Mini-Reviews - Volume 1: The Hunger Games, The Dark Knight Rises and More

Because Two and a Half Penguins is such a new site, we've got a lot of catching up to do. Yesterday, I posted my review of Doctor Who's series 7 finale, The Angels Take Manhattan, and today I'm launching what will be a recurring feature here: Mini-Reviews.

The name says it all; I'm going to be reviewing some of the most noteworthy (for good or bad) films and TV episodes of the past year or so, in a few salient paragraphs. Today we start with Liongate's The Hunger Games, Pixar's first fairytale, Christopher Nolan's Batman finale and the stellar series 2 closer of Sherlock. Check out the four mini-reviews after the jump break.

Doctor Who: The Angels Take Manhattan Review

*The following review contains spoilers - do not read unless you've seen the episode or don't care about having it ruined for you*

So this is how it ends. Say what you like about the recent series of Doctor Who, but the chemistry between Matt Smith's Doctor and Karen Gillan's Amy Pond has always been phenomenal. The Rose Tyler to Smith's Doctor, Amy Pond has kept the Doctor grounded. Though she often borders on the annoying, the addition of her über loveable boyfriend/husband, Rory (Arthur Darvill) to the team made the leading trio an entertaining force to be reckoned with. But nothing lasts.

Bad Piggies Review!

From the creators of Angry Birds, Rovio has kicked off a new franchise in the Angry Birds universe with Bad Piggies. It switches you over to the side of the pigs, with a very different style of gameplay compared to Angry Birds


Rather than asking you to kill pigs, you have to transport them safely to a certain location. You do this by creating a pig-housing contraption out of boxes, balloons, wheels, engines, fans and other such bits and bobs. The game much like Angry Birds is all about the physics, you must predict how your various creations will work for getting the piggies to safety.

 

The game will start simple with easy levels and not many gadgets to pick from, eventually you will gain a variety of gadgets, at this point the game will begin to really challenge the player to find out how to do the level.

 

Bad Piggies feels much less casual than Angry Birds did, so maybe it won't be a game you will pick up and play on a bus ride home, but it remains addictive. The game can be frustrating though at times due to some real tricky levels, don't let this put you off though so much fun can be had with this game!

 

 

 

The game features 60 levels, starting quite simple, all the way to levels which will make you use your brain. The game also features sandbox to let you go wild with creations also adding some fun once you finish every level. The game has plenty of potential to expand with more levels in the future, so expect some interesting features later on

 

8/10

+Creative

+Fun

+Requires thinking

-Can prove to be frustrating sometimes

 





The Walking Dead Game: Episode 3 Review!

 

The Walking Dead has yet again added another medal to the list, episode 3 shows just why The Walking Dead is the fastest rising franchise in the past couple of years.

The first two episodes of The Walking Dead: The Game slowly introduced players to a twisted world filled with zombies and crazies that forced us to make tough decisions based on how we thought our version of Lee would take these various scenarios. These different decisions that we have had to made in Episodes 1 and 2 have been able to give us a general outline of a “good and bad” way to do things. Episode 3 takes all of those defined lines and blurs them completely.

The more I play The Walking Dead: The Game, the more I feel my humanity slip away. I now feel like I make my choices on survival, they still are painful for me to make but I justify it by saying "I do this for Clementine".

As Lee, we see our group through some seriously screwed up and emotional moments, as well as a whole bunch of conversations and light gameplay problem solving. We see the most emotional scenes yet, my eyes teared up a few times but I remained strong!

We get introduced to more characters who add some interesting story and bring in some freshness to the game. It’s a harrowing fact but one that you won’t escape in a zombie-survival situation, the longer you survive often times will lead to fewer things to live for.

The game still suffers from the minor frame drops again, this time it was not as bad as usual though. This factor though is not a huge problem, if you have not purchased this game series yet now is the best time. If you love a strong story then this is for you, this game puts heavy rain to shame in terms of story.

9.5/10
+ Great emotional scenes
+Entertaining story
+Tough choices
-Frame rate drops

Double Dragon: Neon Review!

Way Forward brings a HD remake of a popular side-scrolling beat em up, in Double Dragon: Neon. Taking the original story and infusing new levels and features. This game made me remember the fun I had on the classic Double Dragon games many long years ago. From the start, there is no doubt that Way Forward has put in some serious care in reflecting the source material in this remake.

For those new to the Double Dragon universe, the story revolve in rescuing Marian, the love interest of both playable characters, from a gang that has kidnapped her. This game was made to play with a buddy with countless fun little combo moves you can make with each other, it really brings back old school beat-em up action; In a modern gaming world filled with countless shooters it really is a nice chance to sit back and relax.

The sound is what made this game for me, every single unlockable move has its own song and some did make me smile; The music also has a very 80's feel which fits into the background perfectly in a very 80's feeling world.

The worry is that the game is really hard to play by yourself, unless you have a friend you really will not enjoy this game as much as you could; What make it harder is if you die you must restart the level, which is really frustrating to do. Unless you are hardcore for Double Dragon then you may want to avoid until you find someone to play with.

6.5/10
+ Beautiful update graphically
+ Great Sound
- Forced to have a friend

Borderlands 2 Review!

I remember the fun I had in the first Borderlands, constant fun with friends shouting at each other over who gets weapons and celebrating when we defeated a boss and a spray of loot went in our faces. Yet again Borderlands 2 brings them moments back in an even bigger way!

The huge feature which I love in this game are guns, some people unfamiliar with Borderlands may think I'm a moron right now considering the game is a shooter; What you may not know is Borderlands has million of guns, you will never find a player with the same gun as you, the joy from finding a overpowered gun such as a submachine gun with fire damage, 100 bullets in a magazine,a fire rate which will fire half a magazine in a blink of an eye and a satisfying sound when I shoot this baby. It is a great feeling to show off your new gun to your friends, if they don't agree you can duel them to find out who has the better guns.

The highlight is the multiplayer. Two people can play on the same split screen, but four (online) players will have the most fun, with four classes to pick from you can mix and match playstyles to create a badass team together with each class adding something to the table.

Each class feels much more like the Borderlands 1 characters but on steroids bringing wacky abilities with them;  There's Salvador, the Gunzerker, a raging slab of muscle whose special powers is dual-wielding weapons. There's Maya, the Siren, who is able to project a forcefield around enemies and haul them out of cover. There's Axton, the Commando, who can deploy a machinegun turret with a barrel that can swivel in a 360 degree arch. Finally, there's Zero, The Assassin, whose powers involve turning invisible in order to slide up close to enemies and then dismembering them with a katana.

The skill tree you can tell has been really worked on for this game, at low level they provide small stat changes but higher up they can completely change how a character ability works such as Maya being able to revive people.

The world of Pandora is much more varied now compared to Borderlands 1 with new areas such as snow covered landscapes far as the eye can see, the interesting part is areas from the first are still in the game but have changed due to the storyline; Hyperion have taken over Pandora and are now trying to take complete control over everybody on the planet.

Handsome Jack is the main villian which players will soon find is extremely funny while also being a total jerk, this is by far my favourite villian this year in a videogame as I found myself chuckling now and again to his rather childish yet weirdly funny jokes.

the player finds themselves joining up with a rebel movement – led by the four characters from the original game, they want to stop Handsome Jack from unleashing a true evil on Pandora. The plot is used mainly to hold together a constant insane fight with insane weapons while adding a dash of humour to the mix, it is a great combination.

Alongside their skills, the player also has a list of Badass Challenges to complete – these can be from simple things such as pistol kills all the way to killing a real badass boss. These challenges give badass points for the player, these can upgrade stats which actually go across all your characters.

It's also worth noting that it's best to play this game only with players who you trust to work as a team, hogging loot can be a real pain and has caused arguments in the game. The game lacks a loot system which is needed as greedy players will steal everything; a simple loot system such as the system seen in World of Warcraft should of been implemented.

This aside the loot really is awesome, unlike the first game you can really tell a gun manufacturer  apart, such as the Bandit manufacturer which have huge magazines or the Jakobs which have huge power but are single shot guns. This is a really nice feel as you can tell you will sucked into the game with all its vast loot.

Now to the last feature being the awesome graphic style, the world makes you feel like you stumbled into a comic book, it is beautiful and also helps give the humour of the game a nice warm place in players hearts. It gives this shooter character unlike the countless bland looking shooters we are used to today.

Altogether to put it bluntly, Pandora feels even bigger and more badass than it did in the first Borderlands. If you have not played the first game then this is your chance to try something spectacular! Simply put this game is awesome and well worth a buy

9.5/10

+ Bigger and more badass

+ Awesome new variety of guns to find

+ Better classes

+ Beautiful scenery

- Lack of group loot system



Welcome!

Welcome to Two and a Half Penguins! On this blog we will be posting reviews for TV, movies, books, comics and games! Let us introduce ourselves!

Heather is a book maniac and a real lover of love films! William loves any animation film you chuck at him, he also runs the popular A113Animation blog, so go check that out! I'm Jonathan I love videogames and I also love a good action film! I'm also a Walking Dead maniac and own my own (not so popular) The Walking Dead blog!

Please follow and spread the word to help the blog start, thanks!

- Jonathan