Discordant notes at Gear4Music or: How I learned to stop worrying and embrace getting fired.

Late last year I had the pleasure of working in the York warehouse of Gear4music, which in the interests of full disclosure I was terminated from after a paltry four days. It was, suffice as to say, an unsuccessful foray into the music business and likely to be my last. However, rather than composing a melody to make Bach weep or rhyme in the vein of Biggie or Tupac, my duties were significantly more pedestrian. I was a cleaner, a job which I have fallen back on over the years in times of financial difficulty and will likely do so again in the future. I state the reality of my firing up front to make one thing clear, that technically I deserved it and put up no fight to the contrary. If anything, I was relieved beyond measure to be freed from a purgatory that responsibility required me to maintain.

Firstly, let us start at the end. It involved my boots jauntily placed on the sink in a position of faux relaxation and the untimely entrance of a higher up. We shall call him Mr Green. By this point in my career I had interacted once with Mr. Green, an interaction which culminated in him snapping at me after I stated an innocuous fact regarding my start time. He did this in full view of another managerial type, who I can only assume was either desensitised or of similar mind on how one treats those so far below them. By the time of Mr. Green’s arrival, I and a colleague had been in the building around twenty minutes, I’d organised a cleaning cart and all round dragged my feet a little as the weariness of a 14.20 to 23.00 shift took shape in my mind. Mr. Green’s unfortunate entrance, therefore, did not paint me in a good light and I attempted a boyish smile which probably came off smugger than intended. The situation was not at this point anything to be concerned about. It could still have been dealt with by a laugh and a, “Get to work you two.”

Instead, Mr. Green took a slightly different tact by aggressively demanding why we were still sat down? Now, it is important at this juncture to highlight the fact that we had no direct superior, the position of Facilities Manager having been vacant since before the pandemic. Instead, from what I understood, a tug of war had developed between various middle managers to assert their authority. This had been broken by the deployment of Mr. Blue, a head office fellow who knew little to nothing about the realities of cleaning but now delineated a clearer command structure. I stated that I was waiting for my colleague to put on his boots before heading out, which earned what would have been a not unfair reproach had it not been for the continued aggressive tone. It was at this point that, for a moment, I forgot where I was. You see, I am typically a very patient person and can stand a fair bit of disrespect and rudeness, but whether it was the obvious contempt in Mr. Green’s voice or just not my day, that particular character trait alluded me for a microsecond. I got to my feet in a fit of pique and as quickly as that flash of anger had seized me, it receded into irritation resulting in a snapped half salute and a, “Yes sir.” It was a stupid thing to do and from then on, I knew I was likely finished. Mr. Green complained to Mr. Blue and I was dismissed, allegedly postponing a very important meeting in the process due to the level of my insubordination.

You might be reading this and thinking I got what I deserved, and you might be right. However, outside of this episode it is not inaccurate to say that those four days rank as the worst of my working career. Firstly, the atmosphere of the entire warehouse was one of oppressive misery. Two other cleaners were let go in my short tenure, one of which stemmed from a mismanaged rota and on the warehouse floor itself retention was a mythical word which cursed only the unluckiest of lifers. While going about my business I would witness only sporadic conversation and break times in the kitchen bordered on the eerie, with utter silence the norm punctuated by stilted laughter. It is also true that not once did I come across someone with a positive word to say about the company outside of the management, with depression or outright hatred being the most commonly expressed sentiments. Nor did I receive or see any praise doled out, even the most perfunctory, “Well done,” proving tabooer than your average racial slur. Combined with the heat, which topped 28.5° in the kitchen and well over 32° in the upper warehouse during the hot summer days, the analogies to hell seem borderline cartoonish.

My interview has been rendered macabrely surreal, with talk of comradery and co-workers’ nights out being at odds with the dour reality that either my interviewer purposefully obfuscated, or simply knew nothing of in the first place. Meanwhile the rank and file struck me as hard-working people who gritted their teeth and bore the ignominy of their employment better than I did. This was genuinely saddening given the invasive security prevalent across the site, with bag checks, metal scanners and in excess of one hundred and twenty cameras tracking your every movement, even as you sat in the breakroom. Unsurprisingly, one of the first things pointed out to me on arrival were the few dead spots where one could sit without constant scrutiny. All of this was the product of alleged and unsubstantiated “thefts”, which stood in stark contrast to the literal thousands of pounds worth of broken and discarded merchandise tossed into the landfill.

None of this detracts from Gear4music being a very successful company, of course. As one of its websites proudly announces, it ‘is the largest retailer of musical instruments and music equipment in the UK.’ It has also seen a 100% growth in revenue from 2013, netting £120 million in 2020 alone. However, to be a successful company does not necessarily mean to be a pleasant one. Instead, it is easier to buy a veneer of morality as the company seems to through its charitable contributions. To conclude, I would say I should have known better but also much more importantly, so should Gear4Music. Their treatment of their workers is more than negligent and instead veers towards the despicable, with their focus on fast turn around and the prompt delivery we all enjoy, rendering them callous to the unhappiness they cause. In case you are still thinking this is just a bitter former employee venting his spleen, I would like to point you to the reaction of Mr. Blue when I informed him of Mr. Green’s behaviour. He told me that being in a position of authority can result in some managers treating others badly and left it at that. I was stunned by the admission and then even more so by the fact that he did not express a modicum of sympathy, instead seeing within his explanation all the justification for what had happened. After I had left, I wondered whether they had both started out that way and helped to build the company in their image, or slowly succumbed over time? In any case, the answer won’t help the people still working for Gear4Music and I’m happy to have escaped with only the loss of a few days and not whatever counts for my soul.

Hellboy (2019) - Insert Obligatory "Purgatory" Subtitle Here

Going into a film with an open mind is sometimes difficult. With the media hype machine being what it is and the slew of viewer scores and opinions one can find online, being purely objective is nigh on impossible. What you can do though, is make a conscious effort to filter it all out and give whatever it is you’re watching a super large benefit of the doubt. Which is exactly what I did with the rebooted Hellboy when I rented it the other night. I willed myself into a state of ready acceptance, blocking out the critic reviews I’d already seen and the trailer that had underwhelmed, to achieve a near zen like peace.

Then, I sat back and discovered that it is possible to feel ripped off at only £1.99. It must be said that I am a fan of Ron Perlman’s Hellboy and that the meditation I underwent before hitting play was, in no small part, to give David Harbour a fair shake. This however, proved unnecessary, not because he was miscast, his voice and general temperament actually supporting his inclusion, but because with direction and writing this woeful they could have brought in the actual Devil and it would have been all for nought.

Neil Marshal is best known for his low budget horror film Dog Soldiers, bouldering with monsters, The Descent and, if you’re me, post-apocalyptic cheese fest, Doomsday. He’s never really broken out into mainstream Hollywood and has made his name more recently directing various episodes of shows such as Westworld and Game of Thrones. On the face of it, with a relatively small budget of 50 million dollars and what is a monster property to boot, he seems like a good choice to blend the comic book world with that of cult success. What we get instead is a smattering of passable action sequences, some genuinely interesting creatures and cinematography and a storyline so botched and rushed it will give you whiplash.

Many of these narrative problems stem from Summit Entertainment’s deranged notion of creating their own cinematic universe, with a further five films originally planned to spin off from the many poorly fleshed out sub plots Hellboy introduces over its two-hour run-time. Corporate greed once again trumping the business of making a good, standalone movie. *Cough*, Joker. The fact that Marvel has been the only success in this area never deterring the financial adventurism of other and arguably lesser mortals. The film, therefore, has the unfortunate feeling of being simultaneously overlong while also underdeveloped.

The cast, meanwhile, is a decidedly mixed bag. As already mentioned, David Harbour was a fine choice to take on the role of hell’s greatest hero, but some others were distinctly lacking. Most notably Daniel Dae Kim as Major Ben Daimio and Sasha Lane as Alice Monaghan. I can’t tell you whether their characters are true to the source material, rather what I can tell you is that both American actors put on the worst English accents I have ever heard. It really does border on parody more than once and puts the final nail in any hope of a successful group dynamic. Thankfully, Mila Jovovich is in her element as Nimue, the wicked Blood Queen but due to deficiencies in the writing is criminally underused and can only provide light relief. Similarly, Ian McShane delivers a spirited, if oddly characterised performance as Hellboy’s adopted father. Where John Hurt of the original was nurturing and patient, McShane is biting and sarcastic, creating an adversarial relationship which fails to engage or be borne out by the finale.

Albeit, a very pretty lady.

The plot itself is confused by its corporate origins and attempt to tell a personal story. In both prior movies, Hellboy was depicted as a tortured hero, desperate for acceptance in a world which reviled him. In The Golden Army this gave Prince Nuada’s arguments weight as the film played upon Hellboy’s isolation and bitterness, forcing him to make a difficult choice. Hellboy (2019) however, simply ramps up the character’s angry outbursts and tempts him with a pretty lady. It’s not an improvement and as always with reboots, if it doesn’t go beyond the original work it’s not worth making. The only new addition of note being the buckets of blood and violence that litter the film's run time for no actual reward, other than a quick glance at the clock. As for the script, I knew all was lost when Hellboy uttered the phrase, “Shit of God,” while battling a giant. It was genuinely cringe inducing. Other pearls sprinkled throughout the film include, but are not limited to:


“Could you Google translate that for me?” in response to some magic gobbledegook.

“We make sure she doesn’t come back for the sequel,” when discussing what to do about the bad guy.

“Why does this book have so many words in it?” Need I say more?

All in all, not the best and surprisingly, not the product of a bloated team of staff writers. One mind was this bad all by itself.

Between the breakneck pace of the story, the shoddy writing and lazy direction, there is very little to recommend the new Hellboy. It doesn’t surpass it predecessors, other than perhaps in the CGI department and falls flat more often than not. It’s sense of humour is juvenile, its plot predictable and teaser ending, laughably optimistic. If there was any love in the film’s production, it was clearly buried under poor financial decisions and worst of all, has likely destroyed any hopes of seeing the former cast ever reprise their roles. A sin for which there can be no forgiveness.

Star Trek Beyond Expectations

Being a Star Trek fan has always been a double edged bat’leth.  On the one hand it has enjoyed some of the finest science fiction writing to date with both The Wrath of Kahn and First Contact topping the majority of the competition.  On the other however, is The Motion Picture.  Enough said.  But then came the event.  The trauma.  The reboot.  Which is in no way a commentary on the movie’s quality, but the fear engendered by the very notion of a new Kirk, a new Spock and a new Enterprise.  For while undoubtedly mainstream, Star Trek has always been off centre in terms of its popularity; the very term “Trekkie” becoming part of everyday lexicon to denote a rather nerdy individual.  A king among all geeky men.  

Brought to you by Apple IN SPACE!

The new Trek was specifically designed to do away with all that.  It was meant to be sleek, cool and oozing sex appeal.  Even Spock became the focus of some serious man crushes.  It also did away with the techno-babble that so flummoxed and confused the regular going public.  Something Star Trek had always been famous for; the inversions of field polarities and harmonic resonances being part of every true Trekkie's vocabulary.  Instead, we got “lightning storms in space”, thanks J.J.  As you may be able to tell, I was not over enamoured with this dumbing down but I enjoyed the first two movies well enough.  They were fun if uninspired and wiled away a few hours in a thinned out universe I still loved.  Originality however, was sorely lacking.

             

 Much as with the new Star Wars a fear of doing too much outside the established norm bred complacency and not a little laziness.  The first was centred entirely on resetting the continuity and making it clear Trek was now cool.  The second clung so tightly to The Wrath of Kahn’s popularity that it left little in the way of effort and committed multiple plot convenience sins.  Super blood, interplanetary beaming technology and why, oh why the Klingons let the slaughter of dozens of soldiers go without even a shrug, to name a few?  But, as I said, they’re fun movies nit picking aside.  With Beyond therefore, I was expecting more of the same.  So colour me speechless when all did not go according to presumption.

                        

Lines around the eyes.

From the very beginning there is a feeling that this is a Star Trek film.  Perhaps due to the Enterprise being three years into their five-year mission, or simply that the cast has grown into their roles.  Iconic and daunting as they surely are.  Some are still more fleshed out than others, Chekhov and Uhura still lagging behind in the developmental races, but from Chris Pine we get a better rounded character.  A character who identifies as James Tiberius Kirk.  The rigours of command have finally started to take a toll, making both he and Spock question their places with Starfleet.  It’s a definite nod to the original films, with Kirk’s possible admiralship being dangled as a diverging path.  The road taken in another life and perhaps, even after all that has happened, again here.  It adds definition to a captain who’s seen two movies go by serving the Federation all on a dare, with nary a thought for whether he really belongs.

                                     

Krall, there'll be no cancelling the apocalypse.

The storyline itself feels like it could have been lifted straight from an episode.  Without revealing the whole shebang: The Enterprise answers a distress call, an enemy presents themselves and cue the action.  My main worry was that by not relying on previous material we might have seen a regression to the two dimensional bad guy, the Nero of first movie fame.  For while Into Darkness may have lacked originality, Benedict Cumberbatch nailed the part of Kahn with aplomb and carried the plot through some of its faultier aspects by performance alone.  Eric Banner did not.  As it would seem however, all that was needed was another Brit and some alien prosthetics to transform Idris Elba into Krall, our baddy in residence.  He growls, he snarls and most of all he has a severe and unrelenting hatred of the Federation.  The reasons for which make for an interesting reveal, although they could have gone into more detail.  It’s a forgivable lapse but a missed opportunity to create a villain with a little more depth. 

                                                

Relatable and awesome.

We also see the introduction of Jaylah, ably played by Sofia Boutella of Kingsman fame.  Remember those blades?  The disabled had never been so deadly.  A refreshingly able but flawed character, both Justin Lin and the screenwriters involved deserve a pat on the back.  Vulnerable but competent, brave but unsure, she makes for a fine addition to the crew and it’ll be fun to see whether she returns in future installments.  Hopefully, alongside an absent Carol Marcus who for some reason they were unable to work into Beyond.  One suspects the controversy the internet created over *that* scene in Into Darkness may have played a part, but one never knows.  In any case she contributed mightily to my enjoyment of the film and aided it in pipping Star Wars: The Force Awakens to the post for my favourite science fiction film of the recent past.  Originality is a boon, not a sin and it’s a lesson Star Trek seems to have learned from its previous outings. 

                                                         

Live long and... well you know the rest.

Not to say that we don’t have plenty of nostalgia and tie ins to the wider Star Trek universe.  The passing of Leonard Nimoy is given appropriate attention, a saddened Spock sorting through his aged self’s possessions to find a photograph of the original crew.  There’s also plenty of nods to Enterprise, the black sheep of the Star Trek continuity that demonstrates a respect not only for the source material but just as importantly, the fans as well.  Regardless of one’s position on Captain Archer he and his ship are part of the canon and one of the few parts of the history not retconned by time travel hijinks.  Finally, I mentioned its absence earlier, but we see the return of techno gobbledegook.  Not a lot and certainly not enough to confuse or alienate anyone, but enough to make the crew appear slightly better educated than a bunch of frat boys joyriding in Starfleet’s most advanced warship.  So, on a whole how best to sum up Star Trek Beyond?  It’s solid, dependable and entertaining.  You’ll leave the cinema after two hours feeling content, not necessarily blown away but knowing what you just watched was definitely good.  I am one of those people who is notoriously difficult to please and like many analyse a film even as I’m watching it for the first time.  Inconsistencies, plot holes and laziness are genuinely irritating and yet my radar barely pinged in this instance. Now there’s only one thing left to say.  Justin Lin, we forgive you for Tokyo Drift, we forgive you.

Independence Day: Resurgence - Quietly Into the Night

I am not a wise man.  I like a lot of bad things.  More specifically I’ve enjoyed many a bad movie.  I’ve sat and thought to myself, “Dear god this is garbage,” and yet watched through to the credits being sufficiently amused by a film’s deficiencies to compensate for the overall failure of the attempt.  I did it with Wing Commander, I did it with Battleship and I did it with Batman and Robin.  But this doesn’t preclude the simple fact that they are bad movies.  Their directors creating freaks that we point and laugh at as opposed to visions of narrative and thespian beauty.  

We forgive you for After Earth, come back!

So, the question becomes when faced with such an abomination, was I entertained even if for the wrong reasons?  Was I amused or was I robbed?  Independence Day: Resurgence faced just such a quandary.  Following on from Roland Emmerich’s now two-decade old tour-de-force it was a questionable enterprise right out of the gate.  Minus Will Smith and having to capture the attention of a whole new generation of movie goers it had an uphill battle against the likes of modern blockbusters that dominate the box office.  A world of tie ins, sequels and what has become in no small part an exercise in brand recognition.  As such, I went into Resurgence with my fingers crossed that we were going to see alien invasions kicking it old school with some modern tropes, but still holding a core forged from the original.  But that’s not what happened. That’s not what happened at all.

         

Here on the Internet we’re prone to the extreme opinions and reviews of the masses.  Sometimes the vitriol is justified and often it’s not, but usually the truth falls somewhere in the middle.  So when I say that Independence Day: Resurgence is bad, I want you to understand something.  It's bad in a way that is not funny.  If anything it's borderline tragic with hints of pity and despair.  It's the Gulf of Tonkin incident without the amusing deception and decade long war.  In summary dear reader, it's a bad kind of bad.  So, what went wrong?

                 

Pod people.

First of all, the flesh puppets...  I mean actors.  Alien invasion movies are straight forward affairs with plenty of A to B writing.  That’s no bad thing, for a tight story with the right script can be great, much like the original Independence Day.  It allows for maximum  explosions and just the right amount of character development.  As we don’t want characters we don’t give a damn about but equally we don’t want to be flipping through their family albums while all the cool stuff happens off camera.  Resurgence however, falls into the former category; so much so that neither I nor my friend could remember any of the new characters’ names come the credits.  Not a one.  Nada.  Liam Hemsworth remained Liam Hemsworth; not Will Smith (no matter how desperately they wished otherwise) remained not Will Smith and Bill Pullman, somehow, was not President Whitmore.  In point of fact the only new character that achieved their purpose was the Chinese pilot played by Angelababy (stage name), who doubtless helped draw cinemagoers in the ever more lucrative Asian markets.  There’s even a line to the effect of, “China has been the most important partner in developing our super anti-alien defences,” thrown in near the beginning.  It’s so transparent that unless English is your second language, you’ll flinch when you see it. 

                                  

Bigger ship, bigger fun.

As for the narrative itself it’s uninspired but not fatal alone.  The aliens come back, other aliens show up and declare themselves the enemy of the original aliens and war ensues.  Then things fall down.  For we are shown/told all of this in forced exposition that feels so disconnected from the first movie it’s hard to see how one leads to two.  The invaders are now lead by “Harvester Queens” and only by killing this Alien knockoff can they be thwarted, although it has never been done before!  Apart from last time when they nuked the sons of bitches.  But that’s semantics.  After this we’re subjected to a very familiar set of events.  The humans are overwhelmed, the alien ship lands, the humans launch a daring but ultimately doomed assault on the now 3000 kilometres sized mothership before defeating them at Area 51 just in the nick of time.  It was almost like paying one’s entry fee to see a favourite film performed by second-rate actors.  That was nice; I was too young to see the original at the cinema. 

                                        

The family underachiever.

The stinking, putrid glue that holds it all together is the script.  For without one it’s just a bunch of people gesturing dramatically and dying without context.  In hindsight, this may have been an improvement, but you live and learn.  Remember those modern tropes that we mentioned earlier?  Well they’re present, albeit in their worst possible forms.  I’m talking about the quips.  The unending, unfunny and unrelenting quips that are so desperately ill-judged at times it makes you wonder at Emmerich’s sanity.  The great thing about the original was that while it was funny (“Welcome to Earth!”) it was also plausible.  That the characters were saying one-liners and mouthing off as a coping mechanism for the fact the entire world was ending around them.  It’s what people do.  Admittedly sometimes a one-liner is just a one-liner, but they never felt misplaced.  In Resurgence however, I didn’t laugh once.  No one in the audience did either.  It was offensive, it was juvenile and best summed up by Liam Hemsworth whipping his dick out to take a piss as to distract a bunch of aliens.  He was talking at the time which made it even worse.

                                                 

I could go on for another five pages documenting this movies sins but by the time I’d finish it would be an inquiry ten years in the making.  An entire dissertation could be squandered on the terrible effects alone before running a financial breakdown on what exactly they spent that 165 million dollars on.  Other than the nine writers who “contributed” to the films creation of course, which goes some way towards explaining the horrendously fractured narrative.  But I digress.  For there is only one message you should take away from this review and that is stay away.  Hide.  Take shelter.  Independence Day: Resurgence is an atrocity not only for its violation of a classic, but because it took everything wrong with the current mega-movie industry and distilled it into something more unwatchable than Transformers: Age of Extinction.  Sadly, there’s no such thing as a cinematic crime against humanity, so if you need me that’s where I’ll be.  At The Hague, protesting for one.

Retro Rehash - Die Clanner! MechCommander Review

Like most people living here in the West I am party to the glitz and glamour of the First World.  Champagne, caviar, murdering the occasional prostitute and passing off the storage locker in which I keep their remains as a business expense.  Yet, the greatest example of my bourgeois pride is undoubtedly my Steam account, with its 248 games and backlog so mountainous it contends with Snowden for Britain’s highest peak.  So, of course, I’m here to talk about MechCommander, a now freeware RTS that you can download for nothing off the web.  To those reading in less developed nations you have just pinpointed the weakness in our soft, consumerist underbelly; but before the proles of the world rise up and cast our wasteful asses into the sea let’s wax lyrical about giant robots doing battle across the stars.

         

For those of you born after the great PC revolution that sowed the seeds of all video game greatness (this may be revisionist history), there used to be this little table top game called Battle Tech.  Set in a universe of warring houses, political intrigues and galactic conquest it demanded the use of miniatures, dice and hours of commitment.  Luckily, the good fellows over at FASA Studios (may they rest in peace) recognised that even humble folks like myself needed to exercise generalship over an elite cadre of Battle Mechs in pursuit of ultimate victory, sometimes.  And in 1998 they delivered the dream of every layman out there with the first MechCommander.

               

Battle Tech has a rich backstory which I encourage you to look into; unlike many other sci-fi universes it hasn’t fallen to the predations of money making and general enfeeblement that typifies much of Games Workshop’s and Star Wars fair.  MechCommander opens with the invasion of the planet Port Arthur, currently held by the forces of Clan Smoke Jaguar and follows your war of liberation from start to finish.  It’s worth noting that for the diehard fans out there MechCommander is a great addition to the lore, fleshing out the backstory to the reformation of the Star League and retaliation following the original Clan Invasion.  While for the uninitiated it offers a perfect backdrop for shooty, shooty fun with substance, thereby catering for everyone.  The intro is full motion video gold and much like Wing Commander shows how FMV’s should be used.  While the acting isn’t perfect it’s better than most and adds a dramatic flair to the proceedings that traditional computer rendered video just couldn’t match.  If you doubt it, check it out below.

                            

Following the model of a squad based combat system whereby you enter into each mission with a specified drop weight limit, each ‘Mech and pilot you lose can have a catastrophic knock on effect further down the line.  Of the two, the latter is typically more difficult to replace, for as each mission goes by those same pilots gain valuable skill improvements in areas like gunnery and sensor management, eventually achieving veterancy status.  As such, you end up with a core group of elites capable of handling the heaviest and deadliest of your war machines.  Their deaths are therefore cause for genuine mourning as your lance is accordingly diminished by their loss.  When losing ‘Mechs however, it’s all about what you can salvage from the battlefield and hock between missions. Whether that be the battle damaged steed of a former opponent or from numerous enemy caches scattered around the combat zone.  Everything adds up, with you typically choosing the choicest pieces of hardware for yourself, selling the rest to turn a profit and reinvesting in new weapons, pilots and ‘Mechs along the way.  Although it must be noted that while I’ve had units taken down (usually by prestigious amounts of weapons fire) I’ve almost always salvaged what I’ve lost, leading to a rather low attrition rate in my mechanised death machines.  Therefore, once the maintenance crews finished scraping the remains of the last occupant from between the dashboard they were ready to be forced back into the fight.

                                            

This is in no way to suggest that the game is easy, with creating the right mixture of ‘Mechs and loadouts to complete mission objectives sometimes being an empirical process.  I reloaded… a lot and given that you can only save between drops it can really eat up the time and be a tad frustrating.  Especially when you get almost to the end of a mission and run into, say, a Madcat. Are you ambushing multiple convoys?  In which case compact firepower and fast ‘Mechs are your best friend.  Or are you holding a forward base against staggering odds?  Your only hope being your heavies, with thick armour and overwhelming ordinance.  There are also a variety of limited special abilities such as artillery strikes (both large and small) and sensor probes, which accentuate your overall capabilities. These are allotted during your mission brief and cannot be changed.  There’s nothing quite like maneuvering an enemy vehicle into your kill zone and bringing the rain.  Add to this the addition of support like minelayers and scout vehicles and you can really have some fun figuring out the best way to meet your objectives.

                                                     

When looking at MechCommander I’m filled with a certain nostalgia, partially from the use of FMV’s but also the general feel of the game.  It’s been a good while since I played a new RTS of the same calibre that also made me feel like I was part of a real universe, that was truly immersive.  MechCommander achieves this in a variety of ways, from each set of missions being broken up into separate “operations” and the fact that while you’re the invading force, your enemy still outclasses you in a fair fight.  Clan ‘Mechs are where the action is at, trust me.  This, coupled with the variety of mission types and complexity makes you rely on outwitting your opponent as much as outfighting them.  The feeling you get bringing down a Catapult heavy packed with LRM’s (Long Range Missiles) up close and personal is hard to beat.  It was like watching a pack of dire wolves bring down an oliphaunt.  Most importantly of course, it’s free and will cost you nothing to try.  At best it might introduce you to a new and interesting sci-fi universe; at worst you’ll be unable to get it working and be out ten minutes.  But since this can easily be avoided by just copying all the game files into a folder and running the game from there, I doubt it.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

The real concern when considering the unstoppable Marvel movie juggernaut is, when will it end and how? There are literally billions of dollars tied up in Thor, Iron Man, Captain America and the rest of the coterie.  So one has to wonder when, if ever, the studio will pull the plug in order to preserve the overall quality?  A serious question when you realise that some characters are signed up for a nine movie contract.
   
With that being said I approached Captain America: The Winter Soldier with a fair amount of excitement. From initial reviews and the trailer it looked like we were in store for a more rounded and engaging outing in comparison to the first film, a film I am still not particularly fond of.  There might have even been a certain wilful naivete on my part, having been mortified by the disaster that Man Of Steel would turn out to be after an apparently solid trailer and reaction.  Therefore I wanted The Winter Soldier to be a success if only to stave off becoming any more jaded to the comic book universe as a whole.  Whether that be DC, Marvel, Dark Horse or the funny pages.
             

Some heroes are prettier than others, eh?

Following the Avengers there was always the likelihood that one superhero wasn't going to be enough to sate an audience, at least not without a stellar story line, that it would feel like taking a step back.  A little like Thor: The Dark World turned out.  An entertaining, but uninspired walk around the Marvel block.  The Winter Soldier on the other hand delivers on both counts, treating us not only to the stars and stripes Captain himself, but Natasha Romanoff, assassin, spy and all round composite badass.  This is then capped with a tight narrative that is not only better than it's predecessor, but actively builds upon it.  It almost makes you think the execs and producers have some kind of plan for the series.  Crazy.
                             

It's quite clear from the off that the writers wanted to develop the Cap beyond his origin story, beyond being a clean cut goody who wouldn't put a toe wrong.  We did get a little of this in Whedon's tour de force, but it was fleeting and only hinted at a rebellious streak rather than featuring it.  In the Winter Soldier we get a more in depth look at Rogers as he tries to adapt to modern life, at one point pulling out a list of films, music and events he needs to catch up on after his sixty years on ice.  It's a nice touch that highlights the man out of time element.  We are further drawn to his sense of displacement and loss when he visits the museum exhibition depicting himself and his team during the Second World War, and by a conversation with the now dying Peggy Carter.  It all instils a sympathy for Rogers that was sorely lacking in the Avengers, in which his age was more of a joke than genuine character trait.

Air superiority is a serious SHIELD consideration.

                                   
This all blends seamlessly with the main plot and the Captain's increasing disillusionment with the way in which SHIELD operates.  As he says to Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury, "This isn't freedom, it's fear."  While he's talking about the helicarrier weapon systems, it sums up the juxtaposition between the murky world in which characters such as Black Widow live, breathe and take lunch, and the star spangled honesty that Rogers perceives himself as hailing from.  It's a clash of ideologies between the old and the new, acting as a fairly accurate allegory for the modern world.  It poses the question, how far would you go to maintain order?  How many principles and how many decent men would you sacrifice for the greater good?  I actually think it's the most grown up and well executed Marvel film to date.

In a surprise turn the relationship between Captain America and Black Widow was one of the film's highlights.  There was a genuine chemistry on screen as they played off one another, their differences making for an ensemble team that proves highly effective.  Given Romanoff's Russian background I had been hoping for a closer tie in with the Winter Soldier himself, for what there is proves to be little more than a token story. Although with the amount of self doubt and treachery that plays throughout the film, perhaps it was best to avoid anymore tangled subplots.  To ask for more could be construed as plain greedy and we do get to see the two face off in a classically well executed set piece.  So don't worry, there's action aplenty to compliment the story.
     
The Winter Soldier is a film that plays well upon it's connections, whether that be to the Marvel lore, between Captain America and SHIELD or the modern world and how we respond to threats in reality.  It doesn't molly coddle the viewer with special effects and quippy one liners (although there are plenty to be had) instead of asking questions that you might not expect from a comic book movie.  Steve Rogers in many ways serves as a mirror to an idealism that could be said to no longer exist, maybe it never did.  When you faced your enemies head on, when morality was less clouded by the intricacies of politics and extremism.  He is a straight shooter in a time when double speak and harsh action are the norm and in that sense it's hard not to love him.  He's honourable, he fights for what he thinks is right and most of all, he's human.  Sure he's beefed up with super human strength but his doubts, his worries and the traits that define him are undeniably mortal.  Unlike Thor or even Iron Man, he's grounded and serves as an empathetic vehicle for the stories trials and challenges.  Not to oversell it or anything.  Overall then this latest Marvel outing is a must see, if only so you can say you were there when comic movies took a leap forward, or there when they piqued.  Either way, this isn't one to miss.

The Resurrection of Abnett - The Bequin Trilogy: Pariah

Being the flagship writer for an entire sci-fi sub genre must be stressful. Not only do you have to please your fans, but your paymasters, loan sharks and own grandmother. So I've always cut Dan Abnett a little bit of slack as usually he comes through guns a'blazin' and delivers a riveting read. But lately his powers have been clouded by violent warp storms, hiding his prestigious talent for wholesale, literary destruction behind a few novels that haven't been quite up to scratch. Those being Prospero Burns, which suffers from some severe pacing issues, Salvations Reach, which stretches the realms of believability even in the 41st Millenium and Know No Fear, which was just too darn short and lacking in solid character development. Then again it was about the Ultramarines, so Dan really had his work cut out from the start.


Due to this recent bout of strife I've therefore been a bit shy of the blackest of libraries, instead focussing on my love of video games and fantasy Blood Bowl league. So when I picked up Pariah the other day it was without much enthusiasm, my telltale banter with the surprisingly well informed cashier falling flat on it's face despite his shared love of all that is grim and dark. Mentioning the current disillusionment with the 40k universe proved a greater error than originally supposed, for of my £10 gift card none was returned to me. Instead the diabolical fan boy destroyed it before my eyes, following up with a less than sincere apology, that was about as convincing as Hitler's shrug following his violation of the Munich Agreement. But I digress.
Ravenor vs Eisenhorn is, for all intents and purposes, a giant wet dream on the lining of that fan boy's over stretched boxers. It is the culmination of not one, but two of the Black Library's most iconic sci-fi sagas and by god if that didn't scare the living shit out of me. A failure would likely have sounded the death knell of my years long affair with Orks, Space Marines and those funky dressing Eldar. So it is with a solemn hand on heart that I can announce not only did Pariah exceed extremely low expectations, but announce Abnett's return to form.


One of the finest aspects of his writing has always been in setting the scene, in creating his own world within a copy-written universe. It's where a lot of 40k novels fall down, getting caught in the image of endless battlefields and sacrificial stock characters. In both Ravenor and Eisenhorn we are treated to a plethora of different worlds and cultures that showcase the weird and wonderful. Ranging from secret Mechanicus bases to dilapidated manors that sound like something straight out of a Steven King novel. And Pariah is no exception, the entire story taking place within the living, breathing city of Queen Mab. A monarch gone to seed but still possessing a glimmer of her old charm. Which is where our main protagonist Alizebeth Bequin finds her playground as not only an Inquisitorial agent in training, but as one of those rarest of creatures, a pariah. A walking hole in the world.


Of course anyone familiar with Abnett's earlier works will recognise this name immediately, harking back to the original Eisenhorn novels.  It's not the only blast from the past to make an appearance, with the nefarious Cognitae and many a character from the previous outings popping by to say hello. Obviously we can't go into too much detail without screaming spoilers, so you'll just have to take my word for it that the stroll down memory lane is a worthwhile one. It should be stated however, that the majority of the novel is fixated on launching the trilogy and introducing the characters involved. It is not a nostalgia roller coaster from start to finish, but rather more subtle. It's actually very well done, allowing the reader to play detective in figuring out not only the motivations of certain characters, but who they actually are in the grander scheme of things. For sure nothing is ever as it seems, the entire story line infused with Inquisitorial levels of duplicity.


As Bequin moves through the plot, becoming steadily more suspicious of everyone around her we are left with a certain level of paranoia as to what we as readers can trust. For unlike Alizebeth we know that something catastrophic is in the offing, that a chaotic element could at any moment reveal itself. In this regard the novel fails partially in it's suspense by being a tad predictable. It is perhaps a failing that was unavoidable, for being the final part of Abnett's universe many of his deceptions have been accordingly demonstrated in his other novels. For while we may not know exactly what the deception is, we are still braced for it. It should be said that this foreknowledge of possible events doesn't effect the story a great deal, Abnett executing a number of twists that even the sharpest among us are unlikely to foresee. It rather serves as a reminder that like Gregor Eisenhorn himself, the series is certainly a little played out and frayed around the edges in it's execution.


So I think I'll leave things here for now, for fear of treading on anybody's toes. The most important thing to take away is that Pariah is a worthy successor/continuation to the Eisenhorn/Ravenor saga. It's almost like Abnett reset his internal writing clock to the days when the Horus Heresy wasn't the centre of the Black Library's world and the potential for innovation was more forthcoming. Less dictated by the strictures of Games Workshop's premier series. It's clever, it keeps you guessing and reads like a mystery novel at a time when the genre has pulled a little too violently towards explosions and spectacle. Whether the next two novels can maintain the same level of intrigue is open to the forum. Certainly the next book will reveal more of the story and the potential staying power of Abnett as not only a successful Black Library author, but a good one at that.