We need to talk about Freddy.

Don't click away! This isn't about YouTubers, theories or rants! This is about marketing!

"Are you ready for Freddy?"

In case you've been living on the far side of Mars for the last year or so, Five Nights at Freddy's happened. Then Five Nights at Freddy's 2 happened, then Five Nights at Freddy's 3 happened, and the 4th 'Final Chapter' arrived on Steam merely a few days ago at the time of writing.

The story is that you're a night guard at family pizza chain known as 'Freddy Fazbear's Pizza'. During the day, it's a place of crappy overpriced Pizza and animatronic animals for entertainment, the titular Freddy Fazbear (above), Bonnie the Bunny, Chica the Chicken and the currently out of order Foxy the Pirate Fox. But you're the night guard, and if these joyful animatronic characters see you in the night shift, they think you're an endoskeleton (also pictured above), and will stuff you into a suit. It wouldn't be so bad if the suits themselves weren't full of components, wires and cross-bars, so you'll die if you let them get you.
Gameplay is relatively simple, you sit there, check your cameras and hall lights, then if one of them is at the door, close it and hope to whatever your chosen deity is (such as God, Allah, Gabe Newell, Cthulhu or Jim Sterling) that they go away. Unsurprisingly, there's 5 nights in each game, and if they catch you, thou shalt suffer death by Jumpscare! Each sequel spins it's own twist on the formula, but they're all largely the same.
Since release in 2014, Scott Cawthon has made two more sequels and has a a final chapter in the works, all within the space of about a year. Reception was mixed, as the atmosphere was excellent, akin to a nightmare as you have no power against the animatronics, but the gameplay was lacking as it was basically just click the thing, get jumpscared, rinse and repeat.

As a series, it's recieved a lot of flak by a lot of people, which I understand. Various YouTube screamers like PewDiePie, Markiplier and the like have screamed at it for hours, lacking gameplay and poor graphics, so it's already got some negativity. Throw in some obsessive fans, furry porn, Garry's Mod workshop spam, page-long theories about Murdered Kids/Purple Guy/Phone guy/biting heads, etc, and there you have it: a pot of liquid hate against Freddy Fazbear and Co.

Now, I was originally in the Anti-Zone for FNaF, but my opinion has since changed over the last year or so. Once I got listening about theories, rumors and such, I was rather enthralled by the little fucked up world Scott Cawthon had created, about murdered children, possessed animatronic characters and all that. I wouldn't consider myself a devoted fan, but certainly an interested one.

But, that's not why we're here. We're here to talk about MARKETING. And in my mind:

Scott Cawthon=Marketing Genius

Allow me to explain. As for backstory, Scott is a member of Hope Animation, a small team of Christian game developers from Texas who make kid-friendly, Christian games. However, all his games had been failures, and his last attempt 'Chipper and Sons Lumber Co.' was especially criticized for having 'creepy characters' that were rather, animatronic, in their manner. Rather than packing in the towel for good, Scott gave it one last chance. And thus, Five Nights at Freddy's was released unto Steam Greenlight, where it was upvoted very quickly, and soon onto the store, and pretty much everyone and their cat had heard about it in a very short space of time. And the rest is history. Or the past, the whole FNaF timeline is a bi-OFF TOPIC, sorry.

Scott saw something that was popular, the Amnesia's of the world and other 'YouTube fodder' games, and had a go himself. And whadda you know? Something based on something popular WAS popular, who'da thunk it? Between releases, Scott's very good at keeping people salivating for the next one, teasing images and trailers every once in a while, where people like '8Bit-Gaming' on YouTube do their analysis and things on it, and bam, instant hype, yours today only £4.99!

So yes, I believe that hate for FNaF is fair, but remember, Scott Cawthon is a clever man, and probably can't hear you over all the happy children thanks to money he's given to charity.

Look it up, mate. I'll still be here. You will always come back. We have a place for you.

*fnar fnar much reference*

VIDYA GURMES

I'm a nerd. I play Videogames. Here's a review for BioShock, an 8-year old game I picked up last week on sale and played in about 2 days.

A note on Horror: If you're scared of being scared like me, that 'Horror' tag on BioShock's store page looms over it, and put me on great debate to buy it. However, most of the 'Horror' is body horror, just copious amounts of blood and injecting yourself with fucking great needles.  There are some scarier bits earlier though, where lights go out and some blokes jump out from time to time, but the scare factor lowers the more powerful you get. If you want to ignore the Weeping Angel-esq Plastered Splicers in the level 'Fort Frolic', just avoid the Power to the People Machines and they won't appear.

The Good: BioShock as I've said is a single player FPS, or SPFPS if you will, and it has some similarities with another game I love, Half Life 2. On the surface, both SPFPS’s, standard suite of guns and some kooky mechanic supporting it, good story and world established early in the game. But soon things being to deviate. In BioShock, the narrative is turned on it's head, as you are NOT the party, the party has happened, and you're the unlucky sod who comes in the next morning to find everyone very badly hung over.

BioShock at first isn't particularly exiting, point guns at dudes and bang, with the standard suite of Melee, Pistol, Machine Gun, Shotgun, Grenade Launcher, Crossbow and the Chemical Thrower, a weird weapon that you only use for boss fights and has ammo rarer than a triple cheeseburger at a model show. Being set in 1960, the weapons have some difference, so the Pistol is a revolver, the MG is a Tommy Gun, and the Grenade Launcher, Crossbow and Chemical Thrower have a cool homemade design.

But BioShock has a supporting cast of 'plasmids', effectively Magic, and similar to another favourite of mine, Dishonored. There's a full suite of them, and they can be upgraded, and can be used in conjunction for sweet c-c-c-combos! All have a weird visual design on your arm, for example, the 'Incinerate!' plasmid picked up early visibly burns your fingers and hand, and only gets more gross as you upgrade it to level 3. The RPG-esq elements come into it with 'gene tonics'. There's 3 different categories, Combat for combat (duh!), engineering for hacking and stuff, and physical for general buffs. They're all scattered around, and most a more useful than others, but I'll come back to that. You begin with 2 Plasmid slots and 2 slots for each Tonic, but you can upgrade, chop and change and stuff to your heart's content.

BioShock's real strength is it's story and atmosphere. BioShock is set in the fictional city of Rapture, located on the bottom of the mid-Atlantic ocean, where our silent protagonist Jack finds after becoming a sole survivor of a plane crash. He must then survive, fight, and then escape Rapture, as he is hounded at every turn by madmen, psychopaths and people who are 'a bit weird' to say the least. The world is explored through Audio logs, not just of major characters, but also the normal people of Rapture, all recorded before you turn up of course. The art-deco style of the 60’s is very nice, and everything is kind of run down or barnacle encrusted really improves on the atmosphere of the crumbling city of Rapture.

One of the most defining parts of BioShock are the Little Sisters, who are little girls (unsurprisingly) between the age of 5 and 8, who have been converted into Gatherers for ADAM, a wonder substance that created Plasmids than can be refined into EVE, the substance that powers Plasmids. Throughout the game, the player encounters Little Sisters, and has to save or harvest them for ADAM in order to upgrade Plasmids and things. Provided you can get through their bodyguards, the hideously strong, disgustingly powerful and excellent parental figures, the Big Daddies. If you haven't seen them, they're a real wonder of design, just go Google them. Aside from them, there's also security systems and Splicers, basically people who got a little too addicted to ADAM, and come a wide variety of flavours, standard thugs.

So, a decent arsenal combined with a supporting cast of powers, excellent atmosphere and story, somewhere between Dishonored and Half Life 2. But there are always some bad things.

The Bad:

BioShock is not difficult in the slightest way possible. You get showered with health kits and EVE hypos to recharge your Plasmids. I only died once on normal difficulty, and that was intentional to see how it worked. You get revived at Vita Chambers, but they’re bloody everywhere, and you respawn with half your ammo and things anyway, so death has little consequence. There’s also vending machines, ammo vendors, healing stations, and U-invent machines introduced about halfway though.

Hacking in this game is bloody awful. To hack, you have to disable a turret, then begin. You have to play some fucking connect-the-pipes minigame every bloody time, and it really pisses you off. In the end, I was drowning in money because I never had to buy ammo, health or anything, so I just bought Auto-Hack tools or bought out machines to avoid them. The aforementioned ‘U-Invent’ machines are introduced about halfway through, and are pretty pointless. You gather miscellaneous items from around the place, then craft them into stuff like Auto-Hack tools and nothing else.

The lack of inventory is also quite weird. Apart from Ammo and Health, you never know how much of a thing you’re carrying if you’re invested in crafting because you’re mad. Food you eat as you pick it up, and you can carry a measly 500 dollars with you at most. The general interface is also a bit crap to boot. You have to swap between Guns and Plasmids with right click, and you can only ‘reload’ Plasmids when they’re active or empty, which I’m not too sure why but really annoys me.

There’s little enemy variety as well. There are a few flavours of Splicer, Melee, Gunner, Grenadier and weird spidery ones than climb everywhere, but most are largely harmless and seemingly never ending. There are four flavours of Big Daddy, but actually only two, a melee focussed and long ranged focussed one, and an elite version of each. They'll randomly be 'boss' enemies, which basically are regular dudes or dudettes with a health bar larger than Andrew Ryan's boner when he reads 'Atlas Shrugged'.

All of the weapons except the wrench have alternate ammo types, normally an Anti-Personnel one and an Armour-Piercing one as well as standard ammo. I found the base ammo on all guns was completely fine, and the alternate types are super rare anyway. The only alternate ammo type I did use was the Proximity Mine for the Grenade Launcher, and even then it was only against Big Daddies. The Camera, which can be used to take pictures to research an enemy, so you do increased damage or something is totally useless, as everyone is so easy to kill anyway.

Plasmids have the same problem. I maxed the Plasmid Slot upgrade to six, but I found I wasn't really using them. I was only using Electro-Bolt for the ‘1-2 Punch’, where if you bolt an enemy, then attack, they take four times as much damage. Incinerate! I used occasionally for variety because fire is fun.  Insect Swarm was useful for clearing rooms. Telekinesis I used about twice then realised a bullet did a better job. Security Bullseye was useless as I had already hacked everything anyway. Enrage I never used, because I killed everyone so effectively anyway. Finally, Hypnotize Big Daddy I used twice, but I only paid attention to Big Daddies after I’d killed everyone else, so it was largely useless.

On the note of Big Daddies, Little Sisters and ADAM is not as useful as the game would have you think. You have to use most of your special ammo types and health kits to deal with them, and there’s commonly 2-3 in a level. While I maxed out on Plasmids, I would have been fine with only about 3 slots anyway. Gene tonics are similar. I picked up a lot of hacking focussed ones, but apart from Speedy Hacker that (strangely) lowers the liquid speed in hacking, and one for making safes easier, I was fine. I only had 4 of the maximum engineering tonic slots, and I was fine, especially I had 50% off ALL purchases from another Tonic. The Combat tonics were better, but the combination I had meant I took literally no-damage from any source smaller than a nuclear explosive, and did increased Wrench damage with silent footsteps, so I was one-shotting anyone looking the wrong direction. To add to my already insane resilience, I received almost double health from my health packs, and restored some EVE when I used them, while I was also taking reduced damage and dishing out extra when it came to electricity based attacks.

Oh, and the final boss fight is laughably shitty.

Overall though, I enjoyed BioShock, and all these negative points are relatively minor compared to the positives. Yes, it’s a bit aged here and there, but it’s hard to recommend. BioShock’s overall ‘goodness’ is mainly from the player’s perspective, not really a ‘yay or nay’ basis.

And in case I forget: ‘7.8/10-Too much water.’

No swimming though. Weird.

Overwatch Heroes: Tracer

"Cheers, Love! The cavalry's here!"

Anyone who's played even 5 minutes of TF2 will know the scout when the see it. And Overwatch's plucky Brit is no exception. Tracer seems to inhabit the role of harassment and generally being an annoying little shit.

Real Name: Lena Oxton
Age: 26
Occupation: Adventurer
Base of Operations: London, England
Affiliation: Overwatch (formerly)

Story: Lena Oxton was formerly the youngest pilot ever to be inducted into Overwatch's experiment flight programme, and you can probably already see where this is going. In the first test of an aircraft called 'The Slipstream', the teleporting ship malfunctioned, and disappeared, leaving Lena presumably deceased.
Several months later, she returned. But, Lena suffered from 'Chronal Dissociation', effectively a ghost of time, phasing in and out of reality for hours or even days at a time. It wasn't until a Scientist named Winston (who we'll see later) created the Chronal Accelerator (the blue glowy thing Tracer wears) to allow Lena to remain in our time, but also manipulate her own timestream to speed up or slow down herself. And now, with Overwatch gone, Tracer is now trying to do the right thing, and help people after the Omnic Crisis.

To be honest, I'm quite impressed. You'll see all the Heroes have their own backstory, which is a lot of work Blizzard have gone too, which suggests they're very invested in this game. So, let's do a rundown of Tracer's kit and abilities.

Health: 150 (lowest in the Game so far)

Pulse Pistols: Tracer's primary weapons. Unlike the Scout's scattergun, these simply spray bullets in a short range, having to reload very often as Tracer goes through Ammo like nobody's business. With limited effective range and takes hits like a damp biscuit, Tracer's going to be left high and dry with her fancy little pistols. But, that's where the rest of her kit comes into play.

Blink: Tracer can store up to 3 charges of Blinks, allowing her to zip forwards. Unlike in the cinematic trailer, Tracer can only bounce around on the ground. I have a feeling, like the Scout's double jump, this will be the staple of Tracer, and often keeping an eye on your Blink charges will most likely be the difference from being alive to being a pile of bullet-ridden mush. Ideally, you'll probably want to Blink into combat to close the gap, spray and pray, then Blink out again, rinse and repeat. Or, combine with Tracer's next ability.

Recall: Tracer simply jumps backwards in time, restoring her health and ammo to what they were about 3 seconds ago. I kid you not, this is not her ultimate. While it has a longer recharge of about 10 seconds, this will most certainly be the real life-or-death decider for Tracer. Blink into a room where the entire enemy team is? Simply rewind, and run away to go pick a fight with something more your size, say a flower, or a damp paper bag.

(Ultimate) Pulse Bomb: Everyone needs some explosions here and there, and Tracer is no exception. Tracer's pulse bomb is thrown at a short range, and can stick to players or the map. After a brief moment, kaboom. Tracer's pulse bomb is certainly powerful, especially in the right hands. In a recently uploaded Gameplay Preview, Tracer Blinked into a small crowd, emptied her pistols, chucked in a pulse bomb, then Recalled away as they got turned into red mist. Similarly, I believe in the Gameplay Trailer, a Tracer lobs a Pulse Bomb onto the payload cart, stopping an offensive team right in their tracks.

Joking aside, Tracer is a very powerful Hero, especially in the new Gameplay Preview. While not applicable to most teams, I feel our plucky little Brit will see a lot of play by most people at the start of Overwatch. But, in the hands of a Veteran, I also believe Tracer will be a force to be reckoned with.

Gone Girl

If you haven't seen it, Gone Girl is a film. It stars future Batman, that guy from How I met your Mother and Lady Penelope from the new Thunderbirds are Go!. And after seeing it not an hour ago, I firmly recommend it.

It gave me the biggest film boner ever.

Synopsis: Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) is a writer, married to another writer, Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike). One day, Amy disappears, and an investigation is launched into her disappearance. The story of their marriage and lives is shown from different perspectives and through flashbacks, allowing the audience to piece it together for themselves.

The Good: Firstly, the acting is excellent from everyone, which is actually a pretty big achievement considering Tyler Perry absolutely kills it in this movie. Personally though, I found Carrie Coon as Nick's sister as my favourite character and actress in the film. With a less dependency on fancy shenanigans, the firm focus of Gone Girl is on the people, which is one of it's greatest strengths. It's interesting to see Nick as an 'eye of the storm' character at the beginning, and later develop. Similarly, it's fascinating to see Amy's side of the story as well. But Gone Girl's greatest asset is the mystery offered by the plot, and allowing the viewer to piece the story together for themselves. Now, I despise predictable TV or Films, and going into Gone Girl completely blind, not knowing much even as the film progressed, I found immensely awesome, though I have a feeling it will rightly piss some people right off. And while not a technically challenging film, the screenplay is very nice, all well shot, and the unspoken interactions are just as important as the spoken ones.

The Bad: Due the global Film industry having not created the perfect film yet, and the closest we've got to hypothetical film perfection is in three films, one about prison, another about a playboy/ninja with a leather fetish, and the Mafia. Unsurprisingly, Gone Girl is not any of the above, even though it gains the arbitrary rating of 'very good' on my scale of...stuff. The main hurdle is one of basis, as the film deals with difficult subjects such as women and feminism, through domestic abuse, murder, blood, and a lot of other stuff most people would consider 'kinda gross'. If you're willing to accept that, then there's very little else to complain about. Gone Girl certainly isn't a technical masterpiece, but that's also a strength, and there's a scene towards the end with questionable levels of personal hygiene, but you'll probably see what I mean when you see it. But the biggest gripe is mainly one of pacing. You see throughout the film, time passing in hours and days, but the timespan gets bigger, into weeks, as the film ties up in the last ~45 minutes, which suggests they realised they're wasn't quite enough content to fill it out. On the whole, the film is fine, but in the last ~30 minutes (as a certain main character shows up again, you'll know), the film is just KA-THUNK. Timing stops completely, and the last 30 minutes is a horrible slog.

Overall: Yeah, it did good. I would certainly recommend Gone Girl. If you can get around the nasty stuff and the frankly bladder-busting duration, Gone Girl is an excellent film, that deserves a lot of credit for being pretty good. But remember, you may never be able to watch Gone Girl again, as you won't be able to bask in the glorious mystery of the plot.

8.5/10

Why you should be (over) Watching Overwatch

For those of you who don't know, Overwatch is a new team-based FPS, being made by Blizzard. Yes, those guys who did World of Warcraft, Heroes of the Storm and Starcraft. Currently, there is no actual release date, but there is a confirmed Beta start in 'Fall 2015' (or Around September for non-Americans), as Blizzard like to do their stuff in the Autumn such as Blizzcon.

So, let's draw some lines. Overwatch has a very unique, clean, almost Pixar-esq Artstyle, similar to another first person Hat Simulator we all know. As many people are already making the comparison, we're going to contrast Overwatch's Heroes with the Mercenary's in Valve's Team Fortress 2. Now, we don't have much in terms of visuals for Overwatch as it is in a pre-Alpha state (though looks very polished), and much of this will be speculation, based on short videos and the steadily growing Gameplay previews being put out by Blizzard. But I suppose I should start with some background.

Overwatch's story is relatively simple. In the future, Humanity has had great success in making robots to do jobs and fight wars. However, shit's got a bit Terminator up in here, and the Robots have had an uprising called the 'Omnic Crisis'. In response, Overwatch, a global peacekeeping force, was created to stop this crisis, and recruited many heroes and champions to fight the Robots. Eventually, the Robots were defeated, and Overwatch was disbanded. Many Heroes in Overwatch served this peacekeeping force during the crisis or afterwards, and are merely continuing their duties to the world, but not employed by Overwatch.

While there are some similarities to Team Fortress 2, there are some great divides. Yes, they both have a very different artstyles from the brown corridor norm, and are class based. And that's about where the similarities end. Firstly, Blizzard have said they want a focus on changing Heroes rather than loadouts, like in TF2. But the main difference is probably that we've only seen 6 v 6 matches, and that might be all we see when Overwatch is released (for now, lets presume it is). Yes, many things in Overwatch seem OP, but for a very good reason. There's only ever 6 people on a team, so everyone has to pull their weight. In TF2, teams are commonly 12 or even 16 people on each team, so if there's a few noobs who have no idea how to play, the other 9 or 10 people will cover for them.

Another key difference is abilities. Each Hero has 3 Abilities: A 'basic', a 'not so basic' and an 'ultimate'. While many people will despair over the lack of Ubercharge in Overwatch, what's important to remember is that effectively everyone has their own Ubercharge. Which, unlike TF2, allows each Hero to pull their own weight and make no class entirely necessary. Also, an interesting note, is the Ultimate ability. It charges on damage dealt (or damage dealt by healing target for healers), but doesn't go away if you die, only if you change Hero. So even if you suck balls at Overwatch (which we probably all will at the start), you're going to be popping an Ultimate. And I also like the fact that each Hero has a loud Audio cue when popping an ultimate, so your enemies know when to shit themselves when you bombard the living daylights outta them.

But, what's speculation without detail? Let's do some breakdown of Heroes in Overwatch.

I don't like Gotham.

I didn't like Gotham. And I'll be very, very honest with you.

I watched the first four episodes. Then I got bored.

In fact, I didn't even watch all four. I only watched the first half of episode four. Three and a half episodes of mind-numbingly boring Batman prequel which probably isn't canon in the new Batman movies being made,

I like Batman. I got the Batman t-shirts, I've seen the full Dark Knight trilogy numerous times, got a Batman poster, seen the 60's Batman movie which was fantastic and awful, and of course The Dark Knight is one of my favourite movies ever. While I don't read/have read the Batman comics of yore, I have a fairly standard understanding of Batman, his origins, his trusty Butler and of course his child sidekick.

Start with the good I suppose. The violence while sometimes excessive is well done, acting is great, and the ambiguous time period it quite cool as well. 80's computers, with 50's cars and 2000's phones? Now, that's some clever screenplay.

Maybe it's because I'm British, so I just don't 'get' American television. I mean, hour long episodes and about twenty episodes in each series? I thought Torchwood had a long series (please don't get me started on the terrible Miracle Day, it's a miracle it made *ha ha ha*).

I think Gotham's biggest flaw is quite simply the source material it's based off of. Ignoring popular culture's fascination with Batman, no matter what you make about Batman, everyone's going to compare it to something prior. Gotham  genuinely feels like something new and fantastic, a Batman prequel! But everything feels like it's been made on borrowed ideas and time. The city of Gotham looks like the city from The Dark Knight trilogy mixed with Tim Burton's Gotham of the 80's and 90's. None of the characters are particurly interesting however, no matter how well acted they are. Gordon is standard, a copy of every single Gordon before him in anything. His partner in the force...um...whatever his name was, is standard corrupt, lazy cop guy. All the characters all feel standard. Fish Mooney could be replaced by Maroni or Falcone, the only difference of course being a lady.

I would rather have it not be Batman. Allow me to explain. While the odd nod to Edward Nigma as the Riddler and the Penguin and Catwoman is nice, it's just frustrating. You just want it to be mother fuckin' BATMAN ALREADY. There's just this niggling feeling, in the background. You just want it be Batman properly, not taking winks at it's own source material. "Hey Batfans. Look, this guy's call Edward Nigma, isn't THAT a coincedence! *giggle* ". If it wasn't Batman related, at all, it would be so, so,  so much better. Just a crime drama in corrupt city of an ambiguous time Period.. Yeah, it might not the views, but at least it would be more structurally stable.

You see this? Yeah, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Now that's a good show. Wanna know why?

1-New premise in an established universe. And a damn good one. THE Marvel Cinematic universe, the one we all know and love from Iron Man 2.

2-New characters in an established universe, that can appear somewhere else. After it finishes, it's pretty bloody unlikely any of Gotham's characters will be seen in Batman vs. Superman.

3-Solid foundations. The Marvel cinematic universe is a wonder to behold, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D occasionally dipping into that time line, such as post avengers, and Thor: The Dark World.

See this? If you want Batman in not-book form, just watch these. Begins is a very solid introduction to Batman. If you haven't seen The Dark Knight, quite clearly you're allergic is fantasticness. Rises isn't as good, but what were we expecting after The Dark Knight ?  Of course it's not as good. Good, yes. But The Dark Knight was lightning in a bottle, masterpiece, 10/10 would watch again. It didn't stand a chance, but at least they tried their best.

Time Heist has stolen my heart

 Yes, Time Heist is really that..alright.

God this series is so terrible. I wouldn't even call Time Heist a 'good' episode. It's alright, maybe just about enjoyable. However the previous four outings for this series (Man Listen still makes me cry) having been...less than alright. Time Heist just being 'alright' is enough. All aboard the mother fuckin' HYPE TRAIN!

So the Doctor, Clara and two mysterious characters (Psi and Saibra) have been recruited by the mysterious Architect to rob the mighty Bank of Karabraxos, the most secure bank in the universe.
Not bad, not bad, fairly standard kinda thing.
I'll try to be as un-spoilery as I can. Overall, while I do appreciate Time Heist for trying to be relatively clever, it's overall timey-wimey...ness does dissolve the plot towards the end as the threads come together. But, overall it has some brains, constantly wrong foots you and is actually quite solid narratively if you can get past the timey-wimey-ness.

Oh my. Now THAT'S a Monster.

This big beastie is called 'The Teller'. In a more out-there sci-fi idea, the Teller can detect (or, Tell in fact) guilt in people, therefore it can tell if someone's going to rob the bank. Clever, hm? Yep, I thought so too. In the first few minutes, he does turn someone's brain into soup, which is both fascinating and vile. Naturally, the Teller isn't actually evil, and has just been blackmailed into it by Miss Delphox, because, in Leyman's terms, 'she's keeping 'is bird in the back room'

Unfortunately, Miss Delphox is one of the problems with Time Heist. Keeley Hawes is supposed to be a good actress (I don't know personally, I haven't seen her in anything), but she's greatly underused in her part (well parts if you know what I mean). It's as if they ran out of budget for her, so had to cut short to make the rest of the series.

To be brutally honest, all of Time Heist feels a bit...cheap. The distinct overuse of the same bloody corridor is particularly noticeable. Apart from the Teller, there's a distinct lack of Aliens in Karabraxos. Everything seems stretched thin, as if they made the Teller, some of the sets and the CGI, then realised they had about two pounds left and they still had to buy lunch, so had to be super economical.

Going back to the overall timey-wimey-ness of the episode definitely seems to have turned everyone off Time Heist except me. I enjoy complex stories (Inception, yes please!) because I despise predictable TV. But much like the Budget, Time Heist's story is also stretched a bit too thin. Another episode which could have greatly benefited from having two parts.

But overall, this is the best we're getting for the next 3 or 4 episodes. Now, I have some business to...Caretaker of.

That joke was rubbish. Sorry.

Final Grade: B--

Very Timey-Wimey, but good enough.

Listen *Heavy Sobbing*

Never have the word of good ol' Ben Kenobi ringed more true than now.

On it's face value, Listen isn't half bad. For most people, it's a great episode, and I could agree, but what would be the fun in that? I was told by a friend that Listen was going to be good. I was hyped, I was hoping it would be good, then I saw behind the façade and saw the TRUTH!

Oh baby I had fun tearing this to shreds and burning the remains. So let's get started. If you're like me (I hope you're not, I'm unique), you might have twigged that this episode is straight up shit.
Every second bleeds lazy writing, stolen ideas and something not too dissimilar to plagiarism. Yes Moffat, the plagiarism finger is being pointed at YOU.
Everything reeks of unoriginal ideas being stolen and re-purposed (like the Cybermen used to when they were good. Fuck you Neil Gaiman). In my personal list of 'Things Listen stole from Better episodes', there was Utopia, Blink, Hide, The Big Bang and Night Terrors just to name a few.

Don't even get me fucking started on this fucker.

People may like him, but I fucking don't. Now matter which space suit you put him in, or whatever name you give him, Danny Pink is Danny Pink and Danny Pink is shit. His purpose is the same as Gwen Stacy from Spider-Man (don't get me started on the 2 and 1/2 half long piece of shit that was The Amazing Spider Man). He exists only as a plot device, only to create and solve plot points because I'm sure it's less pressure on Steven Moffat's tiny brain. And Orson Pink is Danny Pink, and is also dreary and lifeless. But, Samuel Anderson isn't a bad actor. In Trollied, a comedy set in the fictional supermarket Valco, he's an assistant manager (also called Danny), but he's good! Why can't we have that?

Don't give Listen your time. It's a Frankenstein's monster of an episode, ideas re-purposed en masse in the hope that they will disguise each other. It's the epitome of shit Doctor Who, and is the perfect illustration of all the problems Modern Doctor Who has. Just ignore this piece of shit.

Final Grade: F
Fail on all levels. I can't even words.

Robot of Sherwood isn't bad

I can't say much about Robot of Sherwood. It's rather insubstantial and silly, fairly standard throwaway episode. I mean, yeah, it was dumb in a silly way, but it was entertaining.

There's isn't much to say at all. Capaldi is ever good, and Coleman isn't that bad, she's just kinda fangirling the whole time. Her scene with the Sheriff is actually quite good. Robin Hood and his arguing with the Doctor is funny, but the Merry Men I think could have been used more. The forest itself is very nice, something right out of Merlin. The robots are interesting designs, but are fairly bog-standard generic villains with no real EVIL motivations. While they have a nice presence and look, there just there because we needed a villain.

The only real thing to talk about is the controversy about the ending. While I understand they changed it, as it was a grisly subject, you can feel the end was a bit of rush job. While the Sheriff being Terminator 2'd in molten gold was cool, I still think it would have been cooler if he had been a robot, as the episode title doesn't really work.

But yeah, it's enjoyable and not half bad. A bit silly and disposable, but at least it's not Listen...

Final Grade: C

Insubstantial, throwaway episo...wait what was I talking about again?

Into the Dalek gets into some problems

So, the Daleks are back, and now we can stop crossing our fingers. And I gotta say, it as alright.

At best.

Rusty is probably the best character in the whole episode.

As the entirety of the World will be pleased to hear, Into the Dalek has no 'new paradigm' Daleks, so there's a point. Also, it's only co-written by Moffat. Bonus point! As usual, it all looks great (especially Rusty above), sounds great, and surprisingly few plotholes. Instead, for this week only, we get crap writing! Hooray!

Actually, this episode gets quite a few bonus points. It's an original idea, and an INTERESTING one at that. The continuation from Deep Breath with the three-week old coffee, and leads directly into the episode. The basic premise is future, lots a Daleks, and the human resistance has a malfunctioning Dalek hostage (called 'Rusty' by the Doctor). So, the Doctor, Clara and a few soldier/cannon fodder types go into the Rusty (not that way...) and fix the problem. Simple. How they managed to mess it up so seriously is really quite incredible.

Into the Dalek starts with some pretty BIG moral questions. The Doctor asks Clara in the first few minutes 'Am I a good man?' Hmm, indeed. That's pretty deep, I'm impressed. Then less than 10 seconds later, he jumps up and basically says 'now, Clara, wanna go see some Daleks?' And while seeing what it's like being inside a Dalek's casing is awesome and unique, it doesn't want to answer those big questions from earlier at all.

Now that's cool. A tiny Doctor standing eye-to-eye (literally) with his greatest nemesis. Now that's cool! 

However, on board the Aristotle, the Resistance's ship, the rest of the Daleks have come looking for their buddy. So yes, and the best part of four years, we see people getting exterminated, in droves. Oh boy it was worth it.

However, it's still got problems. Clara gets some character, questioning the Doctor's morality and generally being... a good character. Blimey, that was hard to say. This opportunity is wasted, as Clara's development is written, but the Doctor isn't, not getting much in the way of development. Maybe he could be developed by his actions, but the episodes are so damn short he can't do anything that develops his character. The other minor characters are alright, not great, but above average as far as supporting characters go. 

But, you can't help but feel the Daleks got the short straw in their own episode. Rusty provides the only major moral questioning in the episode, when he and Doctor get mentally linked, and sees the 'divine hatred' of the Doctor. And after slaughtering the rest of the Dalek boarding party, he says one of the best lines of Modern Who ever.

"I am not a good Dalek. You are a good Dalek"

I'm sure for many people, series 8 is their first series, but Into the Dalek seems to think everyone watching knows what the Daleks are and what they do. While this isn't a problem for me or the people I hang out with, for the casual viewer, that's quite a big ask.

While we're supposed to supposed to be getting big, superpowered Dalek empires, like in ye olden days of 2005 (God Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways. Such good memories). But, we're just supposed to know this. Although the Dalek empire in this episode, there's not much to go on. Yes, the ship at the beginning was HUGE. But, what if the Aristotle is just tiny, and the ship was just an average sized one? The Daleks don't seem to have this universe conquering power Into the Dalek suggests. Why didn't they just blow the Aristotle to bits? I know it wouldn't have made a good episode, but...

This is a glorious sight. Or, is it?

So, we all know the 'new Paradigm' Daleks were met with the same hostility as a hamburger in a Vegan committee meeting, so they buggered off for a series. When the Daleks returned in Asylum of the Daleks, we had our beloved Time War/Bronze Daleks as 90%, with the New Paradigm as a less numerous 'officer class'. Lets presume the big ship from Into the Dalek is some sort of command vessel. Why are there no officers on that ship, or is this not the control room/bridge thing? So, why are being showed this? Luckily, they've decided to write out the new ones altogether, so that's good. But, as much as the Time War Daleks are much cooler, they've got problems.

Well, there's no real class difference between drones and leaders, with of course the exception of the Emperor and the Supreme from The Stolen Earth/Journey's End, but that's it. And, the height is a problem. In 2005, when the Daleks were redesigned, they were made intentionally to be at Billie Piper's eyeline for Dalek (My favourite episode ever). While Billie Piper isn't exactly short, Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi are much taller, and a killing machine is less threatening when it's scraping at your ankles.

So yeah, Into the Dalek, not a bad episode, just kind of...empty. And although it was hinted our beloved Rusty would return, unless we see him in series 9, he's probably not coming back at all. I'm sorry, but you will be in our hearts Rusty. In the event of him not returning, here's a funny .gif of Rusty.

Final Grade: C+

Tries hard, falls flat. But has Daleks.

Why the Daleks are awesome

I'm sure it won't surprise you, but I love the Daleks. They're my favourite Dr. Who villain of all time (and space). Not only are they a design that's survived almost unchanged apart from minor details for almost the entire 52 years of the Show, but they got two films, some great episodes, and became a British icon (which is quite odd that they're based on the Nazis...).
However, over the past few years of Doctor Who (about 2010 onwards), there's been a lack of Dalek episodes (not just minor appearances, focussed episodes), and they've all been a bit rubbish.

I'm not putting a picture up because I don't wan't to be complained at for torture, but we got some horrific new designs in 2010, and a terrible episode to boot. The new designs are ugly, chunky and disgustingly coloured, as if someone said 'it's too dangerous. Remove the sharp edges, make it safer for kids'. Doctor Who design department, it's a battle tank that can think for itself, and it's only thought is 'KILL EVERYTHING! EXTERMINATE!', It's not supposed to be safe, it's going to kill you! Victory of the Daleks? More like murder. Genocide of the Daleks.

I believe Moffat said 'it's no more running for the Daleks, now only big empires from now on!' or something like that. But, as ever, empty promises. So, after a short hiatus, the Daleks returned in 2012's 'The Asylum of the Daleks'!

I'll do a proper review later, but basically Asylum was a complete mess in the most spectacular way possible, it's fascinatingly terrible. Beforehand, Moffat shat his trousers and basically said 'no new Daleks this time. All the old ones, it's gonna be great!'. However, it naturally didn't deliver and was quite simply one of the worst episodes of series 7 and the revived series altogether.

So, now after being on a two year hiatus this time, the Daleks are back for real, all new and shiny with a new Doctor. Let's hope this isn't 2010 all over again, as we go, Into the Dalek...