thoroughly deserves the critical acclaim it has received. The pace of the film remains consistent throughout, never leading to a dull moment. The film is brilliantly directed and the comic relief sprinkled into the film doesn't take away from it's sincerity. The only criticism of the film is that it's a bit predictable in nature. If you haven't guessed the ending by the halfway point you obviously don't watch many films. That being said, it doesn't take away from the enjoyment of the film and it'll leave you laughing, and caring for the characters in equal measure with surprisingly little American football throughout.

LHSRAting for Silver Linings Playbook 8.5/10

- Simon

Tomb Raider (2013)

Game Review: Tomb Raider


Tomb Raider sees the return of Lara Croft for the 10th time and is probably the best one since the very first.  I'm still not sure if this is a full reboot or just a prequel though. Lara Croft is 21 and on her first real archeological expedition headed east to find a lost island kingdom off the coast of Japan. After Lara suggests to her team that they head further east, the ship enters a severe storm and Lara and her crew end up stranded on a mysterious island that is inhabited by mad cultists that are also stranded and have been for some time. From here Lara is kidnapped(by the mad cultists) and has to escape and then fend for herself while she tries to locate her lost friends, fight off crazies, explore the island and look for a safe way to escape. As with every other Tomb Raider(due to its homage to Indiana Jones) the plot has a large supernatural element to it. Unlike previous games the supernatural side is slowly introduced which makes the adventure seem more believable and even towards the end it never gets to the level of Atlantean Mutants, Dragons and the Egyptian god Set reborn.
    Lara Croft seems more of a real person now and less of a Hollywood-style action heroine . She's much more like a young woman trapped in a dangerous situation, but there is an obvious disparity between Lara seeming shocked by the death and destruction around her and the fact that as soon as you enter combat you feel like a killing-machine. Also, most of the friendly NPC's don't get much screen time and we never really get to see their personalities develop as we do with Lara's and so they seem quite 1-Dimentional. However Lara's own journey itself is a decent bit of video-game storytelling.  Overall the plot is pretty good but nothing mind-blowing or game changing.
    One thing I really love about Tomb Raider is how they have heavily cut down on the overt sexualisation of Lara Croft which has given the series a seedy image to non-gamers and a still quite seedy image many gamers. Apart from the opening cut-scene when we see Lara fall from the sinking ship(and the camera takes a look down her top)  the cut-scenes no longer focus on Lara's(now reduced) breasts or backside and instead focus on the lush scenery and the many gory injuries that Lara is frequently plagued by.(I get the feeling that this is down to the Hunger Games as well as the general idea in narrative that the more pain and stress a protagonist endures the more the audience will sympathise with them. Either that or the creators are just sadistic bastards, some of the deaths are really gory, but as a seasoned Tomb Raider fan, killing Lara is all part of the fun(see the amazing TV show: Spaced)). Saying that, the creators have made Lara unreasonably attractive, but I can't really call this sexism. It's more Hollywood style Ugly-ism which is in practically every action block-buster and video game, and works both ways. Just look had the unrealistically buff the meat-heads from Gears of War are or the lengths the Metal Gear series have gone to make Raiden look like a pretty boy.
   

    The graphics are excellent(except the blood-splatter effects when killing enemies which look as if each splat has been copied and pasted). The island is beautiful; vibrant looking jungles interspersed with rotting wooden shrines, massive castles, crashed WWII bombers and shanty-towns that the cultists now reside in.
   
    Tomb Raider handles like a dream, Lara moves much smoother than in previous games and the game is such fun to play. I've never played Uncharted but from what I hear the presentation is very similar, in that Tomb Raider is highly cinematic, slipping from normal game play into cut scenes and set pieces. Lara moves a lot more realistically than even before(such as stumbling when she drops/falls from high ledges, and scrambling rather than doing neat combat rolls). Combat is more fun than in any previous Tomb Raider, no longer feeling like a chore(most of the time) but the main flaw is that Tomb Raider is yet another series to fall into the cover based shooter category, but at least it also allows for stealth in many parts of the game. One thing I'm not to keen on is the jump to regenerating health from health-packs but it does make combat that much easier. Over the course of the game you will assemble a large collection of weaponry but the first one you get to grips with is by far the most fun...anyone who's seen any of the footage for the game will of course know I refer to the bow and arrow. Even when I had an automatic machine gun with a grenade launcher attachment I still went back to archery the majority of the time. Unlike Crysis, which uses a bow and arrow in a futuristic setting, this weapon doesn't feel out of place(being that the island is off the coast of Japan where archery has been a samurai tradition for centuries). However one can't help feeling the writers or designers must have loved the Hunger Games, which also ties into another aspect of the game: hunting.
    Hunting is fun but after the first instance seems completely needless, as you never see her prepare or eat anything. I would have preferred a Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater eating system.
    As fun as the game is the platforming and climbing sections do seem noticeably easier than in previous games, and Lara does seem to have kept her slightly negotiationable relationship with gravity. On some long jumps she will curve slightly towards ledges and walls mid-jump, that said it's still plenty of fun and still more challenging than the Assassin's Creed climbing.

I can't really comment on the online mode. Tomb Raider has never had one before and so I see it as an optional extra, I was in it for the campaign.

The Verdict:

Despite several faults I love Tomb Raider and will definitely give it a second play through soon. It looks amazing, plays amazing and the plot is decent. If you've never bothered with the series before but enjoy action/adventure games I would definitely recommend  it as you don't need to know any of the previous games' back story to be drawn in. If you, like me, are already a fan of the series then there's enough jumping, climbing, shooting, large arenas, beautiful scenery and rotting ruins to keep you hooked until completion. I seriously can't wait until the next one now!

LHSRAting for Tomb Raider: 9/10

- Mike

Game Review: Aliens: Colonial Marines

Have you ever tried sleeping on a night train? It’s brilliant in theory and at first it’s really exciting. But in practice you’re thrown from side to side, there’s the constant noise of the track, and the other five people snoring in your carriage. You spend the entire journey praying for it to end. That’s exactly what this campaign is like. You’ll enjoy the first thirty minutes to an hour and then you’ll suddenly think to yourself “what the hell have they done to this game and why won’t it end?!”

THE CAMPAIGN

Aliens: Colonial Marines is set seventeen weeks after the film Aliens and is on the same planet. USS Sephora gets a distress call from the planet and goes to have a look around. To everyone’s surprise there just happens to be an infestation of Xenomorph on the planet. Your character and those around you have no idea what is going on and are constantly asking questions that anyone who has ever heard of the Alien films would have been able to give the answer to. This right here is the start of a long trend whereby the game tries to build some sort of suspense but it just doesn’t work at all.  

The game starts off quite well though and they chuck you straight into the deep end. You find yourself battling Xenomorph from the word go and it does seem quite fun. But then something happens. For some unknown reason you find yourself shooting at other humans that have pretty much come out of nowhere. Turns out they’re Weyland-Yutani men and they’re mad. You actually fight these guys for so long that you forget that this is a game about aliens until they remind you about two hours later. Luckily for you though their A.I isn’t very well programmed so you’ll find that they’ll just stand in the middle of rooms for you to kill them. Saying that the alien’s A.I is the same but occasionally they’ll walk on walls as well. Don’t expect too much support from your fellow NPC marine chums either because they’re A.I is just as good.

Anyway the story continues to try and build suspense as it goes and fails miserably. It turns out that one of your fellow marines has an alien inside of her and you have to go on a little jolly to try and save her. I call it a jolly because the aliens really aren’t scary when you out number them and they run towards you in straight lines. After that you have to find a way of leaving the planet. Turns out whoever wrote this storyline had no imagination and just decided to steal a load of stuff from the films, rewrite some of it as if it was fan fiction, throw it all together, and call it a game.

But the writers and A.I programmers aren’t completely to blame for how bad this game really is, because whoever designed the graphics did such a bad job that I spend thirty minutes thinking that my TV was broken! How can you make graphics that bad in 2013 and at the end of a computer generation? At least make the doors and elevators look descent if you’re going to force players to stand in front of them for twelve minutes whilst the game loads up the next section.

The weapons appear to be very cool though. Well for about an hour anyway. They’ve kept the weapons from the film which is great and they do give you quite a few weapons to choose from. As well as this, as you rank up you unlock upgrades for your weapons. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be much difference in the weapon choices and they all pretty much have the same specs as each other. What also seems brilliant at first but will leave you wanting to listen to traffic go by just for some variety, is the sound of the weapons. They sound just like they do in the film. This is awesome and I’m sure there would have been outrage if they’d changed it. But when you have five guns that all sound the same going off constantly for six hours.... well let’s just say this could be adopted as a new torture technique.

Most people will struggle to finish this campaign and will probably only do so because they feel that they need to get their money’s worth. But there is no chance that anyone will replay this campaign. The only reason anyone will put themselves through a second play through of this is because they’ve got a friend that hasn’t played it yet and they want to see them suffer.   

MULTIPLAYER

The multiplayer is where it was expected that this game would redeem itself. After all, there are a lot of games that have awful campaigns but really good multiplayer segments. Well it can be said that the multiplayer aspect of this game is better than its campaign aspect, but that doesn’t really tell anyone anything.   

There are four different modes for multiplayer. Team Deathmatch is one of them and by far the worst aspect of multiplayer. It’s a standard run around and shoot aliens game. Unless you’re the aliens then you’ve got to attack the marines. What makes it worse is that you still have the same weapons from the campaign, so you may as well all have the same gun. But if you’re an alien then you’re in luck because you get to choose out of three different primary attacks. The developers really messed up what they could do with both aliens and marines right here.

The next mode, which is slightly better than Team Deathmatch, is Extermination. Your class choices are the same as before and are the same throughout all the multiplayer modes. But the small difference is that the marines in this mode have to set bombs to destroy nests of alien eggs, whilst the aliens have to stop this from happening. The idea is pretty good but it’s ruined mainly by the fact that there is some sort of overlord voice telling you what is going on ever five seconds and repeating itself three or four times. It’s extremely irritating.

Then there’s Survivor mode and you have to... well survive. All this mode consists of is four marines hiding in a corner whilst four aliens run towards them. It is really boring. The only upside to this mode is that when playing as the aliens you have a bit more access to different classes. But you have to find them around the map and they’re still not a great improvement.

The final mode is called Escape. This mode is actually quite fun. It’s like Survivor but this time the marines have to make their way from one end of the map to the other. It’s quite enjoyable but at the same time you’ll find yourself thinking something along the lines of “Left 4 Dead does this so much better” and saying to your friends stuff like “Someone remind me, Why are we playing this instead of Left 4 Dead?”.

At least I can say the controls were good though. I’d be lying of course, but I can still say it. To be fair they’re not terrible, but they’re not good either. Controlling the marines is ok if not a little erratic at times, but controlling the aliens isn’t good at all. Actually it’s when you first take control of an alien that you realise how regimented their motions really are. 

THE VERDICT

Aliens: Colonial Marines is one of the worst things to come out of this franchise, and that’s saying a lot. The story seems to be a load of ideas that have been stolen from the films. Then they’ve been thrown together, mixed around, and edited to make even less sense. If the story wasn’t so boring I think people would actually be angry. The graphics do an ok job, but then have some real bad parts that are just unforgivable. Then there’s the A.I. It does the job but it should do a lot better. If you like you ‘A’ to have some ‘I’ then expect to be disappointed. The weapons and sound effects are fun to start with but they soon lose their novelty, and there is no way anyone is going to replay the campaign. The multiplayer redeems itself a little, but not by much. It has some game mode variety, but they’re all quite boring and have been done a lot better by other games a few years ago. It’s a shame that the developers have ruined this great opportunity that they were given.

  

LHSRAting for Aliens: Colonial Marines 4.3/10 (Xbox 360)

-Ayden

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Tomb Raider: Legend (6 years late!)

To celibrate my recent membership of the LHSRA Reviews I have written this: my first review. Its more of a practice really, as Tomb Raider: Legend was first released in 2006, and in anticipation of the upcoming Tomb Raider! So yeah, it's a pretty old game now. I shall review it by 2006's standards because it would be unfair to compare it to more recent games(at least graphically).

    Well this was the 7th console Tomb Raider and the first one for the PS3 & Xbox360 era, and after the abysmal Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness(PS2), Legend had a lot of making up to do.
    After the obligatory opening cut-scene which recaps young Lara's traumatic childhood experiences(a plane crash in the Himalayas, the loss of her mother, etc)Legend then opens with Lara Croft in Bolivia exploring the ruins of Tiwanaku, the real-life capitol of a real-life Pre-Incan civilisation. In her explorations Lara stumbles across another expedition, manned by identical looking armed goons, and before you know it Lara is doing what she does best: killing men(and occasionally woman), endangered animals and then falling off things.

    The plot of Legend is the typical Tomb Raider quest for X artefact(s), which has/have been carelessly left in different locations across the globe. This time X artefact is the legendary Excalibur, which, it turns out is actually now in several shards and needs to be re-forged(much like Aragon's sword in LOTR). To be fair to the writers, they have done some research into the Arthurian Legends and merged them with myths from other cultures to explain Lara's constant globe-trotting(a Tomb Raider game set exclusively in England would not be much of a game). Along with all this, it turns out that both Lara's dead parents, and her(assumed) dead friend Amanda - SPOILER: she's both alive and the main villain) are all caught up in the quest for Excalibur, and so making this particular adventure more personal.
    The dialogue isn't great, often cliched and Lara now had a slightly annoying team who talk at her via a wireless headset. Lara's team consists of an uptight English historian called Alistair and a stereotypical wise-cracking black American named Zip, who acts as your tech-expert. Whilst this makes it easier to get plot ideas across when playing without having to suffer a hundred cut-scenes, it does detract from some of the locations. It's hard to feel the isolation of being 100 feet under a mountain when your team keep nattering on and calling Lara crazy when you make a tricky jump.
    The writers seem to have taken on board some of the many observations of Tomb Raider fans, trying to make her seem less psychotic(I don't think anyone actually minded her being psychotic). The first time you have to kill an endangered species Lara expresses her regret at least. She still goes on to kill several more rare jaguars later on in that level, but who cares about wild life when you're desecrating an ancient tomb looking for loot? But whatever Lara thinks of wild animals, she blatantly doesn't give a damn about her carbon foot-print. At one point Lara travels from Bolivia to the UK and then straight to Peru for a five minute conversation. Baring in mind these countries share a boarder. Hasn't Lara heard of Video Conferencing? She should talk to Zip about that really.
    I still find it amusing the designers still call Lara an archaeologist though. As much as Lara expresses her love for ruins, tombs and ancient cultures, if there's a priceless relic blocking the door she's quick enough to smash it into shards rather than come back with a survey team and Tony Robinson for moral support.
    Over all, the plot is what you expect from a Tomb Raider game, i.e. A knock-off Indiana Jones story with a highly sexualised woman. Saying that Lara herself seems totally asexual. I get the feeling that she is neither straight nor gay, but instead has a highly usual sexual attraction for crumbling masonry, or possibly mummies.

    Now for the actual game! Graphically Legend is pretty decent for the time it was released in(2006). The ruins and scenery look pretty lush but on levels in modern locations the small details often look quite ugly.
    The locations within the game are varied and interesting if a bit short. You get to explore parts of Bolivia, Peru, Tokyo, Ghana, Kazakhstan, Nepal and, most shockingly of all, Cornwall! There is a good mix of ancient foliage clad ruins, modern areas and vehicle sections in which you get to ride a motor bike at break-neck speed and watch Lara crash into walls. Saying that, the motor biking sections are actually really fun to play, and as a seasoned TR fan, watching Lara collide with a rock spire at 90 MPH is still fun the tenth time you see it. As usual with a post Tomb Raider 1 Tomb Raider game there could be a few more tombs and a few less city inspired levels, but Legend has a much better balance than Tomb Raiders 2,3,5 and Angel of Darkness.
    The game play is a large step up from AoD. Crystal Dynamics have pretty much fused the controls of Tomb Raider: Last Revelation(i.e. TR 4) with those of Prince of Persia. Lara can climb, roll, swim, shimmy along ledges and swing on vines much more freely than in previous game, and now she has a magnetic grappling hook for those ruins in which the ancients forgot to leave handy ropes dangling over large chasms. It is also useful for grappling handy out of reach item.
    The best thing Legend brought to the game play is the ability to think your way around death-traps. I spent ten minutes on one level trying to time a jump through some vicious swirling blades only to realise that the fork-lift truck I used to smash through the wall could withstand the whirling blades much better than Lara.
    Combat, as always in Tomb Raider games, is the worst part of the game play but with the auto-aim on it's not very difficult. My major concern was the fact it was hard to switch between targets, so I was shooting at the goon with a pistol 30 feet away whilst there was a goon with a shot gun 5 feet away. All in all though the combat is still quite fun and with new close-quarter moves and obvious exploding set-pieces can make you feel like a bad ass. Probably the best combat in any Tomb Raider game before it.
    Many people might moan about the camera, which often veers off in the wrong direction during difficult jumps, but I see this as a regular part of Tomb Raider and should be embraced.

    I was actually quite surprised by how much I enjoyed going back to Legend. It has quite a few faults(most of them to do with historical accuracy if I'm honest, and blatant sexism at times - Tokyo level being the worst for this) but the game play still feels slick after 6 years, there's plenty of jumping from precarious ledges, falling into pits, getting hacked up by swirling blades and actually raiding some tombs.  I give it a decent 7.5/10. But saying that, if Legend had been a few hours longer I would have rounded up to 8.

- Mike