So Hearthstone’s next big expansion is due to be released sometime this month, and already the hype is growing. Right now in game you can pre-purchase 50 packs of the new card set for a discounted rate of $49.99 / £34.99 / 44,99 Euros.

Also there have been confirmed to be around 130 new cards coming to the game, and a number are being slowly revealed to the public as the days go by many with a bunch of interesting new abilities and effects.

Here are the newer ones that have been revealed since the time I wrote the last article:

Neutral:

Warrior

Rogue

Priest

Druid

Mage

Warlock

In fact, Wrathguard was revealed on a stream while I was in the middle of writing this article. That’s how often we seem to be getting new cards revealed to us right now.

Stay tuned for some more next week. Unless The Grand Tournament is out by then, in which case prepare for a FLOOD of new cards.

Jurassic World is the sequel that no one really saw coming. The last Jurassic Park movie was many years ago, but now is the time when a lot of people who watched the original Jurassic Park film as well as its other sequels have grown up and nostalgia is a big seller right now. So, how does Jurassic World hold up?

The story follows a pair of brothers as they are flown over to the titular Jurassic World park, a big tourist attraction and theme park a bit like a real-life wildlife sanctuary with the dinosaurs on display to the public under varying layers of protection either for the crowds or the sake of the dinosaurs. They have been invited there by their aunt who is high up in the management chain for the park, but is too wrapped up in her work to spend time with the boys; instead placing them in the care of her assistant and giving them special level of access to rides and attractions. The attraction is set on the same island as the original Jurassic Park and from dialogue it seems that some of the same scientists are working on creation of the dinosaurs in the park, still augmented with DNA strands from other animals to allow them to live again.

In the efforts to ramp up attendance to Jurassic World again new species have to be created and introduced as attractions every few years, and this time they have ‘created’ a species of dinosaur – the Indominus Rex. Made with the DNA of several dinosaur species, it was made to be more thrilling and dangerous then any dinosaur before as well as more intelligent. Guess what happens to kick off the movie conflict?

As far as the series goes, this one is a little different. The original Jurassic Park had maybe only a few people running around from the dinosaurs, while this one has had the attraction open for years already and so in a way the stakes are much higher. There’s hundreds, maybe thousands of people in this park and the way that the staff attempt to deal with the escalation of events as they happen is interesting. They have to deal with the situation without losing too much face, because there is a lot invested into the park as an attraction and that’s realistic, although you might be like me thinking that the better option would have been to get people off the island quicker and save face publicly by showing that public safety was a high concern. But maybe that’s just me.

The four main actors in this story are all good, although Chris Pratt in his role steals the movie for me. His character has such an in-depth relationship with the four raptors in the movie, having reared and trained them from hatching and acts as their pack’s alpha while still acknowledging that although they are made to be a tourist attraction they are living things. In fact, his character comes off as the wisest one in the entire movie, warning about what will happen when something as fierce as the I. Rex manages to get loose having been constrained alone for all of its unnatural life. Strangely, the raptors too are high on my list of things I liked about this movie, as they have a lot of personality for CGI animated creatures while still being somewhat believably dinosaur. Got to think that maybe Blue was tainted a bit by whatever they used to make the I. Rex more intelligent, as she seems a little more aware than the other three.

However, while the movie was certainly enjoyable a watch I felt there was a little something missing that would have given it the wow factor for me. I thought about it and I came to the conclusion that what was missing for me was that the danger the park was in never seemed entirely real after the first few big incidents in the movie. We see people attacked all through it up until the last parts of the film set in Jurassic World but the dangerous atmosphere seemed to peak and settle and any deaths weren’t given enough time for them to be as meaningful to me. It was a long while since I last watched Jurassic Park, but I remember that part of the draw from the first movie was that it seemed anyone of our characters could die in any way at any time. Jurassic World just didn’t seem to have that same factor in it, although that could be entirely down to the difference in my own age since the first viewing of each film.

Jurassic World is a very good movie, certainly an awful lot better than you’d expect given the reputation of many-years-after sequels to beloved films that we have nostalgia for. The roles are played well and are believable, there are a few small twists that will take you by surprise, and I would certainly watch it again with the family. It just lets down a little bit in the ‘constant high-stakes danger’ department for me.

7.5/10

Don’t Starve was a good game, made better by the regular updates that added new content and the addition of multiplayer Don’t Starve Together that sees you choosing whether to survive together with your friend or screw them over. After all, you don’t have to outrun the Tallbird – only your friend running with you.

Now Klei have announced that they’re teaming up with Capybara Games, makers of Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery, to bring a new expansion to the game that’ll take Wilson and the other playable characters out over the water: Don’t Starve Shipwrecked.

Details are still a bit thin on the ground, but we do known that it’ll include new seasonal effects, biomes and creatures for you to learn how to survive and co-exist with. Keep your eyes peeled for more news as it’s revealed.

There’s no doubt that MANOS: The Hands Of Fate is one of the worst movies ever released. Now, FreakZone Games, developer of the Angry Video Game Nerd (AVGN) Adventures have made a loving (?) tribute to this horror disaster in the form of MANOS: The Hands of Fate- Director’s Cut. The question though, is the game as bad as the movie it pays homage to, or is it worth your time?

MANOS is a 2d action game in a deliberately retro fashion. It harkens back to the days of the NES. Many games from those days are remembered as absolute classics, and recapturing that retro feeling in a fresh new gam eis always a fun experience. Unfortunately, The Hands Of Fate manages to capture the good and the bad from the olden days. The story of the game is as simple as the movie. You, your wife and daughter and family dog find yourselves stranded in the desert after your car breaks down. The Valley Lodge is nearby and you go to find help. Nonsensical events follow, much like the movie. By no means is it a bad plot. It makes more sense than the original Kirby games. And it certainly matches the movie it’s based on.

Gameplay is simple, boiling down to running, jumping and shooting. Controls are a bit floaty. I was never certain if it was because of a deliberate design choice to capture the feeling of old NES games, or if it was simply floaty for no real reason. Either way, I found myself cursing the controls many, many, many times as I fell to my death after only slightly holding the opposite direction I was traveling. Or missing a jump because I didn’t hold down the jump button for the exact millisecond length of time demanded. Or simply getting run over by an enemy because the game ate a command input and I didn’t shoot my gun in time. Accompanying this imprecision in control is a grain effect that is turned on by default.

While this effect was probably intended to add atmosphere, it instead is practically crippling to your ability to see what is coming, particularly in one early auto scrolling level that takes place in complete darkness across multiple pits with disappearing blocks and enemies that cannot be seen until they are right in your face. Fortunately, this effect can be turned off in the game’s main menu. If you play MANOS, I highly recommend disabling the grain effect before you start the game. Aside from hindering your ability to play the game, I also found it giving me a severe headache after a few minutes.

On the positive side, MANOS has many things I remember fondly from the old NES days. Levels are pattern based, meaning that learning a level and the routes of the enemies within the level can allow you to flex your muscles and absolutely destroy a stage. Exploration is rewarded, as it will often uncover Hands Of Fate which will increase your life bar permanently. And, as an added bonus health pickups are plentiful along with shiny gems and coins which increase your score. Or rather, health pickups are plentiful on normal difficulty. On harder modes the game is nowhere near as generous. And on Nightmare difficulty, you better bring your A game. This is NES Hard at its most punishing worst. Also welcome is the addition of the shotgun pickup. While a more powerful weapon is welcome in it’s own right, MANOS also challenges you to play pixel perfect as taking damage will downgrade you back to your lowly pistol. Its a simple yet effective way of rewarding precision gameplay. Even more welcome are generous checkpoints. If you ever played an NES game, you’ll know why this is a big deal/

One of the few unreserved compliments I have for this game are it’s art style and music. The visuals are clearly modern, as no NES every sported a color palette this varied. The characters, levels and backgrounds are all crisp and unique. Sprites move with a sense of life and character, and its often fun to just watch one of the zombies march across the screen. Likewise, the music fits the camp horror theme well.

MANOS: The Hands Of Fate- Director’s Cut is a strange game. An homage to one of the worst movies ever made, it contains some of the things I hated most about NES games. There are things that I appreciate in it’s design. And I had the odd moments of enjoyment while playing it. But the numerous cheap deaths I suffered, including the dozens in the plane section where you are pitted against what amounts to two bosses at once with only one hit between you and death were more than sufficient to make it hard to summon up the will to press on with the game. Retro visuals are charming, but marred by a hideous grain effect that is turned on from the start. And, in the end the good just didn’t outweigh the bad. There are great ideas here. Its just to bad that like the movie it plays homage to, MANOS: The Hands of Fate – Director’s Cut is inconsistent, irritating and  not all that enjoyable in the end.

Final Score: 4.5/10

UPDATE: Final Score 6.5/10 due to patch fixes. Please watch the video review for more details.

Ouya’s idea of open platform gaming was a lovely one, appealing to a few but it never really took off the ground. It didn’t help that the launch problems for the Android machine included sticking controller buttons, lag and an interface that really wasn’t appealing.

Fortunately CEO Julie Uhrman managed to keep it afloat long enough to find a buyer for her company, in the form of Razer who are most often known for their range of utensils and other computer related accessories they sell – headphones most notable among those.

.@Razer Can’t wait to see what you do. Take care of my incredible team and community…I know you will.

— Julie Uhrman (@juhrman) July 27, 2015

She’s now leaving the company, while Razer are making use of Ouya’s software assets and has hired on the technical and development staff of the smaller company. However the console and controller will not be making the jump over to Razer.

It remains to be seen how Razer intend to utilise their new acquisition and its staff to their advantage.