beilblog

These are great fighting games. Truly terrific fighting games. From a golden era of sprite-based craft and technical innovation, they've spent far too long gated off behind expensive gimmick cabinets and ownership conflicts.  But here they are, all of Capcom's "Marvel" and "Versus" fighting games released between 1994 and 2000 in one collection. You've got; X-Men: Children of the Atom (stubborn and janky now, but looks gorgeous and is pure innovation and influence)  Marvel Superheroes (sublime refinement of COTA, masterful art and animation, great use of Thanos/the Infinity Stones and one of the best fighting games ever made)  X-Men vs Street Fighter (wild tag-team action with the Street Fighter cast at their most overpowered) Marvel Superheroes vs Street Fighter (the weakest of the bunch, but still glorious, technicolour carnage and the first in the series to use "assists")  Marvel vs Capcom (pushing 2v2 fighting to the limit and full of brill...

This ultimate lo-fi, high-concept horror movie pitches quantum theory, nightmarish alternate history and religious conspiracy and blends them up with zombie movie and siege thriller tropes.  The result is served John Carpenter-style; efficient, witty, smart and scary.

Aidan Smith is back, Indulgent Friends in tow, for another slipshod, ramshackle excursion into love, loss and absurdity.

Once again, Platinum Games have crafted a perfectly-pitched action game that balances challenging mechanics with spectacle and reward. Clad in the livery of the Metal Gear Solid series, Rising drops the series' trademark stealth in favour of running, jumping, and slicing.  Swords are everywhere, fetishised absurdly. Swords powered with electricity. Swords propelled from their scabbards by rocket power.  Enemy bullets are mere inconveniences to be brushed aside, military hardware a nuisance to be turned into cyborg fuel.  Traditional ninja, samurai and feudal codes of honour are filtered through a bloody spray of sci-fi manga ultra-violence.

In lesser hands, “the Facebook movie” could have been a disaster. Hollywood and the internet have a less than stellar common history, tending to fall back on technobabble and fancy graphics in place of what is often a less-than glamourous reality. The story of Mark Zuckerberg, billionaire creator of Facebook defies this convention; neither coming of age movie, nor a nerd-gets-the-girl schmaltz. While Facebook itself may thrive on the trivial and banal, its genesis is presented as anything but.

Mad Max is a cult road movie fatally crippled by budget and imagination. Set in the near-future, the viewer is told that society is on the verge of collapse, as oil shortages turn biker gangs into killers as legal and judicial systems crumble. For all its potential, Mad Max seldom achieves its targets. As an exploitation film it's not particularly exploitative, as an action movie it's dull as dirt. It sows the seeds of a fascinating story about the breakdown of society, and while it hits a beat now and then, long stretches are as dull and grey as the film's endless motorways. Made on a shoestring budget, it has little to recommend it from a visual standpoint. A couple of practical stunts impress, in particular a slow-motion bike crash which understandably created urban myths about the death of the stuntman. And Australia itself is a reliably huge and gorgeous stage to set the action. Mad Max hits its highest point in the last five minutes, as Max, finally mad, sadi...