jackstarr777

A decade-in-the-making, Jason Ritchie's 'Diana Clone' is a bizarre, convoluted, yet fascinating and layered British thriller. Almost Lynchian in its absurdity, it is not your typical mainstream film, but rather, a cult-classic in the making.

It is a film that must be experienced to be believed. I came across this film by pure accident, happening across it through Facebook advertising. I purchased it on Amazon Prime out of curiosity, and wow. I'm very glad I did.

The plot is so dense, it is almost incomprehensible to the casual viewer. But the film's subtle symbolism and characterisation, especially with its props, which are all handmade (my favourite is the motif of Door Numbers).

It is no surprise this was famed producer Harvey Weinstein's top film of 2017 - a man with an eye for cult classics in the making. In a perfect world, this would be up there with features such as 'The Room', 'Pulp Fiction', 'Fight Club' and 'Stalker'. Sadly, as we no longer live in the era of cult classics like 'Burger Cop', it's unlikely to find this at a midnight screening; instead, most will end up catching it online.

For a budget of £37,000, Ritchie has made a serviceable motion picture, better and more funny and cleverer than films made by established directors with 100x that amount of money. In other words, 'Where's my sauce, b*tch?"

9/10 - watch it twice, and remember - watch the scenes that AREN'T there. THAT is true cinema. 10/10

I rented the recently released 'Zone of the Enders - HD Collection' a couple of days ago for my Playstation 3. I'd heard a lot about it, and I am a big fan of Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear series and thought I'd give it a go. Maybe my expectations were a little too high with a name like Kojima and the promise of 'high-speed robot action', but overall, the name felt pretty... hollow.

Don't get me wrong, mind. Speaking from a technical viewpoint, the game excels - for a thirteen-year-old Playstation 2 launch title, the graphics, physics engine and fluid controls still hold up very well against the games of today. The colours, textures, polygons and pre- rendered cutscenes all look great, especially with this high-definition remaster, and I'm sure it would have astonished gamers back in 2000.

But the game has a few too many shortcomings. The story is fairly generic and forgettable, and I found myself skipping many cutscenes, combined with the awful voice acting. The player character is a young boy called Leo, who does nothing but whine and cry. Obviously the writers were trying to get the player to sympathise with the character, but we don't - it's just very, very annoying, and whenever I heard his terrible voice actor start to wail I'd attack the start button. Overall, the story made little sense and seemed like an interesting premise that could have been done very well - a boy is the only person left able to guide a mecha back to where it is needed and has to battle through a war zone to get there - but unfortunately, the writer(s) haven't pulled this off very well.

In terms of gameplay - most of the time it's fairly fun, simply button- mashing robot fighting that's a tad on the easy side, which occasionally dabbles into repetition (there are only TWO varieties of enemy - that's right - TWO) but isn't too bad. The boss fights are fun but nothing special. On a number of occasions, I had to resort to using walkthroughs, as sometimes it's too hard to figure out where to go or what to do. There is a lot of backtracking, which is very cheap and annoying, in order to obtain passcodes so you can use new weapons which you need to beat bosses to advance through the game. It's simple and fairly effective, but far from great.

Also, it's very, very short. I beat it in about five hours (I got it on the Friday night and had finished by late Saturday afternoon), and it just felt like... nothing. There wasn't an awful lot of variation to gameplay, and it just felt as if it had been over in an instant.

The controls are very, very good - fluid, responsive and not too simple and not too complex. The game gives you a very nice tutorial to show you how to use them - fast and easy to learn.

Music is where it gets tricky. The overworld theme is great - very dreamy, reminds me of old sci-fi animes from my childhood - but a couple of the levels have very droney and repetitive tunes throughout that just stick in your head. But for the most part the music was very good, especially if you're into techno, like me. So it's a mixed bag there.

Concerning the HD edition, it's pretty great. I haven't played the original PS2 version, so I can't compare them, but it looks excellent on my HDTV. The menus and design are all well-presented and flawless - plus, you get the second game (which I have not yet played and hope is better than this one) and a fabulous demo for the upcoming Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Whether it is worth the price tag is up to you, I have not yet played the sequel so I do not know. But apparently, like the first game, it is short, so I'd recommend a rental as I'm not loaded enough to shell out £30 on a game collection I won't spend more than 10 hours on.

Overall, ZOE is an OK game, not particularly good but not really bad.

Final score: 6.8/10

OK, I'm new to Metal Gear Solid. The first one I played a few months ago and it's definitely a great game, especially for its time. But, it has its flaws here and there - the dated controls and graphics, and the somewhat uninvolving story and one or two gameplay issues. The general consensus for the sequel is that it isn't so good, so I lowered my expectations. But boy, was I wrong - MGS2 overwrites all the flaws of the original and creates a gripping, thrilling, moving and often funny game that will stand out as one of my favourites for a long time.

The key issue most people moan about is that you don't play as Solid Snake in this game, but that's barely an issue - viewing him from the third person as the unstoppable 'cool' guy and playing as a slightly more relatable and sympathetic character, Raiden, had actually a much better effect than I had once thought it would be. In the first game, we barely care about Snake because he's so... awesome, there's no way he can fail. Raiden, on the other hand, is flawed - he is undermined by Snake and struggles with the mission. He's imperfect - like us - and that is why I prefer him to Snake.

But anyway, gameplay-wise it's fantastic - a perfect combination of stealth, action and puzzle-solving that's nothing short of a pleasure to do - there are no particularly annoying bits or anything and it's relatively glitch-free with enough interesting mechanics to keep you occupied. The only problem I can see here is the slightly odd Japanese control layout, where triangle is the action button, circle is select and x is back(!), which might be a bit of a pain if you're used to the normal western format - but not me, because most of my favourite Playstation games use this format anyway.

And, as for the story - it starts off slow, but gets interesting with some fantastic twists - I won't ruin anything for you, but there's a few ingenious turning points and unexpected surprises that come out the blue and catch you off-guard completely. The rest of the story is straightforward but interesting and engaging, especially if you love conspiracy stories. This part of the game is one of the biggest steps up from Metal Gear Solid - rather than the strange set-up there where there doesn't seem any point in understanding the nonsensical plot, we get a rock-solid thrill ride packed with emotion as well as action.

And, much like the rest of the series, it has a very distinct cinematic feel to it - rather than the usual cramming of a story we don't care about around the fun gameplay, we get what is essentially a brilliant spy/action film come to life. The tension and the quality of this action increases towards the finale, getting better and better until it gives us a stunning ending.

In conclusion, MGS2 is a game you need to play before you die - a real, ground-breaking experience that stands out as one of the best games on the Playstation 2.

Overall score: 9.8/10