With a name like Alienation (PlayStation 4), and a release date of 4-26, you might think Housemarque’s new shooter might not be serious. Or that it’s connected to the Alien movies. Turns out that neither are true. Instead, Alienation is a new, and rather interesting arcade shooter that layers the genre’s classic and still viable tenets with some creative mechanics not normally associated with this kind of game.
Because most video game remakes only improve the graphics, and even then only slightly, they’re usually pointless for anyone who’s already played the original. But the good people at Insomniac have thankfully bucked this trend, and in a big way, with this upgraded and (more importantly) updated version of Ratchet & Clank (PlayStation 4).
While I may love jazz when it’s dark and moody, and find that it gets darker and moodier when you have fewer people playing it at the same time, solo piano collections have ironically never really grabbed me. But by adding some sound effects here are there, sometimes to great effect, Jon Balke’s Warp (CD, digital) has, for the most part, caught my attention. It didn’t keep it the whole time, but it certainly caught it.
When I first saw that the Anat Fort Trio’s new album Birdwatching (CD, digital) featured alto clarinetist Gianluigi Trovesi alongside double bassist Gary Wang, drummer Roland Schneider, and Fort on piano, my first thought was that it would probably sound like the wonderfully evocative albums Currents and Post Scriptum by the similarly configured Wolfert Brederode Quartet. And while it does at times, the overall tone of Birdwatching actually sets this album apart.
Dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov once said, “Fundamentals are the building blocks of fun.” It’s something I wish the good people at Remedy Entertainment had heard before they started working on their new third-person sci-fi shooter Quantum Break (Xbox One, PC) because the game’s flawed fundamentals are what keep it from being as much fun as it could’ve been.
With the sixth season of Game Of Thrones set to premiere April 24th on HBO, it might be a good time to refresh your memory or get caught up by watching the previous season. And hey, how’s this for coincidence: the Game Of Thrones The Complete Fifth Season is now out on Blu-ray and DVD. Even cooler, this collection not only presents the show as it was meant to be seen, but it has a ton of great extras, especially if you get the Blu-ray.
Last December, when Anchor Bay released Fear The Walking Dead The Complete First Season on Blu-ray and DVD, both versions were pretty bare bones. Well, now there’s the Fear The Walking Dead The Complete First Season Special Edition Blu-ray and DVD, and while these new editions have extras that should’ve been included on the originals, they’re far from perfect.
Another day, another old game getting a makeover. This time it’s Shadow Complex Remastered, which is bringing an upgraded version of the 2009 side-scrolling, sci-fi shooter Shadow Complex to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. But while it doesn’t add enough to make it worth a double dip, the game does hold up rather nicely, especially for fans of the Metroidvania genre.
At a preview event for Tom Clancy’s The Division (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC), Creative Director Magnus Jansen said that while this open world, third-person shooter RPG was built for co-op, you could play it solo, and have a good time doing so.
Well, as someone who doesn’t play well with others, I wanted to see if this was true, so I played the game by myself. And while I found that the game does have some issues when you play solo, in some ways, it actually works better if you play it on your own.