Because No One Asked For... Terraria's 1.2 Update To BE So Darn Good!

I initially went to write this review of Terraria's latest and long awaited 1.2 update at about 11.30am this morning. I then thought I'd better put a half hour into the game - having only put 7 hours in since its launch on Tuesday - just to see if I'd discover yet another new addition down amongst the pixelated stone and dirt dungeons. 2 hours later I stopped for lunch. Then when I went to start writing a little later on I somehow managed to put in a further hour. Welcome to a repeat prescription of my life circa October 2011 when I first downloaded Re-Logic's 2D adventure/RPG masterpiece to my PC.

Because No One Asked For... October 2013 To Be Pure Online Gaming Carnage, But I'll Be Happy About It!

We are now less than one week away from 1st October 2013. It's not generally heralded as a special day in particular out of the 365 (or 366 - leap year blah blah yadda yadda yadda) we experience each and every Gregorian monitored orbit of the Sun. This year it even falls on a Tuesday and I think we'd all struggle to place Tuesdays above seventh place in a popularity contest of the days of the week in terms of importance (Public Holidays are gonna help out Mondays' case, surely?!).

This coming Tuesday, however, looks destined to be something quite different if you happen to be a video gamer and particularly an online player.  In fact it looks set to be a very special, if not deliriously annoying in the very best of ways Tuesday. Like some strange celestial phenomena, where heavenly bodies align their magnetic fields, playing merry chaos with the mental faculties of all in its path, we are going not only going to be confronted with the release of GTA Online, but also Battlefield 4's Multiplayer Beta and from Re-Logic we have Terraria's long awaited 1.2 update.

Because No One Asked For...An Insight Into When I'll Buy An Xbox One

I’ve been a proud owner of an Xbox 360 for 6 years and been a player of the console for even longer (oh thank you former shared house situation). Before that I also owned the original Xbox console for a couple of years and continued using it into the infancy of its successor. I will at some point also own the newly announced Xbox One console. I’m pretty darn certain of this. The next generation of gaming does look promising; the technology seems impressive, franchises are arguably in something of a golden age with critical success after critical success and certain big money publishers are dominating the industry with annual quality efforts. Indie games developers have also excelled themselves when using the current generation technology and the prospect of what they’ll be able to deliver in the next five years on a new machine is mouth-watering to say the least.  I’m less certain however, that I will be making my investment into Microsoft’s next brave new world within the first 12 to 18 months of the console’s launch this Autumn, and this is for a number of reasons.

But first, a small journey through time...

Because No One Asked For... A Goon Review

GOON
Starring: Seann William Scott, Alison Pill, Liev Schreiber, Jay Baruchel, Eugene Levy, Marc-André Grondin
Director: Michael Dowse
Runtime: 92 Minutes
Release Date: 6th January - UK, 24 February - US (Video on Demand)

You may not like films about ice hockey. You may not like films about hulking men punching each other. You may not like blood and cuts. Those things really don’t matter a bit though if you like films about pure, mood-lifting heart. Goon has heart by the ice-rink load. (If you do like those first three things then there’s also a very high chance that you’ll enjoy Goon anyway!)

Seann William Scott shows a subtler edge to his comedy acting as Doug Glatt, an honest working security guard who’s not been blessed with the intellect that his family display, who wishes he could find a different path for his life. Through a turn of fortune, Doug manages to impress a local hockey coach who wants to use the Bambi-like heavy-hitter’s abilities on the ice. What follows is a swift rise through minor-league hockey’s Canadian blue-collar mists, to see Doug trying to help turn the fortunes of a down and out team and its ‘damaged goods’ superstar-in-the-making around.

Scott puts in a career-high performance as the unassuming Doug, a man who doesn’t know his place in the world but knows the rules by which he wants to live his life. The goofy smirk on the poster is about as close as Scott gets to Stifler territory, as, outside of the humour arising from Doug’s innocent ignorance, most of the jokes are left to the surrounding cast. Baruchel - who provided the screenplay - gets to bumble through the cruder, expletive-heavy comedy as Doug’s best friend during the first act but thankfully doesn’t take things too far. As is the par for such comedic, sports team features, the rest of the Halifax Highlanders team are made up of a variety of different characters; the European brothers, the Asian student playing hockey to get through med school, the loyal, clean faced ‘puppy’, but everyone does a fine job of not taking things too far into the world of goofball.

Alison Pill does a delivers a great performance as Eva, a girl in conflict who captures Doug’s heart and the pair’s chemistry on screen is simply lovely. I also have to applaud Liev Schreiber’s turn as longtime enforcer and league legend Ross Rhea. Every film of this persuasion needs that nemesis that must be overcome, and Rhea is very much the Goliath that everyone on the ice fears, but Schreiber gives him a slightly softer edge. He portrays him as a man who excels at what he does, taking things to dangerous extremes in the process, but like Doug, never really had much belief in his ability to excel at anything else. There’s an underlying theme of respect running throughout the 92 minutes and that’s punched home by those occasions when Glatt and Rhea come face to face.

Director Michael Dowse - aided by a snappy script - has managed to deliver a fine comedy about a group of people all trying to fight their own little fights as the big, wide world plods onwards regardless, and he’s wrapped it up in a nod to the unwritten laws of fighting in ice hockey and the limited role of the enforcer. There’s little razzmatazz to be found here and Dowse even goes so far as to provide population counts with the aerial shots of the various industrial Canadian towns and cities visited, almost as if to remind us that this is glamour and entertainment enjoyed by the few and away from the blinding bright lights. Goon doesn’t go too far into full-blown triumph over adversity cliche - yes, those tropes associated with such sports films are present, but it’s all dropped into a realistic setting with rather modest targets on the table.

The chance to see Scott try his hand at a subtler form of comedy is worth the price of a ticket alone, but when backed up by a strong supporting cast, kinetic camera work on the ice and a sense of honesty that really does leave the heart feeling full and shivering at odd moments, I’d certainly have to recommend a viewing to you. 6/7