Carrion Review: No, The Monster is the Real Monster.
Singular in intent and action, Carrion sees the monster of the story take revenge on so many men. An interesting take on the idea of reverse horror, if not an entirely successful one.
Singular in intent and action, Carrion sees the monster of the story take revenge on so many men. An interesting take on the idea of reverse horror, if not an entirely successful one.
Supermassive Games did something truly special with Until Dawn. They made a game that encapsulates horror films, and the potential of being inside one.
PUBG as a game shouldn’t work. It’s a multiplayer only game that requires around 100 players for a match. It looks bland as white rice. There’s fundamentally no narrative, no story. To start a game is to commit to a single 30 minute time sink where 99 players are going to lose. This game should have empty servers, critical panning and a bunch of postmortems to dissect exactly how bad of an idea it is. Yet it’s easily one of the most engrossing games I’ve played in a long time. Somehow PUBG is a highly compelling game that’s sucked up most of my year.
Castlevania is a game series based around the troubles of the Belmont family, as they tackle the monsters sent by Dracula to torment the people. The animated series brought to us from Netflix and written by Warren Ellis has been adapted from that core concept. With only four episodes, Castlevania is more of a proof of concept than anything else. Saying that, It’s compelling, hideous and leaves you wanting more.
2016 was… not ideal. But there was plenty of good stuff to enjoy and maybe distract. Might as well celebrate them. So, top ten games, plus a few honourable mentions. Here we go:
To put it bluntly, the opening episodes of Walking Dead Season 3 do not inspire confidence in the rest of the season. There’s structural problems, story issues, a really weird sense of camera direction and some odd graphical problems. By now, Telltale’s Walking Dead series has a reputation. There’s good parts, like the first season’s (for the time) excellent narrative and ability to tug on heartstrings with the choices system. There’s also terrible parts, like the second season’s reliance on unrelenting solemnity and shock, and the fact that by now, after using the choices system in so many other games, it’s transparent to the player. Season Three does very little to move on from this.
I know the move to Netflix is great. And I know you have your habits. But Do Not binge watch Black Mirror. Don’t do it. It’s amazing, I get that. You want to watch more. It is wonderful, but pick an episode, watch it, take a break. It deserves it. Netflix has mostly got it’s original programming series designed to be watched in a sequence, sometimes not even paying attention properly. Black Mirror is worth considering. Pore over it. I’m going to go through the episodes for commenting, but I’ll be avoiding spoilers for the most part where I can.
This week we get so much TV, plenty of adventure games and some really weird movies. Check out your week in Pop Culture below!
Time for another round up of films, games and anything else that catches my eye, starting from Sunday 4th September.
Stranger Things Season 2 is confirmed for Netflix in 2017! But what will be involved?