Tag Archives: video games

Halo: Halo and Season 2 – TV Review

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TL;DR – It was a season of highs and lows, but it ended in a wave of potential.  

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service that viewed this episode.

Master Chief looks up to the Halo.

Halo Review –

Well, we have reached the end of Halo’s sophomore season, and oh, do I have a lot to say. It was a wild swing from impressive to frustrating as we both rose above the mess of Season One while also falling back into the same problems. In today’s review, we will first tackle the season finale, the titular Halo, before looking at the season as a whole.

So to set the scene, the conflict between Humanity and the Covenant is coming to a conflagration. The main Covenant Fleet has chased Makee (Charlie Murphy) and the Arbiter (Viktor Åkerblom) to a non-descript solar system, except for what is hidden orbiting around it. After being tipped off by the infiltrated Cortana (Jen Taylor and Christina Bennington), Admiral Parangosky (Shabana Azmi) implements her plan to wipe out the fleet, even if it means taking every Earth spaceship with them. Parangosky knows what is in the middle of this system, and it is better to destroy it than let the Covenant get it. But it would be a shame if the very dead on Reach Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber) turned out to be alive, the one person that can hold Parangosky and Ackerson (Joseph Morgan) to account. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode and season as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Halo: Onyx – TV Review

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TL;DR – Alas, we have started to fall back on some of the previous problems that plagued the series.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service that viewed this episode.

John stalks his prey.

Halo Review –

If there is one thing this new season of Halo has done, it has been to refocus what was a pretty meandering Season One. There were some series highs in both Visegrad and Reach that had me profoundly happy that the show had found its feet. However, since then, alarm bells have been ringing, and I am afraid that this week will be no different.  

So to set the scene, we open with Talia Perez (Cristina Rodlo) as a new recruit to the next wave of Spartans as she jumps out of a transport with her team to take down a Covenant Cruiser. Everyone dies, but thankfully, this is just a simulation led by Kai (Kate Kennedy), who we discovered last week threw her lot in with Colonel James Ackerson (Joseph Morgan) and Admiral Margaret Parangosky (Shabana Azmi). But while they hide away on Onyx, a ship flies through their detection network, a ship with Dr Catherine Elizabeth Halsey (Natascha McElhone) and a giant of a man full of scars (Pablo Schreiber). Now from here, we will be looking at the episode, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Halo: Reach – TV Review

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TL;DR – The Halo series has done something I never thought it would or even could do. It made me care.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service that viewed this episode.

Warning – This episode contains scenes that may cause distress.

The fall of Reach.

Halo Review –

When I think back to the first season, sure, there were the significant changes everyone talked about, Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber) taking off his mask and all that. But that never bothered me because adaptation to a new medium necessitates making changes. After all, it is a new context. My biggest problem was that the story, while satisfactory, did not make me care all that much about the characters in the show. Well, if nothing else, Season Two has fixed that problem.  

So to set the scene, in last week’s Visegrad, we discovered that not only does The Covenant know where Reach is, and that the authorities know that The Covenant knows where Reach is, but they are already on the planet and their main invasion is imminent. Queue the explosions. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Halo: Visegrad – TV Review

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TL;DR – In what might be the best episode of the series so far, we ratchet up the tension, and give some real danger.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service that viewed this episode.

Warning – This episode contains scenes that may cause distress.

Reach before the fall.

Halo Review –

When you have a whole galaxy to play in, it can be hard to find your focus. You have so many competing demands on your story where you want to give it depth, but then all you do is bring complexity. Science Fiction shows can very much fall into this trap, but when it all fits together, well, you get today’s episode.

So to set the scene, in last week’s episode, Sword, we discovered a genuinely horrific fact: not only do The Covenant know where Reach is, but they are already on the planet. Given that The Covenant has been glassing every planet they find with humans on it, this is a bad, bad, bad thing. Thus, we find John-117 (Pablo Schreiber), Riz-028 (Natasha Culzac), Vannak-134 (Bentley Kalu) & Kai-125 (Kate Kennedy) making their way through the Visegrád Sector to a comms relay that has gone dark, hoping to find the Cobalt team alive. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Halo: Sword – TV Review

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TL;DR – A more contained story that was slightly frustrating until you understood its context.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service that viewed this episode.

The green mountains of Reach.

Halo Review –

We are making a splash with the second of the two-episode opening for Halo’s second season. The first episode showed a bit more focus than we saw in Season One, and that intrigued me. More than anything, I want to see if this was a blip or if this is a new direction for the series.  

So to set the scene, we open with Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey (Natascha McElhone) in a beautiful room, getting all her favourite things, which, of course, means that she is in prison somewhere. It is a nice prison, with pomegranate, but a prison nonetheless. Meanwhile, on Reach, John (Pablo Schreiber) is struggling to find himself now his team has been grounded by Ackerson (Joseph Morgan), and the lies continue to build. On Rubble, Kwan Ha (Yerin Ha) discovers that their precarious position might be even more perilous than they thought. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Tetris – Movie Review

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TL;DR – An absolute fun blast of a film that might not match entirely with history, but it wears all of its influences on its sleeve.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid for the Apple TV+ service that viewed this film.

Soviet Military Parade.

Tetris Review –

I think, like most people, I rolled my eyes when I heard that there was going to be a Tetris film. That is because I thought they were going to try and turn it into some sort of Battleship situation. I am not sure that we were ready for a dramatized retelling of how the worldwide video game rights made it out of the Soviet Union or for how good the story would be.  

So to set the scene, it is 1988, a precarious time in world history. The Cold War was rapidly coming to a peaceful end, and the first big computer boom was in full swing. It is in this world that Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton) of Bullet-Proof Software sees someone selling Tetris at the Consumer Electronics Expo in Las Vegas. The problem is that Henk does not have the money to buy the game, let alone license it for Japan, which means that he must sweat-talk his Banker (Rick Yune) into letting him do what he has already done. Because a deal with Nintendo only comes around once in a blue moon, all he must do is bet the house … literally.   

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PAX Australia & Melbourne 2023 Day 4 – Explore-It

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TL;DR – We dip our toes into what Melbourne has to offer a little more with round 2.

Disclosure – I paid for all products featured or mentioned here.

PAX 23 Logo. Image Credit: Brian MacNamara.

PAX Australia & Melbourne 2023 Day 4 –

The ship in Melbourne.

It is day 4 of our trip to Melbourne and the last day of PAX, and of course, this was the day that Melbourne decided to turn on the charm with a delightful morning.

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Gubbins – Video Game Review

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TL;DR – A genuinely delightful word game that charms while presenting you with a fascinating challenge that I am driven to master.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for this game.

opening titles.

Gubbins Review –

We live in the post-Wordle era, where we ditched the crossword goodbye and devilled into six letters that gave us grief for months. Once it and its many different variations concurred on the internet, I wondered who would be the first video game company to capture that vibe of loving words and bring it into an interactive experience. Today, we look at a small Australian company who have not only done this but also charmed me entirely in the process.

So to set the scene, Gubbins in a puzzle game where you are given a bunch of discordant letters at the bottom of the screen and a grid above, and you get points for how many words you can create before the black FIN appears. You get bonuses for chains of words, and some power-ups and traps can make placing the words difficult.

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Old World Cartographic Educational Database –

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TL;DR – Links to every geographical feature mentioned in Old World so you can explore them if interested

Northern Europe.

Educational Database –

A while back when working on our Civilization and Humankind maps, I decided to put together a Cartographic Educational Database to allow you to explore the features in our world. Well now that we have finished our Old World Map, it is time to do the same as we explore the many different geographical features of the Mediterranean region. Below you will find links to Nations and their Cities, and Wonders. As well as, all the geographical features in the game.

Most of these links will be to the relevant Wikipedia page, just because that is probably the most practical option for most people, but there are some links to other sites where it was the best fit. Also, while I have tried to find easily accessible links to every feature, some of them don’t have that access. There is the odd one here and there, which you can see below.

To assist with searching, you can jump to

So let’s dive into the geographical world of Old World.  

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Five Nights at Freddy’s – Movie Review

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TL;DR – It captures the feel of the video games, though the added narrative might not work for everyone.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza

Five Nights at Freddy’s Review –

In the not-so-distant past, if you heard the words ‘video game adaptation’, it would provoke a feeling of instant cringe. At best, they were okay, often terrible, and much of the time, they were embarrassed about the very material they were adapting. But 2023 has bucked that trend with The Last of Us and Gran Turismo, some of the many knocking it out of the park. Well, it is time to see if they can keep this run going and terrify me simultaneously.   

So to set the scene, we open in on a man (Ryan Reinike) in clear distress as he crawls through some vents, desperate to escape, but no exit can be found. Sometime later, Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson) is desperately looking for a new job after mistaking a father grabbing his kid for a predator. If he can’t get a job, he will lose custody of his sister Abby (Piper Rubio) to their awful Aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson). With very few options left, he takes a security gig at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. It was once all the rage but has sat chiefly abandoned since the 1980s. All Mike must do is sit in the security room and keep an eye on the place, but no one told him the place might be keeping an eye on him.

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