Tomb Raider

I remember when I was given my very first PlayStation. I got Rayman 2 and Disruptor with it. I loved both games and thought I was so cool. Then my mates told me all about this busty kick-ass character called Lara Something and I thought hard about how to ask my parents for a game that had a woman with boobs in it... I was a kid. These things spring to mind as issues!

Almost two decades later and it's my girlfriend who's buying me the Tomb Raider game! Boobs and all! Only, hang on... roll back a little. Because the boobs have been made largely irrelevant! As have any Tomb Raider titles in the last decade.

Tomb Raider is a total reboot of the franchise, charting the very first steps of a naive and inexperienced Lara Croft, Archaeology Graduate, into the world of adventuring. When the crew of the Endurance are shipwrecked on a mysterious and storm-laden island somewhere off the coast of Japan a wet-behind-the-ears (and all over) Lara must seek out, rejoin and save her research associates before they fall victim to the mysterious Solarii cult led by the maniacal Father Mathias.

Gone are the days of shimmying from unusually straight rock edge to unusually straight rock edge (though there is some rock shimmying), and here are the days of brutal, desperate survival at all costs. Tomb Raider isn't about raiding tombs (though there is some tomb raiding); it's about Lara's unforgiving struggle to not die on this lonely, rocky, dangerous rock. And more than any other game I have played in the last few years it delivers thrills by the barrel-load. The movie-like (yet player-controlled) action sequences are unrivaled by any game I have played in terms of sheer terror and nerve.

There is some pretty violent combat (though always necessary and regrettable) but you could almost make it the whole way through this game without killing. But where's the fun in that, right? Well, judging by Lara's reaction to her first kill, it'd be her preferred method! This game has euphemistic body parts by the bucket-load; heart, brains, muscle, balls and, more than all of those, legs! This is the probable new first chapter to an all new Tomb Raider franchise that could very really eclipse the polygonal package that has come before it.

I've yet to finish the main story mode so I shall keep my thoughts about just how complete a first chapter this feels until I've done so. But judging on the spine-tingling journey I've been on so far, this game could just become my favourite ever. Everyone loves Lara but, until you play Tomb Raider, nobody loves her enough. This isn't the wise-cracking, smart-dressing, ass-kicking Lara of old; Angelina Jolie couldn't play this new Lara. This Lara is a real, living, breathing character with a sense of conscious and no experience when it comes to doing just what she has to do: kill or be killed.

If you're a fan of the old, jumpy, crawly, shooty Tomb Raider then you should either avoid this game or embrace it as a new beast. This is not platform gaming-by-numbers as many of the TR sequels were. This is as close to dangerous, bloody, real-life terror as any game has ever got. This game is breathtaking. Buy it!

Hide

Um... I thought this was going to be a ghost story! And it sort of was; well, a ghast story. But there was so, so much more going on! All over the place! Um...

 So, the Doctor and Clara turn up in the 1970s at a house where a war-haunted scientist/ghost hunter and a cute empath are about to attempt to contact the spirit of the Witch of the Well, a seemingly ever-present (and ever-afraid) lost soul who has called out for help. There's a bit of spooky wandering about and bumping noises, some horror-staple creepiness and some lovely jumpy bits. And then the episode took a side-step into a territory nobody really expected it to go.

You see, the ghast is actually the echo of a time traveler from the future who has crash landed in a collapsing pocket universe that is running at a very different speed - one second in that universe lasts about 100,000 years in ours. This has resulted in the image of a frightened woman imprinting itself across history in the same area, inflicting the same second of terror and distress on unsuspecting house-guests for generations. And she's being chased by a hideous creature that seems to want passage to our realm!

It sounds bonkers and it was, but it was very, very good! 'Hide' managed to cram an effective ghost story, a quiet romance, some arc-plot, some great sci-fi action and a big, silly ending into a 45 minute period that should have felt too busy but didn't. Lost Time Traveler Hilla turned out to be the great-great-granddaughter of the awkward couple-to-be guest stars, Dougray Scott (wonderfully underplaying a man who's seen far too much in his time) and Jessica Raine (companion material, if you ask me!) And despite looking a bit silly up-close, that Crooked Man was as freaky as they come! 

The story of the week was wonderful - a close contender for the best we've had all series. But it was one scene in particular that stood out as something special in my eyes; There's something very unnerving about seeing the TARDIS being bitchy and mean to the companion. She doesn't like Clara one bit, does she? I can't wait to find out why! There is nothing about this episode that didn't grab my imagination and drag it through the streets, hitting it with a stick. There wasn't a second of the last two acts of this episode that I expected. This was billed as a ghost story and wasn't. A surprise for us all, I think.

If Bells was a modern tech thriller, Ring was a space opera and Cold War was a classic homage then Hide was... like nothing we've really seen before. Genuinely original, genuinely odd and very, very good fun. We're half way through 7b and I'm loving it all!

Next week we Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS - which is kind of a big deal!

Olympus Has Fallen

Today I was lucky enough to attend a preview screening of Gerard Butler's new action epic (for which read "big, silly, shooty, blowy-upy film") 'Olympus Has Fallen'. And I bloody enjoyed it!

Basically, Korean terrorists muscle their way onto US soil, into US airspace and into the US's whitest house - The White House - and take President Harvey Dent and his staff hostage. Disgraced Jack Bauer-alike Mike Banning (Butler) is forced back into action as the only one-man kick-ass machine in the area at the time (all the others are horribly killed by massive guns during the first fifteen minutes of the movie). Of course, the stakes are high as the Korean madman running the show is trying to get his hands on the codes for a secret Nuke-stopping safe-guard system that will leave the USA largely undefended.

This is a brave (if overly bold) movie that doesn't pull its punches for a second (except that very last second when the Americans obviously have to win); the terrorists have no qualms whatsoever about shooting important and likable characters in the face without warning just to get the attention of Acting President Morgan Freeman (a warmonger plunged into a situation that leaves him totally out of his depth) and us, the audience. The death count is very, very high throughout and there is enough blood and guts to push this good looking (if CGI heavy) gem into the fun-but-gritty realms of 'Die Hard With A Vengeance' rather than the safer territory of 'Die Hard 5: The Unwarranted And Unbelievable Money-Spinner'.

I won't go into plot intricacies (there aren't many) but even if I did it wouldn't spoil the story as you've already seen it a million times; it's all unexpected combat skills, sharp one-liners and eleventh-hour rescues. The film also has some very funny, very sweet dialogue too, however, which make you really care about the characters in ways that most action blockbusters never quite manage. There are great performances throughout, too. Aaron Eckhart just passes as Presidential but remains human throughout - a wonderful performance. The same must be said about Butler, who somehow manages to out-do both Bauer and McClane in terms of ballsy brute force and no-nonsense villain-killing.

If you're looking for a balls-out action gunfest then this is a great choice. Switch of your cynical brain, sit back and enjoy a cartoon-patriotic love letter to America, made by Americans for Americans; this is the '24' movie they never got around to making. I loved it. It was a big, loud, flashy, exciting One Man Army staple. A wonderful addition to the Unbelievably OTT Action Epic Hall Of Fame. A grisly, sweary and - most of all - FUN two hours. Take your Dad along with you and he will love you forever!

'Olympus Has Fallen' comes out on general release this weekend. Go and see it. You probably won't regret it. And even if you do, at least you're one of the very few survivors!