After the re-emergence of the world’s first mutant, world-destroyer Apocalypse, the X-Men must unite to defeat his extinction level plan.

First thought that came to my mind, watching the opening scene of this film. Is this Stargate?  But that would be unfair to Stargate, as it isn’t this camp. I am very disappointed with this film, that they haven’t utilised the wonderful source material, for a cohesive story.  Such a rich source material filled with a variety of universes and well written characters.  Since a fox cub (see what I did there?), I have been a fan the X-Men comics. I understand that in different medians, it is difficult to stick to the source material, but with this particular series, I don’t understand why they couldn’t or wouldn’t. Days Of Future Past was a good film, but was mediocre compared to First Class. I knew then things were taking a downturn with this series. And as a quip was made by a character after coming out from seeing Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi. ‘The third is always the worst.’ That would be funny, if not for the fact, that in this film’s case, it’s just true. I would rather watch The Last Stand again. And also Captain America: Civil War (You can find my review here ~Lone), was a very good film, the best in the series and the third film. So no Jean, they aren’t always the worst. And yes of course, Wolverine makes an appearance. Yawn. I love Wolverine, especially Hugh Jackman’s version, but let’s give the other characters a chance to shine, without him please. Although, well done for getting his Weapon X costume accurate. There were some new characters introduced in this film, but sadly they just go no screen time. One of note was Jubilee. Her costume looked great, the casting was good, but she got pretty much zip all screen time. You don’t even get to see her use her powers.

The plot is a convoluted mess, and doesn’t seem to know what it wants to do. It seems very desperate to repair the damage, the series has done to itself for the time travelling. It opens with Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) going through a ritual to transfer his consciousness to another mutant’s body, so he may stay young and beautiful, and acquire a new power. The humans revolt to kill him, and whilst he is incapacitated, his horsemen die protecting him, shielding him, in some kind of telekinetic energy. He slumbers for centuries, until the mega, bright 80’s. The scenes then travel through what the mutants are doing.

Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) is a mutant rescuing Samaritan. She infiltrates a mutant cage fight in East Berlin, and rescues Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and Angel (Ben Hardy).  Angel flees, after his wing is injured by Nightcrawler in the cage match.  Mystique takes Nightcrawler to a mutant trafficker Caliban, who helps her send Nightcrawler to America.

Magneto (Michael Fassbender) is working in a production factory in Poland, with a wife and a daughter (not Scarlet Witch). Where he is trying to live amongst the humans in peace, as Xavier does.  Xavier (James McAvoy) and Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult) are running the school for mutants, but disguised as a school for gifted children. Alex Summers (Lucas Till) collects his brother Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan), after his powers manifest and brings him to the school, so Xavier can help him. There he meets Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), a powerful telepath and telekinetic whom the other children are afraid of, since her nightmares make the school shake. They develop an attraction immediately.  Storm (Alexandra Shipp) looks good, sporting a Mohawk, busy thieving on the streets of Cairo to support her and other street urchins, before she becomes Apocalypse’s new horseman, followed by Psylocke (Olivia Munn), Angel and Magneto.  Apocalypse enhances each of their powers. But only Angel and Psylocke were Horsemen for Apocalypse, and they didn’t need their powers enhancing. Angel did have his wings transformed into metal, with technology.  Storm has a poster of Mystique and longs to be just like her.  As she was recorded saving the President Of The United States in Days Of Future Past.  So she is some sort of ‘saviour’ for mutants.

Apocalypse is the first mutant and therefore loves his brothers and sisters. But then wants to destroy the world they live in, as the weaker species (humans) have taken over. I feel these motives are purely ridiculous, especially when taking into context, that if the world is destroyed, then how can they have a world for the mutants? He states he wants to rebuild it, but still he would need people to be alive, to help and rebuild it. Who wants to clean up that mess?

I don’t want to go into too many spoilers, so I will miss some of the plot points out. Xavier wants to find Magneto, and when he does, he learns he is with Apocalypse and then he discovers Xavier. Sensing a powerful telepath who can manipulate people, he decides Xavier is his next vessel. Xavier is kidnapped by Apocalypse and crew, leaving Mystique and the kids to rescue him. Before they can, Mystique and the left over grown ups are kidnapped by William Stryker. Nightcrawler uses his teleportation to get himself, Jean and Scott onto the helicopter, which is headed for a secret facility. As they are rescuing Mystique and crew, they meet Weapon X (Wolverine). Jean uses her telepathy to free him from the mind control and he runs off into the woods. Once they are all free, they then take on Apocalypse and crew.

Now for the cast. I really am not a fan of Sophie Turner. I didn’t like her performance in Game Of Thrones, and I just didn’t feel she was a very good Jean Grey. She just seemed devoid of emotions. Michael Fassbender was on top form as Magneto again, emulating his tortured soul. James McAvoy brings his comedic charm to the role of Xavier again. Jennifer Lawrence shines as Mystique. Oscar Isaac as Apocalypse was a nice surprise, but even he couldn’t save those terrible lines of dialogue. Evan Peters makes a return as Quicksilver, and my favourite version of him. His sarcastic quips are spot on for the character. Olivia Munn looked very much like Psylocke, but she didn’t get enough screen time, I felt. I am hoping they bring her back in the next film, and give her chance. Psylocke is one of my favourite characters. Tye Sheridan as Cyclops, well just another generic teenager. Alexandra Shipp as Storm, is also another one that didn’t get that screen time she needed. I thought she was a very good Storm. Ben Hardy as Angel, well he didn’t make much of an impact. Kodi Smit-McPhee as Nightcrawler was fantastic. Not only did he look like Kurt Wagner, but also embodied him, with the nervous, but strong hero. Rose Byrne as Moira MacTaggert again, and I still don’t like Moira as a CIA agent.

As a fan of the comics, I really didn’t enjoy this film. It wasn’t a good superhero film, or a good action film. With Singer at the helm once more, I was expecting more. Sadly I was disappointed.

4/10

Rawfury Games showed off their roguelike game today at Gamescom, with quite surreal graphical styling.

GoNNER sees you play a character whose loadout you can customise with different heads, weapons and backpacks. You start off with a few then unlock more as you progress. Heads give you an effect and a number of hearts, the weapon is what is used to make attacks against the enemies that fill levels and the backpack will also bestow another ability on you, with the example of being able to reload as the given one on stream. Without that, you need to kill enemies to gain more ammo.

As mentioned before, graphically the style is fairly surreal. You platform through a 2D level, choosing to kill or not kill enemies as you make your way towards a boss level, with a shop of upgrades being available just before the boss which are the only enemies that it is required for you to kill to continue. Pickups come in the form of ammo and purple ‘runes’ that are used in the stores to buy upgrades or new heads/backpacks. Being a roguelike the maps and spawns are random generated each time you play. Another interesting mechanic is that being hit doesn’t instantly mean death if you still have hearts left. You character will fall apart but as long as you can collect them and always have your head you cannot be killed. However, an attack without your head is an instant death.

Although a release date wasn’t given as an exact, they hope to get it out ‘soon’ – probably September. It’ll be coming to Steam and after released they hope to add more content in the form of new upgrades etc.

More information can be found at gonnergame.com

PaperSeven showed off their new story-driven adventure game today on the Twitch livestream at Gamescom – Blackwood Crossing.

Taking part on a train between two orphaned siblings, 14-year-old Scarlet and 10-year-old Finn, you play as Scarlet as she follows her brother through the train and into surreal changing landscapes as we discover the past, present and feelings of both siblings.

Like any good game of this genre you must go around and find clues as to how to proceed, both through items you can pick up and examine closer as well as items set around the landscape around you. Using these to solve puzzles will let you proceed in the game and eventually get to the root of why they are on the train and what has happened.

Indeed, the trailer can explain it a bit better than I can;

As you can see, eventually it gets very dark as we seem to delve almost into an atmosphere shaped by Finn’s own thoughts and feelings as his beloved sister enters teenagehood and grows apart from him. It seems wonderfully rich, and I am curious as to the fully story.

If you too are interested, we’ve been told to expect the game sometime in early 2017, with a simultaneous release on Xbox One, PS4 and Steam. More information can be found at blackwoodcrossing.com.

Amplitude showed off more of their upcoming 4x strategy game today, with another faction we can expect to see in Endless Space 2.

For those who don’t know, Endless Space 2 is a sequel to another 4x strategy game. You basically grow your faction’s population, colonise planets, fight other factions or choose diplomacy to negotiate with them – all while managing resources, space, troops and much more besides. The game is turn-based and decisions will have to be made with how to handle things like overpopulation, battles that you get into and so on.

Shown off today at Gamescom was the third playable faction they’ve introduced us to, the Lumeris. Primarily money-making and trade obsessed, the Lumeris’ bonus means that they are able to buy new planets for colonisation instead of going through the processes of making a mothership and flying it over to set up the outpost to grow to a colony.

We’ve still no ideas about how soon we can expect to see this game coming to our various platforms, but rest assured we’ll be keeping an eye on its progress.

One of the games shown off today on Twitch’s livestream stage from Gamescom 2016 was a VR game being published by Polish studio Klabater and developed by Carbon Games.

Based off Alice in Wonderland, Alice VR sees you taking the role of ‘Alice’, awoken on a space station by an AI who informs you that a malfunction has left you needing to make a planetside journey to find fuel. Instead you find an abandoned town and despite being told to stick to instructions by the ship’s AI, exploring could lead you to find the secrets hidden away there.

The game was made for VR play, but it will be available to play without the need for a headset. Because of the made for VR experience part though, the movement is slow and deliberate so as not to disorientate the player or make them feel ill. There is a run option that can be turned on though, if you wish to pick up the pace a little.

There’s a lot of puzzle solving to this game, some involving the Wonderland-esque mechanic of shrinking and growing. There are also tracks around that allow for movement on ceilings and walls. The choices you make throughout the levels the game is set over will have an effect on the ending too, so choose wisely.

Alice VR will work on Rift, Vive and other PC VR headsets, although not on PS VR quite yet. The game is set to release in October some time, for more information visit the site at alice-vr.com