I’ve tried to write about Lone Survivor a number of times now and each time I tried to explain why I would nominate it as the best game of 2012 I would just come up with a bunch of paragraphs containing trivial observations of the game’s structure, mechanics, graphics and whatever arbitrary thingamabobs make up a great game worthy of a GotY. But then I had a problem. I’d look at this collection of things I wrote and I’d say “who the fuck cares?” I don’t care; it’s not why I like this game so much: the things, the components and the thingamabobs. There are other games out there released in 2012 which have much better thingamabobs so why am I talking about music, graphics and story? And if that stuff is unimportant then what do I say about Lone Survivor?

I have got to say something. I often get frustrated with people when the subject of the conversation moves to ‘things we like’ and someone says they love the TV show 24, then you ask them why they like it and they just shrug and say “I just do.” I don’t know why I get frustrated. I guess everyone else has more important things to think about and it’s only weirdos like me who have to try and process everything and understand the affect it’s having.

So that means I have to approach what I think about Lone Survivor with total honesty. That’s not to say I haven’t been honest before but when I think of what I have written about games in the past it’s done so with an almost objective honesty; opinion comes into it, obviously, but most game writing is done so in a relatively academic style that is also dressed as light entertainment. I just can’t get my point across using that style of writing in regards to Lone Survivor. I sometimes see these incredibly personal blogs around the internet that tell stories about how games have aided them through bad times, such as helping an individual through grief since they’d lost a loved one or just generally helped them through something shitty. You can stop wincing because I’m not going to go into anything like that with this collection of words… I have far too much shame and self-loathing to be so open, but what I’m getting at is if I played Lone Survivor two years, or even a year before I did, it may not be getting the most honourable of accolades. It’s getting this accolade because I played it when my life was in a certain state, which of course made it more affecting to me than the sum of its parts.

Maybe it is because of Lone Survivor’s vagueness, it’s non-commitment to explaining all the horror going on, the fact that there are so many bits that make it all open to interpretation that made it appealing to me and my over-thinking brain that just doesn’t shut up at times. There is a lot to dive into and seeing what I could interoperate as my life twisted beyond recognition into a pixel horror game, then reflected back at me was sad, scary and at times, a little uplifting. It left and impression on me, that’s for sure. And that’s why it wins.

That’s all I really have to say about Lone Survivor. Just self indulgence. The game itself is a decently put together adventure game. Combat is clunky but not so much you get frustrated and taken out of the experience and the sound and music is incredibly atmospheric. If you’re always two bottles of wine away from weeping in the dark in front of a flickering TV then give it a try yourself. Play it. That’s entertainment, right?

2012 was another great year for downloadable games. With every year they seem to become more and more relevant with even The Walking Dead beating off retail games in the larger outlets.

Anyway, these are my top runners-up.

First up: Journey. This is a game that doesn’t have much traditional gameplay and is usually backed up by people telling you ‘it’s an experience'. While I mock the Tumblr-esque use of the word ‘experience’ I do struggle to think of a better shorthand. It’s not about beating a trial but just interacting with this wonderfully designed world. While sliding down a beautiful sandy slope and trying to weave in and out of the arcs while Austin Wintory’s fantastic soundtrack plays and expertly weaved into the pace of the game, I had to admit I was having a good time with the need of complex mechanics.

What Journey does as well as that is in its cooperative play which sets it apart. Journey takes to people and scraps all the usual information that most other games use. There are no ‘PSN IDs’, no links to their to profile to see who they are and what trophies they have. There is no voice chat so you can’t be distracted by someone asking if you’ve seen Gangnam style yet or anything.

What Journey does with co-op is limit it, and does so in a way that funnels the experience you’re having into something that honours the tone of the game.

Another mention goes out to Fez. After all the positive and negative exposure the creator of Fez got around the game’s release thanks to a pretty good documentary about its development and also Phil Fish, Fez’s creator, going all idiotic during a panel and saying all the modern Japanese games suck, which of course resulted angry people making lists of good, modern Japanese games in the comments section. They always do that, despite the fact that no argument has ever been won with a list.

But putting the controversy aside I think Fez should be remembered for what it does. On its surface it’s one of those indie platformers that get made a lot, now. It’s full of gorgeous pixel art and has a fantastic and lazy chip-tune inspired soundtrack by a young guy in thick-rimmed glasses.

What makes Fez truly special is in the unlocking of its puzzles outside of the game mechanics. Finding code and writing it down and hopefully making sense of it later. Fez is a game you really take with you into the real world, and it encourages you to experience that game like you would back before the internet where it’s truly mysterious and you’re really discovering, like in the original Legend of Zelda and Metroid games.

Another game I want to mention, and one I reviewed here, is Hotline Miami. I first became aware of this game when some of the cool gamers on Twitter were talking about it and since I’m a sheep I stuck it on my Steam pre-order list.

Since I didn’t really look into it much the game was always going to surprise me, but thankfully it was a nice surprise. Graphically, I’m not sure if I like it, still; and the gameplay is something I could have either loved or hated, but everything came together nicely. It’s just constant and brutal and kinetic and sleazy and exploitational and visceral and whatever buzzword you want. It’s all the buzzwords, as well as being one of the best action shooters I’ve played since Halo or Goldeneye multiplayer for the first time or something. Hotline Miami is a blood splattered face with a psychotic smile.

Now this next game is something I wasn’t going to mention originally but when Ben went ahead and gave it a ten out of ten I thought I’ll have to turn this list of four into five. To the Moon is certainly worthy of a mention, but it has a few too many issues to me.

Since it’s a kind of adventure game then at its worst you find yourself clicking on anything that may be interactive to progress with no clear goal of what you are meant to do and the puzzles that make up most of the gameplay are asinine as hell, but I’m not here to undermine Ben, but it does do a few things that are worryingly rare in video games and playing To the Moon is a sobering realisation.

To the Moon has what I can only describe as an actual story which follows actual characters. It has people who have layers of depth that peels slowly throughout the course of the game and is always intriguing. It also has a sentimentality to it which can be annoying in other media but in games it’s a breath of fresh air. To the Moon is a wonderful story tied up with needless and boring game conventions, but it really is something to be witnessed. It’s worth it.

For my final shout I’m going to leave the indie scene (though this is just as indie as Journey in the literal sense) and put in an darn video game. My final pick is Double Dragon Neon.

This game was free for a month and I tried it because, Hell, I like a number of Wayforward’s games a lot, so despite me not really liking the look of it, thinking it looked a bit ‘quick knock-off-y’, like a market stall Tamagotchi, I thought the price was right so gave it some time.

I’m so happy I did! Double Dragon Neon is the best example of a beat 'em up since the 16bit era. Sure, Castle Crashers and Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World are both pretty good takes on the genre but DDN nails it. The feel of the punches to the awful but wonderfully fitting music… actually, the music is pretty good in parts. Fighting in a grimy but still colourful backstreet to a song that sounds like a rearrangement of Michael Jackson’s Bad is pretty cool, especially when the street punks start cart-wheeling.

It also takes more modern gaming conventions and subtly uses them; like you have a duck button and when you time it correctly you can dodge an attack and then your attack power doubles and it brings thoughts of Gears of War’s reload system and how satisfying it can be coming back from safety but even tougher.

But not only that I firmly believe that Double Dragon Neon is a game where those that made it really had fun with it, and that fun just pours through the screen. It’s just a very good example of one of those darn video games.

None of these take the crown of the best game available through a pipe in the ground but that will be revealed soon enough.

2012 has, in my ever humble opinion, been the best year for gaming in a very long time. Sure there's some big name games that have disappointed, and on the list below a lot of big name games have missed out, but I'd say that was indicative of the depth of quality we've had this year.

On this list there's no Fez, no Journey, no Borderlands 2, Mark of the Ninja, Halo 4. We could post 2 top 10s and still be missing someone's favourite game of the year.

Here's to 2012!

I’m sure PC gamers will be screaming at us that The Witcher 2 actually came out last year, and they’re right, but it’s hard to ignore the 360 and Enhanced Edition releases, especially as it’s comfortably the best game I’ve played this year.

Witcher 2 gives you a mature, rich story, something you haven’t sat through a million times before. It gives you difficult choices, a grim underbelly, and occasional splashes of humour. The combat has depth, you need to plan ahead to an extent, but when you click with it there’s a connection between you and Geralt, you’re not just more levelled up than the enemy, you’re better than them.

The fantasy setting may put some off, but if you do take the chance on The Witcher 2 you’ll be rewarded with a stunningly realised and fleshed out world. The game is superbly pitched and paced, leaving you wanting more, and I dare say caused a few people to track down the books. Simply one of the best games of this generation.

Dishonored is probably the surprise of the year, certainly I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did. Even a few hours in it hadn’t shown its hand, but in the game’s back half, when you’re expertly ripping through the world, toying with enemies and flashing through the environment, you realise just how well sculpted Dishonored is.

It’s easy to see Dishonored influences, it looks like a matt Half-Life 2, it’s got Bioshock’s arsenal, and there’s more than a splash of Deus Ex and Thief to the gameplay. Despite all that though Dishonored feels unique, it feels like one of the first games that actually lets you approach things how you want rather than that just being a box quote.

Do you know where Sleeping Dogs works where countless other open world games fail, it’s a tight game. The scope isn’t too big, there aren’t a million different game types, and the story stays largely on point. The driving feels good, good enough that the racing missions are fun, the shooting is good, good enough that the shooting missions are fun.

The star though is the combat, setting the game in a Honk Kong backdrop should always have meant we’d get some martial arts combat, and it could perhaps have gone further, but there’s a real kick to everything, counters feel fluid, and every punch you throw has a weight to it.

They’ve also managed to fill the game with likable characters, Wei is a great lead, finding the balance between cop and criminal almost perfectly, and the supporting cast do enough to make you care. Last year we had Saints Row, a very different game, and next year Grand Theft Auto returns, but Sleeping Dogs has done enough to set itself up as a franchise to care about.

Duane reviewed the main game in September, and I looked at the Nightmare in North Point DLC in November.

There’s no denying that Far Cry 3 doesn’t fulfil its potential, what initially seems like a unique and unsettling story devolves in to a tale of white-boy saves the world. I don’t want to overstate things because I really don’t think there was any nefarious intention, more that the spoilt lead Jason is the only one who can save Pacific island from drug lords and pirates. Prior to that realisation there’s some interesting characters, and the threat of an interesting take on duality.

Ignoring that though you’ve got comfortably the best fps game I’ve played this year, it manages to make stealth work, making you feel like you have mastered the jungle. You can approach things how you want, but it’s rare you get to unload, when you do though, combining your arsenal for maximum efficient damage, it feels great to unleash hell on the outclassed enemy

Dear Esther isn’t for everyone, it’s an overcast interactive story dwelling on loss, regret an penance. I wrote a review for the game where I declared it was the most affecting game I’d ever played, and even on return visits it still stops me in my tracks.

Dear Esther works because of its circular nature, it piece-meals information to you, bouncing around between real and analogy. The ramblings about hermits clash with the mundane reality of motorways, helping to bring home what would otherwise be obtuse poetry.

I can’t think of a game that uses its visuals and audio as effectively this year. The opening sections feel cold, the middle otherworldly, and then you’re rewarded for pushing on with some beautiful scenes. The music is well timed, and the script, bar one moment towards the end, is impeccably delivered. You might not like Dear Esther, you might not be caught up in its stark tale, but you should absolutely play it.

If you need convincinc further, I reviewed it in February.

It's been a very good year for games if you ask me, which someone did so I've written this

Ah Binary Domain, I almost feel bad for including you in this list. You’re a bit of a mess, you have a terrible first hour, your gunplay feels underpowered, and the plot feels achingly familiar. But you know what kid, you’re fun, properly fun. You have genuine laugh out loud moments, increasingly likable characters, and inventive ideas at regular intervals.

Your combat holds up too, as you level up your weapons and skills all of a sudden you match your established cover based peers. Taking a robots legs away, or even blasting its head off so it fights for you in its blind confusion, things like that add to your abundant character. You deserve your place because you so completely won me over and were one of my highlight of the year right up until the end.

I reviewed this in March.

I came to Max Payne 3 a couple of months late, late enough to have heard how bad it was. It was a poor cover-based shooter, it had awful dialogue, and it spat on the memories of the classic games. So it was a pleasant surprise when I got around to playing the game and none of that was true.

Max Payne 3 has a nice mix of old-school slow-mo combat mixed with modern cover-based, snappy dialogue, and some interesting locations. It’s telling that the most interesting parts of Max Payne 3 are the bits that don’t fit the series, the garish nightclubs and Brazilian favelas. The New York and New Jersey sections, Max’s home and the gothic graveyard, they feel oddly out of place. Max Payne 3 has a few problems, but it tells a good story and feels unique in the current gaming climate.

I’ve got a long history with the Football Manager franchise, it’s conceivable that over the course of my life I’ve lost approaching a year to Football Manager in its various guises. The last few years though Football Manager has left me cold, it’s felt like a chore, far too much like hard work to be fun.

So what’s changed this year; Classic Mode! The main game might be great, I’ve barely played it, but the stripped back version that is Classic mode is exactly what I want from a Football Manager game. Granted I can’t act out an argument with Sam Allardyce anymore, but equally I’m not getting hassled with relentless stupid questions about every single thing that happens in the game.

I’m not going to labour the point, I can’t convince you to play Football Manager 2013 if you’re not already the kind of person that plays the series, but if you have fallen away then this is the version to get you back. It’s terrifyingly addictive!

Duane gave this the once-over in October

I’ve had it pointed out to me that To The Moon actually came out in 2011, but it was only released on the developers website (as I understand it). This year it came to Steam and GOG, the kind of places where people might see it, so we’ve added it in our list because it’s incredible.

That’s kind of all I want to say about it, actually no I’d love to have a proper discussion with someone about it, about the issues it deals with, even encourage some non-gamers I know to play through it. To The Moon is so beautifully made, it leaves you dumbfounded at points, but that’s also why I can’t really say too much more about it

This was reviewed by me a fortnight ago

The Walking Dead very nearly didn’t make it on to this list, surprising perhaps because it’s seems to have been the critical darling of gaming this year. I could perhaps speculate why, but that’s for another day. Walking Dead is a game that myself and Duane have played and talked about, it’s a game that we both had similar experiences with and thoughts there on. In short it’s a game with problems.

I personally felt that some of the choices in the game were too closed, character’s reactions were inconsistent and overblown, and that choices I made were being wiped out for the ease of development. I’d learned not to care about the choices I was making because they increasingly seemed to not matter, the game was going one way (even if the cast might differ slightly). Add to that issues with the game’s controls and a few odd bugs along the way, and you can see why it was down the pecking order in a year with so many good games.

However, then I played episode 4. It struck me how much Telltale Games had learnt over the course of this series, dumping some gameplay mechanics, changing how they dealt with choice, letting the story they were telling take centre stage. I do have a couple of issues with The Walking Dead’s ending, but there’s no doubt it’s incredibly well told. The tension in the final episode is unbearable at times, there’s a sense of dread in the final scenes that few games have, or will, ever match.

For the first couple of minutes Silent Hill Revelation makes quite a good impression. The film opens in an unsettling fairground, a girl who resembles the lead from Silent Hill 3 is fleeing from something, her hiding spot is right next to a giant pink stuffed rabbit. Later on another couple of familiar faces make an appearance, it’s commendable that there’s that much care taken with Silent Hill Revelation.

Similarly the ‘darkness’, the bit where the world transforms to the dank, distorted other world, it still looks great, as does the fog. It looks like Silent Hill. The demons too look the part, Pyramid Head doesn’t rip anyone’s skin off this time, but he still looks ‘right‘, as do the nurses. There’s a new monster, a mannequin spider, it’s certainly something you’d expect to see in Silent Hill, but it looks a bit clean, and so fake, and that’s where we start getting to what’s wrong with Silent Hill Revelation.

The first Silent Hill film is one of the better videogame movies, in fact it’s a decent horror movie up until the whole witchcraft ending, which at least was pretty gruesome. Silent Hill Revelation has the same cult storyline, in fact it’s a sequel to the first film, only this time it feels more otherworldly, and I doubt through design. The cult in the first film felt like backwards puritans, here they look more like demons themselves.

The plot is even more nonsensical than the first film. The cult burned Alessa as a sacrifice, she survived and cursed them and Silent Hill. Not only did she survive she also separated her good self from her dark self, birthed the good self, left it at an orphanage where the good Alessa was then adopted by Sean Bean. The cult need this good Alessa back to unite the two Alessas so that they an kill her, bring back their god, and free themselves from the curse. There’s also a key that Sean Bean’s wife (star of the first film) used to free the good Alessa (who is now called Heather/Sharron) from Silent Hill after they both got stuck there at the end of the first film. The cult are now hunting Sean Bean and Heather/Sharron as they move from town to town, and have somehow managed to plant one of their children in the same school as Heather on her first day, but then the private detective they hired also managed to track them down just as fast, so what do I know?

The dialogue is awful, I know that’s a common complaint in Loading Screen, but there are points where Silent Hill Revelation reminds me of terrible 70s horror films. The acting isn’t anything particularly special, but then Adelaide Clemens (Heather) is quite likable. She isn’t as good when she’s playing Dark Alessa, she isn’t as creepy as the younger girl who plays her. Sean Bean still can’t do an American accent consistently. The most disappointing though is Malcolm McDowell, he’s only in the film for a minute, and I’m sure he could point to any number of factors, but he’s just not very good in this.

Silent Hill Revelation isn’t particularly scary either, it tries a few jump scares, particularly early on, but not one of them lands. The monsters, while mostly well designed, are not so horrific that they’re enough on their own. There’s nothing particularly gruesome in the film, certainly nothing to match people having their skin ripped off or being burned alive.

It seems odd to say but Silent Hill Revelation is hugely disappointing after the relative success of the first film. They set up for a sequel too, but given how badly the story has lost its way I can’t see it happening. It’s been shown that of all the videogames that can be made into films Silent Hill seems to work, which is why it’s such a shame that this one isn’t worth your time.

With the release of Resident Evil Damnation we can now confirm that there’s 2 Resident Evil film franchises on the go; the live action Milla Jovovich ones, and these CG efforts. While the live action films often get criticised for not staying true to the source, Resident Evil Degeneration, and this new film Damnation, do a much better job of capturing the feel of the games.

That’s not to say they nail it, granted I’m not the worlds foremost knowledge of Resident Evil, but I was under the impression that once someone turned in to a zombie, or a Las Plagas zombie, that was kind of it, Damnation shows that they can be back and chatting away a minute later. I’m not even sure if one of the key plot points is possible in the Resident Evil fiction, controlling Lickers by injecting yourself with the Plagas parasite.

To the plot then, a former Soviet country is suffering a power struggle, with a former military leader claiming power and exerting influence on other political leaders. The people fight back, with rebel factions and government forces becoming embroiled in a civil war, and it’s not long until BOWs start being used. Which is why Leon is called in, although thanks to the political sensitivity of the region he’s on his own, with neither the U.S. nor Russia wanting to get involved.

To be honest most of that you can just forget, all you need to know is that the rebels are fighting the government and there’s zombies. Leon makes a friend, which gives him a reason to care about what’s going on, but really there’s no reason for him to help the rebels, especially as all the evidence suggests that they’re the only ones using BOWs (although that does change).

It took me a while to place what Resident Evil Damnation reminded me of, it’s very Japanese in its structure. It focuses on relationships, quickly formed, but strong enough that it gives the hero a motivation for the back half of the film. Damnation is every Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, and Pokemon spin-off film you will ever see. One thing it also shares with Pokemon (Pokemon Black I think it is) is the moral ambiguity of the factions, it’s commendable that the rebels aren’t wholly good, in fact whatever their motivations their actions are indefensible.

Beyond that though it’s hard to praise the plot too much, it doesn’t feel particularly important, possibly because the main character isn’t really a part of it. Even the characters feel incidental, you don’t care when people die, you aren’t really routing for anyone other than Leon and you know he’s going to be fine. The script is particularly clunky, probably due to a too literal translation from Japanese (anyone who’s watched a significant amount of anime will know what I mean).

If Damnation is going to be worth a watch then it has to come from what you’re seeing, and the film certainly looks great. It’s not jaw-dropping or anything, but in comparison to Degeneration it’s a huge improvement, and the characters are well animated. Where it’s let down though is that the action isn’t really showy enough. It starts well, the underground car-park scene is relatively tense and adds some mystery, but it’s not until Leon is sprinting down an opulent hall in the back half of the film that I can offer that praise again. I’m not entirely sure what the problem is other than to say that there’s a lack of punch and peril.

I’m not sure where I’d place Damnation amongst the gaming films I’ve reviewed, it’s certainly not a bad film but at no point does it really do anything of note. When the biggest crime a film commits is cringe-worthy puns and shoehorned characters you can’t really damn it too harshly. And with that being said I’d recommend Resident Evil Damnation to RE fans, it’s less annoying than the first animated film, and closer to the games than any of the live action films, but it’s not something you need to rush to watch.

I didn’t particularly like Dead Space Downfall, it started well but then turned into a predictable sweary gorefest. Aftermath has elements of that, but fortunately it’s got a story to tell. Admittedly it’s a familiar story, basically Aliens meets Event Horizon, with a crew being sent to Aegis 7 to recover a mysterious artefact, one that the top brass know will kill the crew, but is more valuable than their lives.

Dead Space Aftermath also uses the well worn concept of having multiple animation studios create each part of the film. It worked with the Animatrix because the art was superb and the tales split, Halo Legends also had separate tales and some interesting and unique art. However Dante’s Inferno used the technique and suffered for it; some of the animation was decent enough but the constant narrative didn’t suit the switching of styles. Dead Space suffers less for that and more because the art is so poor. We’re treated to fairly low grade CG, then the levels of animation you’d see in a Saturday morning cartoon.

I do like the way the story is told though. Dead Space Aftermath begins with a rescue crew landing on the O’Bannon immediately after the surviving ships crew had ended the blight of the Necromorphs. They’re taken back to a government ship and forced to tell their version of what happened. I say forced as the survivors are tortured regardless of their willingness, or even ability, to share their tale. This is where the shifts in animation come in. Each character reveals a bit more of what happened before we joined the story.

The characters all have their own motivations, ranging from the trauma of a dead child, a dead sibling, or refreshingly an affair. The characters are a little one dimensional and as usual nothing you haven’t seen before. Only the government workers are truly evil, with even the crazy religious nut having sincere motivations. That said the acting is well above average, tarnished by Kuttner’s constant screaming getting a bit annoying, but it’s arguably the strongest part of the film.

It’s a shame the story is predictable as I found myself quite gripped by it. It’s nothing clever, but I was routing for the characters and became aware I was becoming quite gripped by what was on screen. There are some stupid bits, not least the Dante’s Inferno game footage, but it does capture the feel of Dead Space to a point. Perhaps hypocritically after criticising the first film, Aftermath feels a little lacking in action. I guess with a longer running time Aftermath could have included more of the horror with some more action.

It’s not a classic, but it’s the better of the two Dead Space films. It comes closer to capturing the essence of the game than Downfall, and it does add something to the main line story. Dead Space Aftermath is certainly worth a watch, and with better production might have been worth a purchase, all in all not bad.

If you’re familiar with Red Faction then the name Alec Mason will have some meaning to you. After his brother was murdered by the Earth forces (EDL) he led a revolution, freeing Mars from Earth rule. If you’re not, as I wasn’t, then that’s what you’ve missed, and Red Faction Origins takes place some time after these events, sort of negating the word ’origins’ in the title.

Alex Mason is no longer the hero he once was, now he’s an alcoholic mourning the loss of his wife and daughter. His son, Jake, takes centre stage, and is introduced with the ignominy of having to arrest his father for a drunken brawl, himself having joined the Red Faction. Alec and Jake’s relationship plays a large part in the film, with the elder apparently holding some resentment for Jake allowing his younger sister Lyra to be captured and killed (only Jake believes she’s alive), I say apparently because it very much appears to be more of a chip on Jake’s shoulder than his father’s.

It’s the Mason family saga that the rest of the film hangs off. It turns out that Alec’s wife was a Marauder, with Mars being split between Marauders and the regular Martians. There’s an uneasy truce between the two sides, with any encroachment into opposing territory being seen as an act of war. I’ll be honest as the Marauders fight exclusively with knives and staffs while the settlers have guns and aircraft, I suspect any war would be fairly one sided.

While out scavenging a crashed space ship Jake spots a new group, a band of soldiers dressed in white, the same fatigues as the people who killed his mother and took his sister. He then sets out to track down this ‘White Faction’ in the hopes of finding his sister, and in doing so uncovers their secret plan to annihilate the settlers and the Marauders.

The film’s comic relief comes in the form of Tess, an Earth born girl working with the Red Faction as a science officer. Like Jake she has a massive chip on her shoulder, ready to snap whenever anyone says no to her just in case it’s because of her place of birth. I can understand that after a war someone who originated from the other side might be treated with suspicion, but that doesn’t happen here, nothing is ever said against her heritage. Tess goes from ditzy to ball of anger in an instant, it’s ill-fitting for the character and makes her incredibly hard to like (perversely because of what she‘s got to work with, I did kind of find myself routing for the actress). Tess is also the brains of the piece, hacking computer systems and shutting down security, again hard to believe when she spends 99% of the film like a deer in the headlights.

The acting for the most part is alright, suffering more from the limitations of the predictable, sluggish script than through any fault of the cast. Robert Patrick is more than solid as Alec, perhaps he doesn’t quite come across as ‘beyond hope’ enough, but he’s reasonably convincing. There’s one scene in particular, where he’s talking to an old war friend about his son, it’s framed, written and acted in such a way that in a better film it would be a mood scene, full of pride and strength, here it just lacks something. I think it’s the lighting, it’s a very bright scene, it needs to be more noir, have some rain, beyond that perhaps it was merely what had preceded it.

Brian J. Smith (Jake) similarly does a good job, certainly he leads the film well and is reasonably convincing as an elite soldier. One issue I did notice, and perhaps this is simply the contrast between him and Tess, but he doesn’t really emote enough during the comedy scenes. There’s a few recognisable British faces in there, though I’m not sure how many you’ll be able to place, but I can’t think of any truly poor performances.

Red Faction Origins has a habit of showing it’s special effects too often. It’s something a lot of low budget sci-fi does (Lexx for example). Likely it’s due to it being cheaper to use CGI than build a set, but sometimes less is more, especially when what’s there is never going to be spectacular. To labour the point, the scene between Alec and Jake in the prison cell is more convincing than the scene in the Red Faction base with its CG aircraft. Computers have never been great at making stuff look beaten and weathered, not without a sizable budget (look at the more recent Star Wars movies), where as an old bit of real world scrap will look like an old bit of scrap on film.

Red Faction Origins biggest problem is that it’s not very exciting. The fight scenes are very poor, the plot predictable, the script lacking punch. It doesn’t utterly fail at much, bar the fights, and as such it’s hard to really articulate why it goes wrong, but it just doesn’t engage you. It’s not shockingly bad by any means, but it’s dull enough that I can’t see the proposed spin off series getting green lit. I don’t think it’s helped that the liberation of Mars sounds like a much more interesting story to tell, but then I guess the film ends recreating that story.

I feel a bit sorry for Origins, I’m about to say that it’s too dull to be worth your time, but it does so little wrong. Naturally there’s many worse video game films, and that some of them will offer you more entertainment is one of the perversities of the medium I guess. Origins just uses too much short hand, relying on its predictability over actually developing its characters and unravelling its plot properly, but at the very least it’s competent.

If there’s a theme that runs through Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva it’s how well they’ve captured the look and feel of the Professor Layton series. The use of CGI in the early moments could be better, I suspect it’s to show off and grab the viewers attention early on, but it tends to create a clash between the 3D and 2D. The 2D looks great though, with lots of flat colours like its source, and characters identical to the games.

One thing Eternal Diva doesn’t do too well is introduce the characters and the world. Granted if you’re watching it then you probably have a pretty good idea of who Professor Layton is, but some of his comrades less so. I’ve only played the first game and don’t recognise the extended cast beyond Luke, so the first few minutes were a bit of a mystery, but really there’s not much you need to know that you can’t work out.

Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva features a bit of a jumbled timeline, jumping back to Luke’s first case with his mentor. The plot is a bit, ahem, convoluted so try to stay with me. A young woman thought to have died a few years earlier has reappeared and made contact with Jenis, her best friend and a former student of Layton’s, now working as an opera singer. The missing girl (Melina ) has returned as a 7 year old claiming to have been granted eternal life, and also happens to be the daughter of the composer of the opera Jenis sings in. People are being offered eternal life provided they win a completion on board a mysterious ship. Only this is no normal competition, it’s a series of puzzles where the price for failure is death… only this is Professor Layton so no one actually dies.

Still with me? Good. Well it turns out, and this is a spoiler so jump to the end of the paragraph if you intend on watching the film at any point, that the whole thing was a nefarious plot. Descole is manipulating the composer Oswald Whistler with the promise of placing his daughters personality and memories into the body of a suitable replacement. Descole’s real motivation is to restore Melina as she knows one of the songs that can rediscover the lost land of Ambrosia, a civilisation that discovered the secret to eternal life. Why he’s gone to all that trouble when he’s already riding around in a robot that can dig up Ambrosia is never answered, probably best not to dwell on it in fact.

So the story is clumsy confused nonsense, but that does not a bad film make. It takes a long time for anything to happen in Eternal Diva, and there are substantial lulls during the film (not least the final 5 minutes). However when things are happening there’s a real tension, at its high points Layton is genuinely captivating. It’s as though they’ve been given 5 minutes for some action so decided to throw as much in as possible. I suspect the music helps here too, there’s real punch and pomp that in some ways is slightly out of character for a cerebral detective.

A brief mention to the way the film uses puzzles too, something I was sceptical could be done well. Firstly there’s no matchsticks to be seen, which is good, instead we’re greeted with riddles, riddles that feel solvable by the viewer (one of which I did solve, go me!). The nicest thing about the puzzles though is the way they’re introduced, reminiscent of the game we get a spotlight style shadow of the puzzle number. It’s a nice touch and still manages to work within the film context.

Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva is a bit of a rollercoaster. It starts dull, explodes into an exhilarating 5 minutes, then climbs for a while before throwing you around again, then you sit through the painfully boring final scenes, waiting for the 3 fingered frotteurist to stop flirting with the 14 year old girls and release your seat lock.

Layton is not only worth the purchase for fans, it’s also amongst the better video game films out there. As flawed as it is it still looks good, captures the essence of the games, and at points is genuinely entertaining.

Bloodrayne: The Third Reich, I’ll just leave that there for a second, Bloodrayne: The Third Reich. This 3rd Bloodrayne film sees the return of Uwe Boll at the helm, and features, albeit briefly, a vampire Hitler.

To be fair Boll isn’t the first person to take this track, and the speculated Nazi research into the occult is both fascinating and an exciting literary well. For gamers look no further than Wolfenstein, particularly Return to Castle Wolfenstein. And for the army of Nazi vampires narrative, may I recommend the excellent manga Hellsing. I’m not sure why the concept of Bloodrayne: The Third Reich is so distasteful, perhaps it’s just a lack of faith in Boll, but from the second I saw the trains filled with Jews I began to cringe.

Things aren’t quite as offensive as they appear written down, but the film does follow Rayne as she joins a rebel group fighting the Nazis, a rebel group she’s either never met before or knows intimately depending on the camera angle. Whilst fighting a Nazi General Rayne gets cut, some of her blood mixes with his and he becomes a vampire. It also turns out that Doctor Mangler (no you‘re thinking of Dr. Mengele, they‘re completely different people) has been carrying out gruesome experiments of his own in an effort to create an army of Nazi vampires, and eventually a vampire Hitler.

For some reason Rayne sets up camp in a brothel across the road from the Nazi base that houses Mangler and the vampire Commander, where she spends her days indulging in lesbianism. The freedom fighters are eventually whittled down and Rayne has to stop the Nazis from getting Rayne’s blood to Hitler. I’ll be honest, a huge battle between the freedom fighters and a Nazi vampire army does actually interest me, but Bloodrayne is far more small scale than that. They never really leave the small town the film’s set in, and the final battle is even more feeble than what’s gone before.

I do have one bit of praise before I go on. One of my chief criticisms of Boll is that he sucks the pace out of his films, every scene is too long, saying nothing, but lasting long enough that your attention wanders. With Bloodrayne 3 he has learnt to shorten scenes, bouncing quickly from scene to scene.

However he hasn’t mastered the flow from scene to scene, so what you get is location after location that seemingly have no relation to each other. Some of it is down to dialogue, it’s hard to pick out any emphasis or importance from what’s being said. So the characters may well say they’ve got to go to a bar, but it’s said mid-sentence half a conversation before the end of the scene. I suspect that’s only part of the problem though, there’s a scene where a prostitute reveals Rayne’s location to the Nazis. You know she is going to go there, and you know why, you even know what the consequences will be, but there’s no tension to it, perhaps that’s down to the soundtrack, perhaps it’s down to the acting.

Let me quickly say that I feel sorry for the actors here, one or two are terrible, but most do a decent job. They weren’t given much to work with and I expect they knew this was going to be a bad film. However only a handful of characters attempt an accent, and a few of them I suspect are just using their own. Everyone else, be they local freedom fighter or Nazi foot soldier speaks with an American accent. Boll does have a sense of humour, so it may be that he, as a German, sees the funny side of casting the Nazis all as Americans?

Sense of humour or not nothing explains the accent Clint Howard ascribes to Dr. Mangler. I think it’s Mexican, definitely South American anyway, fitting I guess, but this is before he fled (I forgot, not Mengele). As mentioned the actors aren’t helped by the script, it’s too interested in throwing in a cool line than making sense (“Guttentag mother fucker!”). When it’s not puffing out its chest or being functional it’s just horrendous. Mangler’s line “My work… I can make Hitler immortal!” is impossible to deliver well.

There’s surprisingly little action in Bloodrayne too, there’s sporadic moments, but when it happens it’s short. I’d guess it was a budget issue, but really that’s where a film like this should focus. What’s there isn’t great either, there’s a couple of good moments, but, and this is particularly true with the final fight, you don’t get to see much hand to hand stuff, there’s just nothing showy.

Bloodrayne: Third Reich isn’t as offensive as it seems like it’s going to be but it’s still the wrong type of stupid to be enjoyable. I was shocked to see positive remarks on imdb, it’s not a good film by any measure. The way it bounces around it feels like someone’s ripped the cut scenes from a game, resulting in any and all narrative played out through gameplay being lost. I’m really struggling to find anything positive to say other than it’s not Boll’s worst film, so let’s leave it at that. Rubbish but there’s been worse.