Why do we have only one real type of movie medium and yet a whole bunch of competing consoles?

The world of Video Games is very different to the world of films. Sure both of them contain lots and lots of different products for sale but the real difference is the platforms that these products are sold on.

In the world of films there was initially a fight between several types of media for dominance but eventually VHS became the dominant tape based medium for viewing films, then we progressed on to DVD's and now we are in the process of moving on to Blue Rays even if the transition seems to be a slow one. Sure there were some abandoned mediums along the way Beta Max, VCD's. Laser Discs, HD DVD's but it has mostly been a fight for dominance with the loser simply fading away a million films to watch but only one dominant medium on which to do it at anyone time, with maybe the last big medium just hanging around for those who cant afford the newest thing or are resistant to change.

Gaming has never been like this there has pretty much always been two or more competing platforms which have been at each others throats for there whole lifespan, usually with each of these being replaced by its successor with things carrying on much as they were before. Sure sometimes a competitor has bowed out and another has taken its place on the dance floor, Sega has gone 3rd party and stopped producing its own machines, and Microsoft has entered the market etcetera.

There have been attempts at approaching the idea of a single format for Video games with the most notable attempt being The 3DO Interactive Multiplayer or as it was better known the 3DO. The 3DO Company, founded in 1991 by Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins was created with the objective to create a next-generation, CD-based video game standard.

The idea was that people would be sold the license and specifications to manufacture there own version of the 3DO, so you would have a Panasonic 3DO, a Sony 3DO, a Samsung 3DO and etcetera. The 3DO company would make most of its profits via the royalty rate they would receive per game sold, apparently the royalty's paid were going to be much lower than those that you had to pay to sell a game on either Nintendo or Sega platforms.

Pretty much every electronics manufacturer was approached. However, Sony had already begun development on their own console, the PlayStation, and so they choose to peruse this angle rather than go down the 3DO route. With Manufacturers needing to make a profit on the machines where as Sega and Nintendo could happily sell there machines at a loss and recoup there expenses through game sales this led to the various types of 3DO being too expensive to adequately compete.

Will we ever have one platform? I really doubt it at least any-time remotely soon. For a start with have Nintendo who when you look at there last few consoles seem to like the idea of controlling there hardware. They like to shape it directly for the kind of experiences they want to offer, I also believe that both Microsoft and Sony prefer calling the shots on there hardware. The only way one platform works is if it is in every-bodies best interest and everyone agrees to it.

The closest thing we are likely to see to single platforms is the current system some companies have where by it is advantageous to try and have matching hardware. What do I mean by this? Well With Microsoft the creators of the Xbox brand also owning Windows which is on computers, as well as also now being on phones and tablets, they can provide strong incentives for you to try and keep to there brand. You can have a Windows laptop which will talk and share data with a windows phone both of which can talk to your Xbox One. The same can be seen with Apple Mac's talking to Apple phones, talking to Apple Tablets. Sony Has the PS4 which can interact with the Vita or beem itself to the Sony Vita TV or be controlled by your Sony Phone. 

At the moment there will be several companies trying there best to sell themselves to you but not just as the best game company but as the best overall lifestyle company capable of offering you home and portable gaming,both communication and work based devices. They would rather fight the war for each and every market sector by trying to show you a future whereby everything you own can come from them and can communicate for your ease and comfort and while this is happening the video game market will never settle on a standard. Personally I think this is a good thing as I like competition I think it is good for the consumer but I also find it neat when my laptop can talk/sync with my phone to my benefit.

How I became a horror writer.

I first started trying to write stories when I was in Junior school. I would sit there with small exercise books and I would try to think of something to write, in fact it was at this early age when I first tried to form a collective of writers. Me and my friends would all sit down and try to write stories nothing much every came of it but it was something which helped me to get through the days. 

I had my one and only brush with fan fiction at the age of around 15. I had read some of the what they now call expanded universe Star Wars books and enjoyed them. There was an exercise we were set by school where we had to try and write something within a world created by another so for some reason I gravitated towards Kyp Durren an apprentice of Luke Skywalkers and from there built up what I seem to remember was a reasonable sized tale. This was before I owned a computer though so it has been lost, maybe it will turn up in a draw or cupboard one day but in all honesty I am pretty sure it is long dead. I enjoyed writing it but I could instantly see a million problems in it, principally the fact that no matter how bad or good it was there was nothing much I would be able to do with it, I had wrote about a copyrighted character in a copyrighted universe. ( At this time I didn't really know how many places existed online for posting fan fiction if I had I wouldn't have been able to do anything about it as I did not yet have access to a PC).

I think a lot of my early attempts at writing were met by me simply holding a pencil and nothing happening because I had neither seen or experienced enough. I hadn't read enough books nor had I experienced enough things myself as a person. By the age of 16 I had seen more films than anyone I knew, I also hadn't done bad as far as reading went. There was a sudden obsession for Quentin Tarantino Reservoir Dogs and this led to a lot of my friends being interested in trying to replicate the film, I was known as the one with some writing talent and so I became the one to write the scripts. Looking back they were not my best work, they were incredibly plagiarised borrowing mostly from Dogs but with a sprinkling of various cop shows running from Miami vice to TJ hooker. These films were recorded on to these old half sized VHS video camera cassettes and are now also long lost. Most of them are in all honesty best lost but we did make one called ''The Evil that Men Do'' which although heavily influenced by the films and shows I had watched did feature some considering are age decent acting and impressive stunt work. It wasn't feature length it was about twenty minutes in length but it was something we were all very proud of. It was the high point of all of our work but instead of it being built upon we all ended up going our separate ways pulled away by jobs and higher education

So why has a lot of my writing been horror based? Well to answer that we need to start with another question and that is what do you get if you add the writing talents of Stephen King, the directing skills of George Romero and the special effects work of Tom Savini with just a pinch of Leslie Nielsen, Ted Danson and sprinkle of other actors? You get Creepshow a compendium of five short horror tales contained within a single full-length feature film.

Creepshow wasn't the first horror film I came across in fact by the time I saw Creepshow I had seen most of the old fashioned universal classics but this is one of the films I would recognise as the beginning of my real love for horror.I first came upon this film when I was about 12, the film had the right combination of tame scares and gross moments tempered with humour to help introduce me into the world of horror. This film was my gateway to the books of Stephen King, as soon as I had watched this I began looking at his books. and deciding which ones I would read first. This is somewhat amusing considering that the main inspiration for this film clearly comes from the original E.C. crime and horror comics of the 1950's. Creepshow was written by King as a tribute to these comic books which he has often spoke about as being one of the things that helped him become a horror writer. I would latter find myself enjoying both reprints of EC's horror comics as well as frequently watching the TV show Tales from the crypt and the old British film version of Tales from the crypt without at the time truly realising and appreciating the connection between all of these pieces of work.

There is a common theme which seems to run through most of the EC Comics stories, the stories in Tales from the Crypt (many of which were adapted from the comics themselves) and to some degree the tales in Creepshow and that is that they are in some way morality plays where by some twist will happen which will see someone get there comeuppance at the end of the story. I guess having spent my early years in a church of England school I was used to the morality play aspect, the whole idea of those who sin shall be punished. I didn't see much of this in real life, in real life people would seem to get away with being arseholes with seemingly nothing happening to them in return. These stories planted the seed in my mind which would go on to germinate in many of my own stories latter on. I might have first watched Creepshow at 12 but I certainly watched it more times than that, in fact to me it was a classic I would watch again and again.

Sure there were other books and films that interested me, I would go so far as to say that Lord of the Rings was my favourite book of all time but it wasn't a book I felt I could replicate the style of on any level. Tolkien created these thick worlds filled with all new languages and cultures, he seemed to juggle so many balls that I just couldn't grasp how a person could do this. I felt intimidated by them.  Yet I felt I could write stories with a horror twist stories which dealt with morals and with justice.This is how I became a horror writer. I began to play with stories in which a sense of justice existed where people got what they deserved. All that needed to happen from this point was for me to gain the courage to put my work out there and this courage came from two places it came from the kind words and support of my Mother and my Fiancée. I wrote my first proper piece that I was proud of while sat waiting for my Fiancée while she was in a university lecture. I showed it to both my Fiancée and my Mother and they told me it was good. Unfortunately not long after this my Mother went in to hospital and passed away. It was a huge blow to me as my Mum meant the world to me, but it made me decide that it was now or never, I had to self publish my story and get it out there and so I did.

I might not be famous but I know that people have read my work, I might have only made a little cash out of it but I can happily say that I am a writer and no matter what anyone says I gave it my best and I tried. I am still writing and still trying to make an impact and maybe I will or maybe I wont but I dont think that is what really matters, what matters is that whoever you are , whatever you love and wherever you are you chase your dreams as that's the only way to really be happy.

SNES game review 90: Aladdin, and a comparison against its megadrive/Genesis counterpart.

In the days of the SNES and Megadrive you would get cases where a game was released to both systems sometimes with very little difference maybe a tweak here or a tweak there to take advantage of the hardware but occasionally you would get two totally different games with the same name.

I know I only just talked about a Disney release but I couldn’t help myself but talk about this game. I guess in part it was because in doing so I would get the chance to talk a little bit about the Megadrive. Growing up I was one of very few kids who managed to have both a Megadrive and a SNES in a lot of cases people would make a decision between the two and would then live with that choice. Sometimes this would involve swearing that the other machine was utter garbage and that you wouldn’t want anything on that other 16bit piece of trash if somebody paid you to have it. Sometimes however it would just be a simple case of the persons parents didn't think that there child needed two different consoles and just were not willing to listen to the reasons why there kid had asked for a Megadrive one Christmas and then a SNES the next.

The rough split between the machines between my friends was an even fifty fifty split. I however considered myself the lucky one. One Christmas I got a Megadrive after having asked for it and then when the next Christmas drew near my mum sat me down and asked me what I wanted I told her if it wasn’t too much I would like a Super Nintendo. Sure my mother stopped me and asked me why, but she didn’t judge me or refuse to listen she sat there and listened to my explanation. I told her that although the systems were very similar and offered the same sort of power and experience they both had games which were exclusive to that system because of who made them and that unlike my friends who swore blind loyalty to one machine I wanted to be free to get the games I wanted for both machines even if it meant I got less overall.  It was this simple fact of owning both machines that ended up making me sort of the go to guy amongst my group of friends for video game recommendations and argument solving, if it wasn’t for this I don’t think I would be writing video game reviews now.

So when Aladdin was due out there was a choice to be made go for the Megadrive or Super Ninteno version. Usually if a game was multi-platform the easy decision would be to go for the SNES version as I doubt few people would argue with the fact that usually in these cases nine out of ten times the SNES would have slightly better graphics and much cleaner music. The games I enjoyed my megadrive for tended not to be multi-platform titles but were instead games which never saw the light of day on the super Nintendo such as Alien storm, cyborg Justice Road Rash etcetera. Here there was a kind of rare case of same name different game (It did happen from time to time Shadowrun being another example).

Ok so the Megadrive version was a Disney software, Virgin Games co-production and in fact when you look a little closer and read around a bit you’ll find that some of the names that worked on this game are people who would go on to form Shiny Entertainment (Including David Perry)  and bring us the hero known as Earthworm Jim, who was a real funky guy/worm. If you have played the MegaDrive Aladdin and Earth worm Jim games you will definitely see a connection in there style now it has been pointed out to you.

The main gameplay though is what you would expect from a 2D platformer, you jump and climb your way through levels and fight with either your sword or by throwing apples you have collected as a long range form of attack. It’s simple, but fun. This could get boring quiet quickly if not for the fact that the game is an absolute festival of colour with little in jokes hidden, the level design is also great. The game is well polished, the beauty of it is really in the little details here and there one example being if you put the pad down and leave Aladdin to it he will role and an apple along his arm and flipping it up much like he did at one point in the film. So that’s an obvious question for a game based on a movie how close does this game stay to its source material? Close enough would be my simple answer. It doesn’t follow the film action for action, it does however follow the basic plot but what it does do is flesh it out with extra bits which work well for the game. Aladdin might add levels that aren’t directly based on what happened in the movie but it’s easy to see why and in all honesty they are fun and don’t hurt the story, one such example being a level based on the insides of the lamp. I also can’t help but add that there are lots of great megadrive versions of various songs from the film and these really help set the mood, in fact I found myself humming some of them again and again, this left me wanting to watch the film again and in my opinion served as the perfect companion piece. If I was in the process of trying to review 150 megadrive games I would most likely give Aladdin a score of around 8 out of 10 but that’s not what I am doing here at all, I am talking about it in comparison to the Super Nintendo version. Back when these games were released the general opinion from experts who viewed things with as little bias as possible seemed to be that the Megadrive version was the superior one, but is this really true?

So the SNES version of Aladdin is also a 2d  platformer this game however was developed by Capcom and just like with the Megadrive version there was a particularly famous person involved in its creation in this case it is the games designer Shinji Mikami. Yes Resident Evil Shinji Mikami. Both of the games came out in 1993, in the same month in fact.

Aladdin on the SNES is a pretty traditional platformer as far as things go. You can run, duck, jump and once again you can throw apples but one thing this game is lacking is a sword, which seems to have lost it instant cool points when it comes to a lot of peoples opinions. In truth I don’t have an issue with the lack of a sword after all Aladdin really didn’t use one that much in the film did he, after all his introductory song in the movie was basically about being fast and avoiding things ‘’One jump ahead of the hitman’’ and all of that.  The apples you throw stun enemies and you can actually get rid of them in the old familiar platformer way, trying to push their head into their neck with your feet from a vertical position (Jumping on them).

The lack of a sword here and the characters the agility gives it a different feeling to its megadrive counterpart. As Aladdin you can bounce off certain objects and enemies in order to reach places you otherwise wouldn't get to. For me this game feels at its best when you keep up a quick tempo of going from jump to jump moving constantly forwards, it kind of makes you think of some of the scenes in Aladdin and in this way matches there pace.
The graphics are good but I don’t think the animation is equal to its megadrive counter part, but still it’s a nice bright good looking game. It is far too easy and to short though, you will have finished this game and seen all it has to show you while your megadrive playing counterpart is still ploughing there way through there version.

Even though the Snes version of Aladdin has its good points I just feel that the MegaDrive one is a better game, mostly because of the length and not the sword (who really thinks a game is better just for being able to stab people?). Thankfully though we don’t live in an either world where you have to choose one or the other. Fanboy logic is stupid at the end of the day all systems and all games have their strengths and weaknesses and if you limit yourself from sampling more things because they are on a certain machine or were made by a certain company then ultimately all you are going to do is hurt yourself. I give SNES Aladdin a happy 7 out of 10, it fails to get more mostly because it has a lack of lasting power, it however kicks the heck out of the other Disney games I have reviewed in the recent past Pinocchio and beauty and the beast.

If you want to sample this game then due to the license surrounding it you’re going to have to go for a Cart really, most of the ones I have seen for sale have gone for around £12 to £15 with boxed copies fetching a little more. A boxed copy of the MegaDrive version will set you back £10 to £15 roughly, in all honesty if you have both machines I would start there but if you can afford both or see both going cheap then you can’t really go wrong with either of them they are both darn fine games… On a side note this really makes me think once more that I wish Nintendo had adopted Sega style plastic games cases it would make the collectors life much easier.

WWE hit with more controversy and my opinions on both cases.

So its been a bit of a rocky time in the world of wrestling recently, we have had the whole Hulk Hogan erased from history due to racism situation, we have had the death of two legends Dusty Rhodes the American Dream, and Hot Rod Rowdy Roddy Piper and now two new pieces of news have been dropped on us.

The first which I am not going to go into much detail about is the fact that Zahra Schreiber, the girlfriend of WWE superstar Seth Rollins, has been fired from the organization because of pro-Nazi artwork she posted on her Instagram account back in 2012 including a My Little Pony with a Hitler Moustache and a Nazi style red arm band sporting a Swastika. Now I know once something is up online you have kind of shot it, as soon as her remarks and drawings were posted someone will have took screen captures and showed them to someone else and posted them to various forums after all this is how I was first shown what she had posted. A friend of mine sent me a link for a forum where her postings had been pasted and were being discussed. Now if anyone in the locker room had any racist skeletons in there closet you would think that when the WWE cut Hogan they would have at first panic'd and secondly would have gone in to damage control mode because if the WWE is willing to cut the immortal cash cow legend Hulk Hogan despite all of the events he has headlined all of the money his merchandise brings in then you can bet if your an NXT rookie or a mid carder then your butt will fly out of that company like there's a rocket up it.

At the end of the day and I dont mean this in a sexist way but Schreiber was basically just developmental talent, I think the more important part of this story is wether or not it has effected Seth Rollins standing in the company, after all he is currently holding on to championship gold. I do wonder if the WWE have had a little whisper in Seth Rollins ear, after all he was supporting her online as can be seen in some of the screen captures of what was said . Personally I would want to get him out of the limelight for awile and I would also want to make sure that he is well aware of the lines he has to walk within the company and to this end I would have Sting beat him at Night Of Champions and cleanly take the belt. Sting has not been allowed to really win anything or make any impact in the WWE yet to the point that its annoying people, so give the man some gold and a convincing win. Yes Sheamus has the money in the bank briefcase but I would argue for a much better angle than him simply cashing it that night, I have something new and and fresh. Have Sheamus come down to the ring straight away after the match have him have the briefcase in hand so everyone thinks he is going to use it and then have him talk to Sting, tell Sting that he respects him and that he doesn't want to win the belt by beating a tired man after theyve had another match he wants the chance to take on the new champion when he is at his best, he wants to face him with pride and honour and wants to trade the briefcase for a guaranteed match at a future agreed time.

Just like with Hogan this can be called a case of someone's past coming back to bite them in the ass and the same could be said about the next thing I am going to talk about as well. James Reiher Snuka (born James Wiley Smith) AKA Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka was arrested On September the 1st 2015, 32 years after the incident for which he was being arrested had happened. Now some will know who he is because they grew up with him, some will also not be too surprised by this arrest if they know about his history but for those less familiar I will explain a few things. Snuka rose to fame in the 1980s as a high-flying wrestler in what was then known as the WWF. he was involved in the main event of the original Wrestlmania being in the corner of Hulk Hogan and Mr T. He had a big career himself but he has also been involved in angels which have meant a lot to other characters development, Piper smashed a Coconut over his head for example and beating Snuka at WrestleMania VII was the beginning of The Undertaker's undefeated streak at WrestleManias.

On the night of 10 May 1983, paramedics responding to an emergency call from Snuka arrived at a hotel to find his girlfriend Nancy Argentino unresponsive. She was transported to Allentown's Sacred Heart Medical Centre, where she soon unfortunately died at the young age of 23 due to "undetermined craniocerebral injuries.",. When the coroner's report was released it stated that she had died of traumatic brain injuries which were consistent with a moving head striking a stationary object. The Autopsy also indicated that her body was coverd with more than two dozen cuts and bruises and indicated that these were possibly a sign of having an abusive partner. The Forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy, wrote at the time that the case should be investigated as a homicide until proven otherwise.

Snuka was arrested four months before her death for dragging Argentino by her hair down the hallway of a hotel. In that incident near Syracuse, it apparently took sheriff’s deputies and two dogs to get the wrestler under control. So it was not surprising that they instantly looked at him as prime suspect number 1 in fact Snuka was the only suspect involved in the subsequent investigation. Although charges were not pressed at the time against him the case was left officially open. On June 28, 2013,it was announced that the still-open case would be reviewed and on September the 1st, 2015, 32 years after the incident happened, Snuka was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter.

So what has the WWE had to say about the situation? Well here are two of there statement son the situation “WWE expresses its continued sympathy to the Argentino family for their loss,ultimately this legal matter will be decided by our judicial system.” At the moment has has been wiped from the WWE as can be seen in the second statement from the WWE “Jimmy Snuka’s non-wrestling ‘legends’ contract has been suspended, and we are currently removing his images from our media platforms pending the outcome of this case” . This is a hard area to discuss because from one point of view you could say that Snuka should have been removed from the company after the events he is now going to trial over, in fact it must have been horrible for her family to see the man they were certain caused there relatives death being pushed as a hero and cheered despite what he had done. Yet you can also argue that the man is innocent until proven guilty and that it would have been unfair to dismiss someone when it had not been proved that they had committed the crimes for which they were being accused.

At the time I was just a young wrestling loving boy I had no idea of what was happening outside of the ring, I only knew the characters who were being pushed by the company, to me Hulk Hogan was a hero and The Million Dollar man was one of the most evil men alive. I suppose you can say that my childhood outlook on all of this just proved what a great job everyone involved was doing of selling entertainment. Yet now things are far more complex than they were and sometimes it is just hard to know what to say. I guess all I can say is that my sympathies go out to the family of the young lady who passed all those years ago, this can not have been an easy situation for them and now all anyone can really do is sit back and let the legal system figure this one out.

SNES game review 89: Pinocchio

Ok so it feels like time for a little bit of Disney Magic so I figured I would give Pinocchio a try. Pinocchio was developed by Virgin Studios London with assistance from Walt Disney Feature Animation it was also a pretty late game being released in 1996 near the end of the Super Nintendo’s lifespan. I remember the game getting reviews back in the day with a crazy range of anywhere from 40% to 80% I never got to play it back then as I didn’t know anyone who got it, I guess they were put off by the wild range of review scores and decided to settle on something a little more of a solid bet, either that or they had moved on to the PlayStation.

Obviously it’s based on the classic Disney cartoon of the same name and well it’s easy to tell that as soon as you put the cart in the machine and turn it on.  After the usual logos you would expect you are met with a picture of a book with Pinocchio written on it and a cool midi rendition of the song ‘’when you wish upon a stat’’. You can tell that Disney had its hands in the making of this game as Pinocchio is a very good looking game, featuring plenty of colours, lots of sprites and beautiful animation the game moves like a dream, it is about as close looks wise to a cartoon as you could imagine a game would be at the time. Pinocchio's music is basically composed of midi versions of songs from the film it’s very basic but also sounds good and really fits the mood, there are also voice clips and sound effects.

For me though it is the gameplay where Pinocchio begins to fall on its ass a bit. Basically it is a platformer. You run and you jump and you try not die. Now nothing in the controls feels horribly wrong but nothing feels brilliant either it comes across as a very by the numbers sort of thing. The game does sod all when it comes to explaining anything to you, it just leaves you to guess and hope. For example nothing tells you that you have to press up to enter arches or that you need to use sign posts to fling yourself in to the air.

This also extends to the mini games there is a Simon says style mini dancing game where you copy what the computer does so you see the things you’re supposed to copy wave the left hand then right foot and you work out which button will make you do the same but with some of the animations you click on straight away and go oh it’s the lower left limb so I will press left and down but then the dancers your copying spin in place and your left wondering what the heck to press to copy them, this then descends in to a trial and error process of trying to press anything or nothing until you do what it wants you to, this is not fun.

The game would be easy if it wasn't for it plain just not giving you any idea of where you’re supposed to go. It made me Jiminy cricket and put me on a platform in the middle of nowhere with no explanation and after falling off a few times and wondering what the heck I was doing I just decided to murder any and all insect life that flew near to my platform with a few lamps on and this turned out to be the answer, this is what it wanted me to do, it wanted me to become the cricket serial killer, thanks for the heads up on that one game.

This game is basically a pretty but dull game, if it was on another system it might have got an easy pass but look at the machine we are talking about here the Super Nintendo. The SNES was released alongside one of the best 2D Platformers of all time. I think this game gets a 5 out of 10, it is though a dull game, it’s so neither good nor bad that it is in some ways totally boring, is it better than the last Disney Game I reviewed beauty and the beast yes, is it more frustrating though because it feels like it could have been more? Hell Yes. Give this game a miss and just watch the film. If you are burning with a desire to own it though a cart only pal version tends to go for between £6 to £10, sure you will see some rip of merchants trying to get more for it but you shouldn’t have any issues finding it in that price range, again though there are much better uses of your cash.

RIP Wes Craven: We lost not only a Master of horror but one of its guardians as well.

So unfortunately Wes Craven passed away a few days ago. I wanted to say something at the time but the truth was I was just too shocked to really know what to say. So I sat back and looked on as the heartfelt statements came out from so many of the people he had worked with. I could write a piece about his films celebrating his achievements but this has been done by so many, I also touched on this kind of thing when I posted a belated birthday wishes blog post. I also considered writing a piece about Wes Craven's new nightmare and the way it blended fiction and reality in a way that had never been done before but then my friend showed me an amazing article on this and I figured it had been done justice so then I wrote this.

Lots of people will have been upset by his passing because they grew up with his films, had seen him at various events and read about the man behind the films. Some comfort can be taken from the official statement released by his family which read: “It is with deep sadness we inform you that Wes Craven passed away at 1PM on Sunday, August 30 after battling brain cancer. He was 76 years old. Craven was surrounded by love, in the presence of his family at his Los Angeles home.'' Now while none of us really wanted him to die yet at least he was with his family and at home as peaceful as possible.

Lots of people know that Wes Craven was a writer and director they will have seen some or maybe all of the movies he was involved in but he was also in my opinion a great spokesperson for horror films.The horror film as a type of media sometimes seems to struggle to gain the recognition it deserves, it seldom seems to be adequately celebrated during the awards ceremonies in my opinion and this was something Wes Craven recognised “There was something really profound with the whole treatment of horror in culture at that time, which was, it was something kind of disgusting. Proper people didn't associate with it,”

A lot of people seemed at least at one stage to look at horror directors as hacks who were circling the gutter of society who were churning out this kind of thing because they perhaps didn't understand the complexities of more supposedly high brow forms of movie related art and yet Craven had an undergraduate degree in English and Psychology and a master's degree in Philosophy and Writing and he had been a teacher of both English and the humanities.He was able to use his skills to intelligently explain horrors place in the world and how it had always been there and he could defend it from this basis as can be seen in the following quote “I had been a college teacher. I had taught Greek mythology. I had taught The Iliad and The Odyssey, Greek tragic drama, and it’s all very bloody.''
While various government related busy bodies were trying to argue that horror films were pure garbage that served no purpose other than to warp and twist children Craven saw things in a much different way and while others might have lacked the words to fight back Craven was able to beautifully argue his point. “Stories and narratives are one of the most powerful things in humanity. They’re devices for dealing with the chaotic danger of existence.”

Wes Craven didn't just make his films and then shrug when people complained about them and there content, nor did he get mad and stamp and scream instead he met the complaints head of and argued his case beautifully.So yes I want to join in with others in celebrating the life and the films of Wes Craven but I also want to celebrate him as a role model.

Wes Craven was a writer, a director, a story teller but he was also a fine example to anyone who wants to fight there corner with intelligence and class. He is also a good example of someone chasing there dreams no matter what it takes. He left his teaching job behind, his stable contract and regular pay check in order to pursue the path he really wanted to take and how poorer would the world of horror be if he hadn't.

Goodbye Wes Craven thank you for the films and for the stories but most of all thank you for the example you set both in how to follow your dreams but also in how to argue for your cause in a diplomatic and heartfelt way.

Saints Row 4 Re-Elected: My completed Game of the month.

So I am here again talking about the games I have completed in the month just passed (August) in this case I have completed 1 game a game I had already finished before but I also completed 3 pieces of downloadable content for it, two were DLC add ons and the third was a stand alone add on which doesn't require the actual game to run. This month I completed Saints Row 4 (Re-Elected) on the PS4 including the add on's How the Saints Saved Christmas, Enter the Dominatrix, and Gat out of Hell. In order to do this I will be following a similar format to last time I will be to some degree doing a review of the content but I will aslo be talking about issues such as  how long I have been playing them for, how hard or easy they were to complete and if I think I will ever go back to them again.

As I already mentioned I had already finished Saints Row 4 before I even purchased the PS4 copy. I had finished the game back on my Xbox 360 and I had enjoyed it a lot at the time. So why did I buy it again? Well for a start I thought about simply investing in the add on content but when I looked at how much How the Saints Saved Christmas, Enter the Dominatrix, and Gat out of Hell would have cost me on the 360 and then looked at buying the game again for the PS4 or Xbox one the price was effectively the same, In the end I opted for the PS4 Version because I found a website selling new sealed copies for £15 which was a good £5 cheaper than I could find an Xbox One copy. Something I feel it is important to note here is that for anyone thinking of picking this game up I really must emphasise that you should buy it new. Gat out of hell does not come on the disc Gat out of hell comes as a code printed on a flyer inside the box, this is a one time code so if you buy saints Row 4 second hand on the PS4 your not going to get Gat out of hell, well unless someone has been very silly not claimed it and not taken the code out of the box when trading it in (and I would guess the same is true on the Xbox One).

I will be treading over some of the same ground as I did in my games I think get to much hate Saints Row thread but bear with me. Saints Row the original was just another crime based sandbox game, its only redeaming quality being the time of its release and the fact it was released on a platform that had not yet at that point been saturated with games of that style. If Saints Row 2 had come out and been more of the same then I strongly believe that it would have fell flat on its arse. Saints row 2 and 3 could be described at times as gloriously stupid, they were so over the top that they were beyond parody they were parodies of the entire sandbox crime based video game genre and in that way they could either be enjoyable as humorous games cracking fun at other games or as sandbox crime games of there own. Again though I think if Saints Row 4 had been just more of the same the joke and the gameplay would have become old and stale. So what did they decide to do? They decided that they would spoof a slightly different type of game, they would spoof the super power based open world games like Prototype and InFamous. The parody factor doesnt end here though, they manage to put in some things which are clearly aimed at taking the mickey out of Mass Effect while also hitting you with a barrage of nostalgia brining in songs you wouldn't expect, referencing various films and shows, if you were a child of the 1980's there will be times when something in this game is used in a way which just makes you stop and smile happy that a piece of your childhood has been weaved into the insanity.

The game starts with you playing the part of the Boss, the same character from the earlier entries in the series but this time you are the president of the United States of America. This is when an Alien overlord and his troops decide to attack and enslave humanity, blowing things up and kidnapping people locking them up in a matrix style simulated world. From this point its your job to fight back. You do this mostly from inside the simulation by completing various tasks ranging from hacking to killing your enemies to committing insurance fraud by throwing your body in front of various moving vehicles and then there are races using your super speed and gliding abilities and you even take part in a crazy violent game show. You also have to take care of business in the real world as well as a few different simulations which I wont spoil for you.

You get to make your own version of the President, male or female, fat or thin you design the character and it makes you feel connected, it helps draw you into the game. There are so many different types of weapon and super powers in the game that you can really play the way you want, do you want to freeze people and then shoot them in to pieces with pistols you've got it or if you'd rather run super fast headlong into people and punch and wrestle them then your covered. 

So what about the DLC, well I could have written individual reviews for these but when there included in the package this didn't feel right. I am not trying to review the game I am trying to review the entire package here so now I will talk about each piece a little.

How the saints saved Christmas is the shortest piece of DLC and was the one I enjoyed the least. The story is not to bad, its basically a video game parody of all of those sort of Christmas specials in which a character learns about the joys of Christmas., It also has a robotic evil Santa a bit like Futurama and its all as wacky and crazy as you'd expect. In honesty though there is only about an hours worth of gameplay here. Enter the Dominatrix is not much longer to be honest but it has a very tongue in cheek forth wall breaking way of taking the piss out of itself which I found very enjoyable, still on its own it wouldn't be enough to recommend someone spending much.

That leaves Gat out of Hell. Now I have an issue with Gat out of hell in that I personally find it less fun to be given a character to play as than I do to create my own character but that aside I actually enjoyed this a lot. You get the feeling that in a way the game is a video game and a joke. I mean lets look at the usual sequel path for horror/B movies usually you will have a few films and then you look at sending your hero or villain in to space, this has happened to Jason from Friday the 13th, it has happened to the Leprechaun from the Leprechaun films but you always have the feeling that when it reaches this point they are really kind of scraping the barrel and just don't want to give up on there cash cow. Well Saints Row went to space in Saints Row 4 (As well as going in to virtual reality and through virtual reality programmes playing with time travel/the past a little) so that kind of raised the question where next? Well where do other products such as horror movies tend to venture? Yep Hell. So here we have what basically is Saints Row goes to hell but rather than trying to predictably drag a whole game out of the idea and have it outstay its welcome instead they decided to make it in to a fun bit of DLC. 

In some ways Gat out of Hell is very much a re-skin of Saint Row 4 but then again for its price I wont hold that against it too much. You have lots of different weapons here with my favourite part being 7 guns based on the 7 deadly sins, you also have what at first seems strange Disney style musical theatre like songs. These are a precious treat though my fiancée is a big fan of musicals and Disney films and even she thought that even while being twisted they were delightful and funny. I see this as a good piece of DLC which has a little fun with its audience without outstaying its welcome. If they had tried to stretch this game out in to a full price full length retail product I think it would have been a huge mistake and we all know that plenty of studios would have done this only caring about its potential to make as much cash as possible with as little effort as possible.

I started both Saints Row 4 and Gat out of hell side by side. I finished Gat out of Hell within a week of buying it but enjoyed it greatly. At first I didn't know how much of Saints Row 4 I was going to play. I did consider just getting to the point it would let me sample the DLC and then stopping, but in the process of doing this I started to enjoy it so much that I couldn't help but play it again. The truth is even since finishing everything this package has to offer I have found myself dipping in to it now and then just to try and beat a score or to collect something I have missed. I think this speaks pretty strongly about both the game and Gat out of Hell.

Conclusion

At first Re-Elected doesn't really seem to look or feel very different but there are some upgrades done to improve this from the last generation versions, things that you wont really notice in screenshots. These are subtle things for one the draw distance is improved and things look a little smoother when in motion in general, this version is also free of the slow down that you sometimes got when firing off a lot of super powers with a lot of characters on the screen. So I feel that enough has been done that I have to say that even though this version might be a remake it is defiantly the definitive version of the game. That being said if you played this game on a PS3 or an Xbox 360 and for whatever reason it wasn't for you then your still not going to like it it is the same zany super powered game it was in the first place. The same can be said about the DLC if you didn't enjoy the original your unlikly to enjoy any of these, however for the person who enjoyed either the Original Saints Row 4 or one of its prequels and who wants a good value for money package I don't think you can go far wrong here. The current price for this on Amazon is now £15 for either the PS4 or Xbox One and I think you could do a lot worse than giving this game a try.

I would give this package overall an 8 out of 10. Its not a game that's going to change the world or make you reassess your life but if you want a good laugh and to let loose and be a little crazy while enjoying reworked blasts of nostalgia then this is for you.