Entertainment
Aiming for Halloween we bring you the scariest reviews possible, using it in the loosest sense of the word. We start off with the awesome (and terrifyingly good) game bundle The Orange Box by Doddsy1992. Next up is the most terrifying thing to any fan of music, change. Im Kyle brings you a review of the new Nightwish album, Dark Passion Play. Prepare for the New Era and enjoy this month's Entertainment section.
-Doddsy1992
The Orange Box - By: Doddys1992
‘The Orange Box’ is a cross-console release containing Half-Life 2: Episode 1 and 2, Team Fortress 2 and Portal. With such a large range of games ‘The Orange Box’ is possibly the greatest gaming package to date. Each game is unique in its own special way and each is defiantly capable as a stand-alone game. Meaning this is not just a package of half games stuck together.
Half-Life 2 has been out on PC for what seems like an eternity to everyone else in the gaming community. Now that everyone else gets a go on every console, this freedom has also given the developers to play around with the powers of the other consoles. The PS3 and X-Box 360 both, currently, have better graphics processors than the average PCs. There also both have better processors than PCs and this has meant that the Half-Life 2 Console world has a higher level of detail on the world areas. The game play stays the same on all consoles and, as far as we have been told, so have the weapons and vehicles. The story line continues where Half-Life left off, sort of! You wake up on a train and are approached by ‘The G-Man.’ A freak of nature, more lizard than man and as cold as stone, you can never be sure whether to trust him or not! The train you’re on is a train to City 17 (somewhere in Eastern Europe), the place where all humans are sent, a concentration camp, so that the oppressive aliens can control them. Whether it’s with subliminal messaging, the procreation suppression field or violent cops ready to crush the slightest sign of rebellion. Then why has our spectacled hero been sent to City 17, it seems like a totally illogical choice. Think again, even with all it’s suppression City 17 is the headquarters of the Human Resistance against the Combine, the aliens who hopped in through the portals. This is where the adventure of Half-Life 2 begins.
Half-Life 2, along with its sequels, is the pinnacle of shooting games. Using brains and not just brawn to fight your way out of tricky situations, taking advantage of the ‘Grav-Gun’ to solve puzzles to help with your escape or to hinder the aliens chances of getting to you. Allow immersive story lines, AI that does not get stuck behind juts in the ground but instead fights like the best of them, physically beautiful to look at and the use of Hollywood style script writers makes this feel like one huge interactive movie! Even while doing this, and more, Half-Life 2 never forgets its fundamentals, the fact that it’s a shooter. The fact that it is a first person shooter (FPS) means that everything that happens in front of you, just another way Valve has increased immersion in this game!
Half-Life is known for its monsters, bizarre abominations that have the morals of a snake but with incredible intelligence, most of the time. The monsters vary from small Headcrabs that can sting you to death, or just jump onto your head, clever name they gave it, and turn you into a zombie. When they do this there fangs dig and take control of the person’s body, the most gut-wrenching thing about these zombies is you can hear the humans screaming inside! They will then eventually be entirely consumed and becoming a fast Zombie which can climb, jump and run at incredible speeds. Then you have striders, tall spindly tripods, very much like the Tripods from War of the Worlds, which mounted machine guns ready to rip anyone to pieces. The largest monster is the Combine Gunship, it looks like a large insect as it glides through the air but no one knows quite whether these are living or mechanic. There are lots of other monsters but the only thing you need to remember, if it looks grotesque, blow it to pieces! The only exceptions to these rules are the Metrocops, genetically modified humans used to control City 17, must be annihilated. The other exception is the strange creatures, purely known as the Vortigaunts. These physic cyclops’were once used as slaves by Combine so now help you in your resistance.
All in all Half-Life, and it’s episodes, are an amazing entry to any gamers repertoire and should be one of the best sellers to ever hit the gaming world
The Orange Box does not only contain the Half-Life 2 series, it also contains two other games. The first one of these is Team Fortress 2, an online shooter game. The online shooter genre has become a spent genre. So many games in this genre flood the market every year and now people are sick of these. This is where Team Fortress 2 steps into the market, a online shooter that is both fun and exciting to play.
On paper the game seems like your bog standard online shooter, two teams , opposite identical bases and a deathmatch/capture the flag set up, but when you actually play this game you see how incredibly differently Valve have done this game. They are 9 classes you can be, this includes: Spy, Pyro, Demoman, Heavy, Scout, Medic, Soldier, Engineer and Sniper. Each character is individual, and unlike in most shooters, necessary and fun to play. In most games people the most rounded class and play with that throughout the entire game. Occasionally switching when it is absolutely necessary, in this game there is no completely rounded class. Every class has its positives and negatives. This also makes this game much more of a team game and you can’t rely on one amazing player or class to so all the work for you. When players work together using tactics and a deep understanding of each class they always win, unless the other team is doing the same.
Each class has its avatar that is hilariously stereotypic. Each one has their part to play and here I will breakdown what they do, how they look and how they can be used. The spy is as suave and sophisticated as any James Bond, just as hard as nails. Clean-cut business suit and top button done up is the best way to describe his appearance, plus the cigarillo and of course a balaclava! He has two unique special abilities. The first is cloaking, he disappears into the shadows and is effectively invisible. He can then sneak around literally back stab the enemy before they realise what’s going on. His other ability is even cooler, if he is alone he can change his appearance. From red to blue, and then from spy to Demoman to Heavy. This means that he can happily work straight into the enemy base and ‘accidentally’ blow up one of his ‘team mates.’ This is a huge tactical advantage but can back fire when the enemy realise you’re the fake and return fire.
The Heavy is, as you’d except, one huge lunk-head who has a special relationship with his mini-gun, ‘Sasha.’ He has the ability to fire over 1,000 bullets a minute which rips just about anything to pieces. He is most effective placed at the back, in an advancing arch to allow your team to gain ground. Also handy at stopping pesky scouts! Pyro is another one of the 3 brutes, noticeable for his large gas mask and flame-thrower. His special is the ability to cause mass havoc in enemy bases. His flame will jump to anyone who comes into contact with somebody already a light. This is useful to stop anyone charging towards your base, running back to their bases or for generally flame-grilling enemies. He is most effective when placed in the enemy base and can cause mass havoc as everyone sets alight and then passes it to a team mate and so on. The last brute is Demoman, a tough guy explosives expert who has seen his fair share of mishaps. His eye patch of proof of things that have gone wrong in the past and his thick body armour protection in case of any more mishaps. He uses mines and grenade launchers to blow holes in enemy defence. His most effective use is for him to place Proximity/Remote Mines around and when an enemy, usually a Scout, comes into the area, BOOM! No chance of survival, just a hell of a lot of carnage!
The medic looks like a mad German scientist thrown out of the First World War and has some how ended up here. He is most effective behind the brutes healing them as they advance towards the enemy. Due to the brutes having slow manoeuvrability they are easy pickings, even with there high health. The medic standing guard allows these brutes to stay alive longer; he is also useful at healing a scout fleeing with the flag. The Scout is the fastest player on the team looks like an adolescent runner, thin and fashionable, compared to the rest of the team. His speciality is speed, which allows him to run up the map at great speeds avoiding enemy fire as best as possible. Once he reaches the flag, hoping there are no mines or ambushes set up, he will then run back to his base and this continues. He has a small gun but is merely for emergencies. The soldier is grunt, with a 5 o’clock shadow, that possesses a very impressive rocket launcher. He is most effective at supplying covering fire for the Scout as he is able to clear out whole waves of enemies creating space for the nimble scout to run through.
The two classes left are the two defensive classes. The engineer looks like he’s stepped straight off the construction site and into a war zone, wrench still in hand. He is used to build turrets to as a base defence stopping anyone getting near or into your base. These turrets are incredibly useful against a poor scout who stumbles across them. The last class is the Sniper, a Texan with stone emotions and a will to kill. He has the greatest accuracy in the game and has the unique ability to increase his damage by not doing anything! The longer the sight stays on the target the more damage it will do when the shot is fired. This puts the question of whether you risk waiting to get a one-shot-kill or do you fire straight away and hope for the best.
This game looks like the best reason to get online capabilities for your console. Prepare for late-nights and hours hilarious shooter action
The last game is by far the most interesting, and the biggest risk to Valve. This game can only be described as a cross dimensional shooter puzzler, and that’s an understatement! The idea of portal is to complete the various goals in each level. These can vary from the simple such as getting from one side of the room to getting several unmovable boxes to unreachable areas. The only tools you have to complete these tasks is a gun and your wits. However, this gun is no normal gun, this gun creates Portals! The gun is ‘simple’ enough as you fire two types of portals. You fire an entrance and then an exit, but you can go between the two portals you have created. This allows a new dimension to the way you solve these puzzles. What may have once looked simple now becomes very difficult with multiple enemies to avoid, large crevasses and many traps to open that can only be switched by ‘large masses’
This is the puzzler to end all puzzlers. There is almost a certainty that you will get confused, you will go the wrong way, you will misplace a portal and you will have to learn! The most enthralling concept about this game is that no one can ace it first time through. You have to which methods work most effectively on each level, this translates as many play throughs trying different theories out and eventually getting trough each level in the minimum portals possible.
Valve promised a puzzler to beat even the greatest minds, they have succeeded.
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Dark Passion Play - By: Im Kyle
Nightwish fans around the planet, now is either the time to rejoice or throw your hands up in anger. With its new lead singer, Anette Olzon, Nightwish has released its latest CD entitled “Dark Passion Play” as of late September 2007. The band, which was founded in 1996, only recently changed its lead singer from Tarja Turunen to Anette, which has without a doubt resulted in a great level of disappointment by many fans. The best advice one can give to those people is to stop dwelling, and hopefully open up to the band in its new form. It’s entirely worth it.
If one is to focus on the differences between Tarja and Anette, the biggest difference is that Tarja, but not Anette, is an opera singer. Nightwish, which often has a choir providing backing vocals had really found itself an amazing sound with Tarja at the lead. It mixed very well. Now, Anette, with a clearly different voice and singing style has really brought something new to the table for the band. She doesn’t bring the same level of originality to the band that Tarja had, and some people may even argue that she’s more of a pop singer, but she still compliments the band well. The clear problem is that the entire Nightwish fanbase has been used to hearing the music with Tarja’s voice since the 90s, so that makes it very difficult to accept a voice that is new and different. But once again, the best advice is to move past that.
The new album is a bit different from the previous albums, yet Nightwish has still retained the great sound it has always been known for. It has also introduced some new things we’ve never seen before by the band (such as Celtic elements, soprano vocals, and a gospel choir). Most of the new elements have been a great success too. One positive factor is that the Collector’s Edition of this album contains two discs, the standard version, and the instrumental version. In my personal opinion, I think this may have been done on purpose to hold onto as many fans as possible by releasing a version that would still contain their new music, just without the vocals, chiefly, Anette’s singing (because, believe it or not, there are people in this world who are capable of suddenly “hating” a band over something like a lead singer change!). I’ve only had the opportunity to hear a few of the instrumental versions, and I liked them. If you think you may have a difficult time getting used to this album (possibly because of Anette), I’d recommend that you listen to the instrumental versions first, for quite a while, so that when you go listen to the original versions, you’ll be better “adapted” to listen to them.
Here’s a breakdown of the track listing:
1. The Poet And The Pendulum – It’s clear that this song was chosen specifically to begin the album. It almost seems to me that Nightwish is really trying hard to prove to everyone that they’re still the awesome band they’ve been in the past. Look at this song, it is 14 minutes long, and it’s quite clearly one of the greatest attempts at epic I’ve ever seen. Does it succeed? I think the answer is, partially. The entire two-minute introduction is absolutely stunning, and lives up to the name. The combination of Anette’s vocals and the instrumental change is very good too. The chorus part, however, could be a bit better. It is pretty good, but for a song like this, having the best is almost a necessity. As with most very lengthy songs, this one has a slower part about mid-way through, and while it begins with a good sound, it doesn’t quite hold up. I’m not a fan of the higher pitched singing (the new soprano sound) that takes place during the slow segment, so even though it’s decent, it more or less bothers me. When it starts to pick up again, the orchestra kind of blares at you, and may sound a little annoying. However, it really picks up again, in a style that I’ve never heard from Nightwish before. We also hear Marco’s vocals for the very first time in this portion, and they’re very good. From this point on, the song is excellent, however there’s a point at which the song “ends,” but then starts up again and goes on for nearly another four minutes, which is very slow and nothing like rest of the song. Honestly, I think it should have just ended at the ten-minute mark, and the remainder could possibly have been its own song, just as a follow up to this one. Overall, it’s a pretty fantastic song, and a good introduction to the album, but I think it could have been better.
2. Bye Bye Beautiful – This is a rather wonderful song. It may not grasp the listener from the beginning, and Anette’s initial vocals may even turn you off a bit, but be a trooper and listen to the rest, because it only gets better. The chorus consists of some pretty powerful lyrics by Marco, and it sounds very good. If you were a fan of the song, Wish I Had An Angel, you should find this track to be appealing. There is also a whisper segment in this song, which lands itself directly in front of the final chorus, and it almost gives you chills because of how good it is.
3. Amaranth – The very beginning of this song is magical. The choir really adds to the enchantment of this song, and truly enhances its beauty. Anette’s vocals are also splendid. The chorus is no less than awesome, and I love it when it is increased in intensity for the song’s finale, which this song captures perfectly. All in all, this track is a great listen.
4. Cadence Of Her Last Breath – While this is still a good song, it isn’t one of the more amazing ones you’ll hear from Nightwish. It’s beginning is a tad bit slow, but then jumps right into something pretty awesome. Honestly, the vocals don’t do much to make this song sound good, but its composition is still good. This may be one of those songs that would actually be better to listen to the instrumental version of.
5. Master Passion Greed – Ah, where to begin with this song? Well, first of all, Marco fulfills the vocals for the entire song, so there’s no Anette. It’s pretty intense, and it definitely distinguishes itself from many of the band’s past songs. It almost seems to have been influenced a bit by American hard rock, but it has a Nightwish flair, so it’s actually a very entertaining listen. If you listen to this song very intently, you’ll probably find yourself attached to it at the point that you hear a sudden, “hello, how are you!” One great aspect of this song is that it only increases in how good it sounds as time goes by. If you don’t particularly enjoy the first couple of minutes, it’s only going to improve. Overall, this song is totally great.
6. Eva – The slowest song on the album, Eva is a pretty beautiful listen. Anette’s voice sounds quite lovely, but on a personal side note, I’m not a big fan of this song’s chorus. Slow tracks should contain a certain level of strength, not by brute force, but by its melody, which is something I think this song is lacking. Therefore, this song is probably my least favorite.
7. Sahara – There’s something about beginning a song with Tuomas’ keyboards that really makes for a great song. You can almost tell the song will be good based on what you hear in the first few seconds. When it jumps into the full blow of all the bands’ instruments, it really doesn’t sound similar to what one would normally classify as Nightwish. Is that bad? Well, it still sounds decent, but it isn’t amazing. After a short bit, the song takes a little turn into something slower and contains what can be classified as might. I personally think it takes away from the power that I expected from this song, and probably would have liked to see that shorten up a bit. Proceeding through this song, you’ll probably notice that it’s a powerful one. Some parts with the vocals may seem slightly annoying, but it’s nothing that really takes away the awesomeness of this song. Once again, the choir really makes this song amazing.
8. Whoever Brings The Night – This song has a great beat from the get-go. Anette’s vocals are a bit eccentric but not so much that it’ll make you dislike it. It’s really one of those classic songs that’s just good in and of itself. It isn’t super amazing to the point that it will compel you to bounce off of your heels, but it’s always worth a listen.
9. For The Heart I Once Had – This song starts out with a nice melody, a bit on the slower, more relaxing, and even cheerful side. Anette’s vocals are exceptionally good in this song too. The chorus is pretty explosive and powerful, which is very nice. Songs similar to this one can often be ruined by a “lame” chorus, but luckily it ended up making this track live up to its fullest potential.
10. The Islander – This song is something totally new from Nightwish (at least, it is to me). When you look at this song’s title, the type of song you would expect to hear is pretty much exactly what it is. The majority of the vocals are by Marco, and he does an excellent job at it. Anette provides some excellently delightful backing vocals, to really add to this song’s level of enchantment. You listen to it and really makes you feel like you’re in a happy magical place, most likely on the sandy shores of an island.
11. Last Of The Wilds – This is the perfect song to follow The Islander, as they suit one another extremely well. This is a purely instrumental song, and it retains a sort of folk-like sound (the new Celtic sound, also seen in the previous track) that when compared to the previous track is more lively and upbeat. It’s actually an exciting song to listen to, and it reeks with a certain essence of a festival, and even a battle. Once again, this is a sound I have never heard by Nightwish before, and I totally love it.
12. 7 Days To The Wolves – This is another one of the more epic tracks that you’ll find on the album. It begins with a good beat, followed by some very catchy keyboarding, and finally goes into full force with all of the band’s instruments. When the vocals are involved, it’s more of a slow, powerful song, but the intensity is really picked up during the instrumental segments. The chorus is probably going to be hit or miss with some people. It’s not something to go nuts over, but it seems to do its job in an original sounding way. A little bit before the half way mark is probably the beginning of one of the coolest parts of a song you’ll ever hear. Beginning at the three-minute mark, it’s at this point that I said to myself, “Nightwish is still here, still awesome, and it’s not going away.” Basically, it stays awesome from that point onward, and even picks up yet again at roughly the five and a half minute mark. From that point onward can only be described as amazing. Thus, this track is truly great.
13. Meadows Of Heaven – This is without a doubt, the perfect song to bring this album to a close, and that is in no way an exaggeration. It’s a pretty slow yet ultimately strong and powerful song, and it’s one of those songs that’ll make you feel like you’re being swept up to the sky. It has a wonderful, melodic, beginning, and Anette does a fantastic job singing. This song actually feels very inspirational, in a way. As it flows onward, you feel at ease and at the same time, invigorated in all of its majesty. This is yet another song which has utilized the choir very effectively. For the entire last two minutes of the song, the band introduces the unprecedented appearance of a Gospel choir, which really sounds good with the song. Overall, it’s an amazing listen, and a stunning conclusion to this album.
So, is this new Nightwish album worth it? Of course it is. In fact, any Nightwish fan would be doing himself a terrible disservice by missing out on it. The content of Dark Passion Play is certainly different from any music from this band in the past, but that definitely does not indicate how good it is. And although it is a slightly different style, it still clearly contains the sound that denotes Nightwish. Overall, this is an excellent album, and it marks a pivotal time for this band. Or, according to their very own description, this is the beginning of a new era.
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