Rudolph and Frosty Christmas in July (1979) Review

December 6, 2015 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

Before I sat down and watched this movie i’m not gonna lie I was quite worried that my experience would be a complete repeat of the last review, before watching the film I decided to do a bit of research and this is when I found out that it was a Rankin/Bass production which quickly turned my worries into excitement and nostalgia.

For those who are not familiar with Rankin/Bass they are a small production company that made their fortune in the early 1960’s until the late 1980’s making many different types of animated films and movies based on well known stories and fairy tales, they made a lot of Christmas related movies during their most successful years some of the most popular ones to my knowledge are Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer , Santa Claus is Comin to Town and Jack Frost all of these films were made using traditional Stop-Motion animation but they made many other films using standard animation and live action recordings.

I don’t know how I managed to skip Rudolph and Frosty Christmas in July as a kid because it’s definitely a very special movie, I was very surprised when I was watching this because I started to notice that almost every character from the other Rankin/Bass Christmas movies made before this one had some sort of appearance in this movie and from doing some extensive research I found out that for the most part they even used to original voice cast for each character which was a really cool nod to the other movies and more importantly their fans.

This is Lady Boreal who is a very important character in this Christmas Special as she is the person who gave Rudolph his red nose, the fog Rudolph’s nose was used to clear on that one foggy Christmas Eve was not a just a fog but was instead a fog of evil snow dragons sent by the Wizard Winterbolt.

Rudolph’s Magic Nose has been protecting Santa from Winterbolt for years and now Winterbolt has finally had enough, he’s sick of Santa ruling the north pole and so he try’s to find a way to put out Rudolph’s nose for good.

The rest of the movie is just Frosty and Rudolph trying to defeat Winterbolt, they meet their friend who is an ice-cream man, Rudolph and Frosty join the circus and a lack luster battle against Winterbolt pursues.

Frosty and Rudolph Christmas in July is not that great which is real shame because a lot of the other Rankin/Bass movies are fantastic and don’t get me wrong it has the charm and the perfect animation to make a wonderful and innocent family Christmas movie, the big problem is that it doesn’t make a lot of sense and too often it feels like it only existed so that Rankin/Bass could put all of these characters in one movie, the plot wasn’t that interesting compared the other Rankin/Bass films but in the movies defense I have had to sit through a lot worse movies during the holidays.

Thanks for reading my Review of Rudolph and Frosty Christmas in July.

The next Christmas movie I will review is

You can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

Four Christmases (2008) Review

December 4, 2015December 4, 2015 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

They gotta celebrate four Christmases with four families and all in one day.

Four Christmases is about a couple Brad and Kate played by Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon who always lie to their parents and make excuses as to why they cant visit for Christmas every year, unfortunately for them on this particular year they made the excuse that they couldn’t make it because they are doing some charitable work over in Burma when in fact they are actually going on vacation in Fiji, all flights get cancelled due to fog and a news team comes in and interviews them live about how they feel about the holiday being cancelled, of course as you may expect all of the parents see the news report and are very excited because now Brad and Kate can spend christmas with each of the families which is great the only problem is that each of their parents are divorced which means that they will need to fit in visits to all four families on Christmas day.

The movie has a really interesting plot that honestly I have to give praise too as it’s definitely something that could actually happen in real life, I would be surprised if this hadn’t happened to anyone especially given the large number of divorced parents in the world.

What I hate about the movie is everything else first of all it is so obvious that Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon did not want to be in this movie, I don’t think I have ever watched a movie where the actors and actresses have looked so bored and uninterested through out an entire film, Reese Witherspoon did occasionally have fun playing her role a good example would be the bouncy castle scene where she is trying to get back her pregnancy test that had earlier been stolen by a child, the same cannot be said for Vince Vaughn his performance through out the entire movie can be summed up in just two words boring and awkward.

As what is probably expected all of the families are very different and each over play their lifestyles to give off a comedic effect, the families are great and each of them have left me some memorable moments from the film, you got Brad’s angry dad and his abusive kid’s which is the complete opposite to Brads mom who is what most people would call a hippy, Kates mother is played by Mary Steenburgen an award winning actress who has performed in many popular films such as Step Brothers, Elf and Back to the Future 3, Kate’s Mother is dating a Pastor and so to Kate’s surprise shes actually become a christian and Kates dad is just normal

The movie is advertised as a comedy and yet the jokes are just about as childish and cliched as they can get, I didn’t expect much else from this movie given it’s average rating on IMDB but the problem I have is that the film almost does have good Jokes but for some reason it moves on before even executing them, a great example of this is a scene in Brads mum’s house where a kid finds some Marijuana Brownie’s and that’s the joke he doesn’t eat them and it’s never even mentioned again, the kid finding the brownies is not funny but what would of been funny is the affect the Brownies would have had on the kid yet for some reason the movie doesn’t even try to make a joke out of the situation.

Four Christmases was a really disappointing movie, it had a great premise but an awful and effortless execution, the cast was just as boring as the film, the jokes aren’t funny and the entire movie is so predictable that you will know what going to happen before long before it ends.

Thanks for reading my Review of Four Christmases, please comment below if you think I was too harsh and remember this is just my opinion plenty of other people like this movie, I’m just not one of those people.

The next Christmas movie I will review is

You can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) Review

December 2, 2015 ragglefragglereviews1 Comment

There will be spoilers, so keep that in mind

“Every time a bell rings an Angel gets it’s wings”

It’s a wonderful life follows the life of George Bailey, as a young lad George enjoyed a regular childhood of playing in the snow, climbing trees and trying to find adventure in his every step, unfortunately for George after he saved his brother from a near death experience he went death in his left ear.

As an adult George is married with three kids and has taken over his fathers job as a bank manager and everything is going absolutely fine until eight thousand dollars goes missing just when the Bank inspector arrives, this causes a warrant to go out for George’s arrest and at this point he’s lost it.

George runs to nearest bridge and hes about to jump when he sees another man fall into the river, George jumps in and saves the screaming man, the man tells him that his name is Clarence and that he is George’s Guardian angel.

George tells Clarence that he wishes he had never been born, Clarence decides to grant George’s wish and he shows George what life would be like if he had never existed.

Every time I watch this movie I cant believe that there is a Christmas movie about a man wanting to kill himself and yet it is so good, It’s a Wonderful Life is one of the most iconic Christmas classics out there and and with good reason, it manages to send a serious message about suicide while also having enough charm and character to keep it’s audience thoroughly entertained.

The film surprisingly has quite a bit of well written humor on offer and lets not forget it’s brilliant cast, James Stewart (George) and Henry Travers (Clarence) have a really good connection not only as their respected characters but also as actors, throughout the film both of their personalities bounce of each each other perfectly and it’s this connection that really helps the film maintain such a wonderful atmosphere for such a dark subject matter.

The film is runs for over two hours and unfortunately Clarence doesn’t make an appearance until near the end which is a real shame because as much as the rest of the film is still brilliant at maintaining an interested audience I always felt that he should have been in the film more often than he is.

It’s a Wonderful life is and always will be my Favorite Christmas movie of time and I most defiantly recommend to any fan of classic Christmas films.

Thanks for reading this review of I’ts a Wonderful Life

Next film I will review is

You can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

Is there a true meaning to Christmas?

November 29, 2015 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

Whats the meaning of Christmas?

Some would say its too celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ

Others would explain that its about spending time with family and appreciating those around you

and these days most children would say that its about getting presents from Santa Claus

but is there a real answer?

In order to try and figure out an answer to such a controversial question I think that we should at first talk about what Christmas used to be about.

Christianity is probably the most famous and popular religion in the world and of course December 25th is a very important day in regards to the Christian faith as this is indeed the birth date of Jesus Christ.

Christians traditionally celebrate Christmas by acting out the birth of Christ through Nativity plays, opening advent calendars which are used to count the days before Christmas, Singing songs about the good Lord and by exchanging gifts between friends and family members to help remind each other of the gift of God.

Whats that?

Christmas cant be a Christian tradition because your child plays Mary in the Nativity every year at her non catholic school, you and your family knock on doors singing Christmas songs to your neighbors, your children open a door on their advent calendars every morning in December and on Christmas day they have lots of presents to open.

You say you do all of this without fail every Christmas but you and your family are not in any way religious?

Well I would be lying if I said that you didn’t make a good argument, so how did we change Christmas from a religious holiday to a holiday that is celebrated world wide?

The answer to this is quite simple, all we actually did is we just made a few slight and sneaky changes first of all the Nativity hasn’t changed much if not at all and I think this is important because it helps remind us of the holidays origins.

Advent calendars are known to provide between 24 and 25 chocolates as a little treat for children to enjoy every day leading up to Christmas but originally they included small wooden religious figures such as baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the Angel but most of them were just used to help children count the days leading up to the birth of Christ, the days leading to Christmas are known as Advent according to the Christian Faith.

Christmas Carols have always been a thing but the songs have changed immensely from what used to be sung, for example most Christians would sing O Little Town of Bethlehem or Hark the Herald Angels Sing but most non religious Christmas lovers may sing Rudolph the red nose Reindeer or Jingle Bells which of course have absolutely nothing to do with Jesus or the religion that follows him.

Earlier I mentioned that Christians would give gifts to friends and family members in order to help remind them of the gift of god, the biggest difference here is that traditionally you would give one small gift to a friend of family member and most of the time this would be hand made, these days children tend to get loads of presents which will usually include an I-Pad an XBOX or a computer and of course these gifts are usually brought by Santa who I may talk about in a Christmas blog next year.

So whats the meaning of Christmas?

I hope this article has left you pondering an answer to this question, personally I like to celebrate Christmas like most people of the 21st century but I have always considered Christmas a celebration of the birth of Christ and I don’t think that will ever change.

I suppose the true meaning of Christmas is what ever you make of it but in reality these days the meaning is more to do with corporate companies making a lot of money on advertising than it is too do with religion or appreciating family and to me that’s a very sad and unfortunate reality which will probably never change.

Why else do you think we see Christmas stuff in October

I hope you enjoyed this festive article

Any references to Christian celebrations are in reference to old Christian traditions

I know this is slightly early for a Christmas blog but there is a good reason behind this.

Every two days from the 2nd of December on-wards I will be using a special system which will select a random Christmas movie for me to review (even if it’s not animated) and I may also be doing some collaboration blogs with another blogger which will involve some fun Christmas antics.

The First of the Twelve films I am going to review is

Look forward to that and for now Happy Holidays

you can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope (2014) Review

November 15, 2015May 28, 2019 ragglefragglereviews4 Comments

One Knight, One Shovel, One chance of success

Was Shovel Knight an epic masterpiece or were Yaught Club Games digging them selves a very deep hole?

Shovel Knight and Shield Knight are two adventurers who formed a strong relationship with each other, together they would adventure across many lands and discovering many treasures on their travels, one day they tackle the tower of fate seeking a magical amulet, unfortunately the amulet is cursed and upon its discovery Shovel Knight blacks out and awakens outside only to notice that the tower has been sealed and Shield Knight was no where to be seen.

Grieving the loss of his beloved, Shovel Knight gave up his life of being an adventurer and went on to live in solitude, with Shovel Knight gone an evil sorceress called The Enchantress gathered the Knights of the Order of the no Quarter and they started to wreak havoc on the land, Shovel Knight discovers that The Enchantress had unsealed the Tower of Fate and is using it as her new castle, Shovel Knight decides that the only way to save the land is too defeat The Enchantress in the Tower of Fate and to hopefully reunite with Shield Knight.

Shovel Knight plays and feels very similar to three very popular old school Nintendo classics, Duck tales on NES, Mega man and Super Mario Bros 3.

The game is a 2D action plat-former, players will need fight there way through each world using their shovels to their advantage, unlike a traditional Mario game players can not defeat enemies by simply jumping on them as this will cause Shovel Knight to take damage, instead you will need to use your Shovels to bounce off of your enemies you can also hit enemies with your shovel similar to using a sword.

Of course your shovel isn’t the only weapon Shovel Knight can use as there are also items called relics which can prove to be quite useful in the more tougher areas of the game, you can either buy these items from a merchant in town and some items can only be bought by secret merchants hidden each in knight level.

My three favorite relics are

Flare Wand: A magic wand which allows Shovel Knight to shoot balls of fire

Dust Knuckles: This item allows Shovel Knight to punch through blocks of dirt and enemies quickly and effectively

Propeller Dagger: Allows Shovel Knight to temporarily dart through the air for a short distance

Shovel Knight uses a map system which draws inspiration from Mario 3, this doesn’t surprise me as Mario 3 perfected the formula for over world maps in video games and in turn many developers choose this style due to that games success, with that in mind it should be no shock that Shovel Knight follows this formula having the player needing to defeat certain levels to unlock new paths, bumping into other adventurers who want to duel and entering towns to stock up on items.

There are eight knights that you will need to defeat before you can gain access to the Tower of Fate Spectre Knight, King Knight, Treasure Knight, Plague Knight, Mole Knight, Polar Knight, Tinker Knight and Propeller Knight, every time you defeat of one of these knights a new path on the overall map will open allowing you inch closer and closer to the Tower of Fate each time.

You may also bump into wandering travelers on your journey, these travelers will fight you if you cross paths so be wary of which path you take.

Towns will prove to be very important pit stops on your quest as they will allow Shovel Knight to buy new weapons and armor as well as to increase his maximum health and magic, it is also a good idea to speak to the town bard as he will buy any music sheets that you have found while adventuring.

Meet the Troupple King this cross between a trout and an apple will surely prove to be the most useful stop in the entire game, the Troupple King has the ability to create ichors which Shovel Knight can drink.

These ichors come in three colours.

Red: replenishes full health and magic

Blue: become temporarily invincible

Yellow: absorb all near by treasure

Make sure you choose your ichors wisely as you can only hold two at a time, also in order to use ichors you must buy a Troupple Chalice or two from the apple man in town.

Visually Shovel Knight is stunning it has a similar art style to the Nintendo Entertainment System using what appears to be 8 bit visuals, of course there is no way Shovel Knight could run on the NES due to how fast the game runs as well as its large colour palette.

The soundtrack is absolutely perfect for this style of game, its beautifully composed and there is not a single track in this game that I do not love, its not just the composition of the soundtrack but its also the direction that really helps create such a wonderful game play experience, each section of the game has what I consider to be the perfect choice of music for example when the game is intense the music is intense, when shovel knight is dreaming the music is still a lot of fun but its much slower and when your in towns the music is cheerful and a little silly which suits the towns superbly as the towns people are wacky and unusual.

Shovel Knight is a fantastic game and for a project that was only possible due to crowd funding it’s absolutely amazing, make sure to visit the hall of heroes to see paintings of all of the crowd funder’s as well as a secret boss fight.

I don’t know what to say apart from that the game is perfect and as an extra treat when you beat the game you will unlock extra challenges that you can complete and in a more recent update a brand new game called Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows has been added for free and is also available upon completion of Shovel Knight.

but I will get to that adventure some other day

FOR SHOVELRY !! 10/10

I hope you enjoyed my review of Shovel Knight

If you respect my opinion, I will respect yours

By Padawan

Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

My top 5 movies to watch on Halloween

October 30, 2015October 30, 2015 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

When it comes to Halloween everyone has a very different idea of whats a good choice of movies to marathon, I’m not going to make an article about why we tend to watch these movies during Halloween time but instead I am simply going to list my personal top 5 with the reasons why I chose them.

Enjoy

5. It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown

It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown is the Peanuts Halloween special, it includes all of the familiar faces from the show but the special mostly focuses on Linus, Snoopy and Charlie Brown.

Charlie Brown gets all of the bad luck as usual since he manages cut way too many eye holes in his ghost costume and when he goes trick or treating instead of receiving candy he gets given rocks.

Snoopy as usual sits on top of his dog house and pretends to be world war 1 pilot, he is eventually shot down and he has too fight his way through the war on foot, this part is very well directed but genuinely isn’t that interesting.

Finally Linus who is by far the biggest star of this episode spends his Halloween sat in a field waiting for the Great Pumpkin which is a being that seems to only exist in linus’s mind , the Great pumpkin is supposed to leave presents for all the good children in the world (seems he’s got his holidays mixed up)

The Great Pumpkin is a fantastic Halloween Special and for most people its what they remember the most about the old Peanuts cartoons.

If you want a more in depth opinion on the short, you can read my review from last year by clicking on this link

https://ragglefragglereviews.com/2014/10/12/its-the-great-pumpkin-charlie-brown-1966-review/

4. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

I love this movie and if its not for how ridiculous and 80’s it is then Freddy Kruger definitely takes the cake, for those who don’t know the film revolves around a vengeful killer who kills teenagers in their dreams, it’s a surprisingly really fun movie for how intense and quite frightening it can get, with the film revolving around Freddy killing people in their dreams the movie can get very creative and the death scenes are gloriously gory and full of imagination.

Nightmare on elm street in a must watch for all horror and cheesy 80’s film fans.

3. Ghostbusters (1984)

This family friendly comedy follows the adventures of a group of friends who form together to create a new ghost catching emergency service they get calls from people who are having trouble with haunting’s and poltergeists, the Ghostbusters will then remove the spirit from the property for a hefty fine, GhostBusters is absolutely hilarious thanks to it’s fantastic cast some of the more recognizable stars include Bill Murray, Sigourney Weaver and Dan Aykroyd, and lets not forget that the movie also introduced us to that fantastic theme song which is now included on almost every Halloween playlist.

Who you gonna call?

2. Fun Size (2012)

Getting a little more modern Fun Size is a surprisingly very adult Nickelodeon movie, the film follows a teenage girl who wants to go to party with her friends for Halloween but she is unfortunately left to take her baby brother trick or treating, this may seem like a fairly boring plot for a Halloween movie but I assure you it gets much better as her little brother ends up going missing and its up to his older sister to find him before their mother returns home, with some help from some unlikely friends the teenagers have to deal with gun fights, kidnapping and many other crazy occurrence’s on this one stressful Halloween night.

1.John Carpenters Halloween (1974)

This is my favorite Horror movie of all time and it is by far my favorite movie to watch on Halloween, the movie is about the escape of serial killer called Michael Myers (no it’s not the guy who voiced Shrek), Michael killed his sister and her boyfriend when he was just a child he was then incarcerated for life in a mental institution, all seemed fine until 15 years later when he escapes and starts murdering poor unsuspecting teenagers who are spending Halloween night in his home town of Haddonfield

The film stars some very famous people including Donald Pleasence and a very young Jamie Lee Curtis

Happy Halloween 2015

Don’t rot your teeth too much tomorrow and remember to make sure you always stay alert because you never know who is hiding behind those masks

muhahahaha

Email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

I hope you enjoyed this article

By Padawan

Halloween Treats : How to make Adorable and Spooky Owl Cupcakes

October 19, 2015 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

Get your aprons on, your mixing spoons at the ready and prepare to crack some eggs because Halloween has just gotten more delicious.

With Halloween only getting closer and closer, it wont be long until all of us are rotting our teeth with delicious candies, mouth watering chocolates and those apples that people cover in toffee in the hopes that children wont realize that they have actually been tricked into eating fruit.

I decided that instead of buying candy in the usual retail stores I would instead attempt to make some Halloween themed cakes, after much debate about what creatures to base my cakes on I eventually chose owls due to them not having as much love as cats and spiders during the holiday.

What you will need to make these awesome treats

Golden Caster Sugar

Butter

Self Raising Flour

Cocoa Powder

6 Medium Eggs

Malteasers

Orange Frosting

Milk chocolate Buttons

White Chocolate Buttons

First thing you want to do is to preheat your oven to 190 degrees, next line your cake tin full of cake cases

why fill it?

Nearly 30 cakes is why

Soften 280g of either salted or unsalted butter (I used Salted) and add it to your mixing bowl

Add 200g of self raising flour to your mixing bowl

Add 280g of golden caster sugar to your mixing bowl

Add 1 table spoon of cocoa powder to your mixing bowl

and finally crack all six medium eggs into your mixing bowl

Stir the mixture until it has become fairly smooth

Now add the mixture to your cake cases almost filling them but leaving space for them to rise

Place the cakes in the oven for 25 minutes

Once they are cooked remove them from the oven and allow them to cool, once they have cooled you can now do the messy part of decorating them.

Cover the top of each cake in the orange frosting

add a malteaser beak to each cake (I don’t recommend trying to cut them to make a beak shape as I tried this and it did not work in my favor at all)

Add two milk chocolate buttons to each cake to make the owls big eyes

Cut two white chocolate buttons in half and make the owls claws (You may run out of white chocolate buttons and if you do it doesn’t hurt to use the milk chocolate buttons for feet, I had to near the end of decorating)

Finally eat them XD

Thank you for reading this blog

I hope my some what useful cake recipe proves to be a lot of fun for anyone who wants to give these a try, if you do make these you don’t have to follow my decoration technique so by all means get creative and use your imaginations.

You can email me pictures of your halloween cakes at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

Happy Halloween

By Padawan

Dead Space (2008) (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) Review

October 9, 2015 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

SHOOT THE LIMBS !!!

Dead Space is one of those games that has had a lot of praise over the years since its release, I have played through Dead Space a countless number of times and I have formed what I believe is a fair opinion on this apparent gaming masterpiece.

Many fans of the series love the games because of the countless gory ways that the protagonist can die, but in my opinion gory visuals are not needed to make a game good, so I’m going to look at every thing else and I will form my opinion from all the aspects I believe are often forgotten.

You take control of this unfortunate fellow Mr Isaac Clark, Isaac is the Engineer of the ISG Ishumura which is a specially Engineered ship which is carrying a team of explorers across multiple planets to find resources which are needed to help earth survive after an unforeseen event which caused the planet to almost go extinct, after successfully stripping multiple planets of their resources, unfortunately the ISG Ishumura eventually ends up crash landing on a mysterious planet and this is where the game begins.

As soon as the game play starts Isaac and his crew are almost immediately attacked by a very strange race of creatures called Necromorph’s, these creatures kill the majority of the crew and those who survive are separated from Isaac leaving him to fend for himself.

The Necromorph’s themselves definitely add a unique combat style to the game, instead of plowing enemies full of lead like most shooters, Dead Space has the player needing to shoot the enemies in the limbs instead of the head or the chest, this may not seem too special but it does add a whole new feel to the general FPS experience.

Of course shooting all of these aliens is going to need some serious fire power, luckily Dead Space is not shy on weapons as throughout the game Isaac will find many weapons which he can use to shoot, beat and decapitate aliens all day long.

Some of my favorite weapons include the Plasma Cutter which is a powerful single shot weapon, its essentially shoots hot lasers and once it’s fully upgraded it can cut through limbs so quickly that it could make a Jedi jealous.

My next favorite weapon is the Pulse Rifle, this military grade machine gun will tear through your enemies like there is no tomorrow .

and finally the Ripper shoots sharp metal blades at your enemies and of course this can cause a lot of damage, a lot of Dead Space players don’t like this weapon as it can be quite complicated to use as you need to curve your shots in order to have maximum damage, but trust me when you get the hang of using it the ripper will be an excellent addition to your arsenal.

Other interesting elements to Dead Space are the many different scenarios and puzzles that the game throws at you.

When your not collecting resources and trying to escape the ship, Isaac will at times need to deal with Zero Gravity areas, having to temporarily step outside the ship and into the empty atmosphere that surrounds him and this draining his oxygen every second he is outside and finally using his Kinesis Module to pick up heavy objects and to slow down certain aspects of the game.

The graphics in Dead Space are for the most part very impressive, the aliens look great, the environments are very well detailed, the finer details such as blood splatter and shadows are very well done but the human characters look like they came out of a top quality PS2 game which is very disappointing considering that everything else is up to par with a PS3/360 game, its sort of like making a really healthy salad of bell peppers, tomatoes and lettuce and then covering it with bacon and syrup, its not a massive problem but the addition of the bacon and syrup can make a very healthy salad a little off putting.

Dead Space doesn’t have a lot of music but I believe that this benefits the games style and feel greatly, Dead Space is a survival horror which relies on the player listening to the environments in order to avoid being killed by sneaky Necromorph’s, a lot of games rely of music as it helps build up the feel of the game play and helps avoid boring the players, so the fact that Dead Space can keep the player so tense and immersed with such a limited soundtrack is very impressive.

Dead Space is one of the most immersive experiences I have had with a video game in a very long time, it really kept me on my toes and it often had me panicking and genuinely feeling uncomfortable which is the best results that a survival horror can give, the graphics are amazing apart from the graphics of the in game AI’s and the lack of music really helps intensify the game play, Dead Space is also one of the goriest games I have played in a long time, the game isn’t too graphic when the player is just blasting enemies but when you die a death cut scene will play showing the gory nature of how you died in great detail, the controls are absolutely perfect and the game runs at a smooth 60 FPS so if you die only you are to blame, the story is really interesting and it only gets more and more crazy in every installment of the series, one of the main aspects to the story is trying to find Isaac’s missing wife who contacts Isaac as a hologram throughout the game.

Will he find her in Dead Space 1? you will have to play to find out.

Dead Space is one scary, intense and genuinely awesome experience that everyone should play 8.9/10

I hope you enjoyed my review of Dead Space

If you respect my opinion, I will respect yours

Happy Halloween

By Padawan

Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

Disney Infinity 1.0 (PS3, XBOX 360, WII, WII U) (2013) Review

September 15, 2015 ragglefragglereviews2 Comments

Well I finally caved in and bought Disney Infinity

Disney Infinity is Disney’s answer to the Skylander’s franchise, in a very similar fashion to its competitor Disney Infinity requires the players to purchase toys in order to play the game.

The way this works is that you will need to place the figures you have purchased onto the Disney Infinity base, Once you place the characters onto the base they should then appear in the game (ADD ONE FOR SINGLE PLAYER AND TWO FOR MULTIPLAYER!!), once the characters appear in the game you can then either play around in the toy box or you can play a play set (Campaigns), to access a play set you will also need to add that play set piece to the Disney Infinity base.

If you decide to play in the toy box, you will be in a sandbox style game which allows you to simply build your own Disney Infinity worlds, which you can then play in these worlds with various characters including those who are not part of any play sets.

I’m not a massive fan of the toy box mode but I’m sure that the reason for this is my lack of interest in sandbox style games, the toy box mode has a lot to offer and can be great way to pass time when your bored or have friends over, you can add many different objects and toys to your world and many of these can be interacted with, for example if you add a car you can drive it, if you add a weapon you can use it to destroy enemies and you can even build race tracks.

You can earn new toys and items for your toy box by using the Disney Infinity Vault, You gain these items by using a random selector, you can change the items by selecting shuffle and you can gain an item by selecting spin, this will give you a random item from the list that is shown at the time.

When you add new characters to the Toy box they will be added to the Hall of Heroes, the Hall of Heroes is where you can see your entire collection of figures presented as statues, once they reach level 1 they will gain a bronze statue, but if you level them up even more they can be upgraded to a silver or gold statue.

Any power disks you have will also be added to the hall of heroes once they are added to the Disney Infinity Base, there are two types of power disks, circular power disks which can grant characters new powers and abilities and hexagon shaped power disks which can add new items and themes to the toy box.

When your done messing around in the toy box, you may want to play some of the many campaigns that are available within Disney Infinity 1.0.

The Starter pack comes with three different Campaigns which are based on different Disney properties, the campaigns that come with the game are Monsters University, The Incredible’s and Pirates of the Caribbean, each of these campaigns offer a different game play style.

The Monsters University play set has the player taking control over Sulley, Mike or Randall, the objective is too help Monsters University gain more fear it week tokens than their competitive college Fear Tech, the way you earn these tokens is by scaring over students, vandalizing the Fear Tech campus and by setting up pranks all over both the MU and Fear Tech Campuses.

The Incredible’s play set is full of intense super hero action, you can take control of all the entire Parr family (Mr Incredible, Mrs Incredible, Dash and Violet) and as a small treat you can even play through the entire play set as the films villain Syndrome, I think this is awesome but I would have loved it if Jack-Jack was a playable character or even better would be Frozone.

I WANT SAMUEL L JACKSON IN MY DISNEY INFINITY GAME DAMMIT !!!

Your mission is too clear the city of Omnidroid’s, rescue the pedestrians from super villains, help the police capture and arrest many creative villains and trouble makers and finally defeating Syndrome once and for all.

Last but not least the Pirates of the Caribbean play set is an adventure style game filled with swashbuckling action and piracy, you can play as either Captain Jack Sparrow, Captain Barbossa or Davy Jones.

In this Adventure you must find hidden treasures which when combined will create a super weapon which can be used to help defeat the dreaded Kracken, a unique game play style to this particular play set is that it offers the unique ability of customizing and sailing your own ship across the ocean giving the player a sense of freedom for exploration and adventure.

Each of these play sets allow the player to purchase new items in the toy store for example in monster inc you can buy a paint ball gun which you can use to shoot students and in Pirates you can buy new swords for your character and new cannons for your ship.

Graphically Disney Infinity has a very cute and very interesting art style, the majority of the game looks very cartoony and everything is drawn like a toy, for example when you play as a character you will notice that you can see where the arms and legs have been attached to the body, also when you die in the game your character will explode separating its limbs from its body.

I really like that the game looks like a giant toy set because this helps give off the illusion that the figures you buy are toys and not just regular figures, this makes spending your money on Disney Infinity feel more rewarding when compared to similar series such as Skylanders and of course Amiibo.

The Audio is nothing special as its either just the music from the movies or its new tracks that are generally not that memorable or interesting.

Disney Infinity 1.0 is a great game if you like the Disney properties, due to the type of game that Disney Infinity is it’s not worth the money if your not willing to empty your wallet on all the characters and play sets, apart from this it has great controls, adorable graphics and is genuinely very addictive and a lot of fun to play, the only downside is the lack of decent audio tracks and lack of game play for people who don’t want to get into the collection side of things.

7.0/10

Personally I am a collector and I will be releasing collection updates when I upload small reviews of the additional play sets.

My Collection so far 7/29

I hope you enjoyed my review of Disney Infinity 1.0

If you respect my opinion, I will respect yours

By Padawan

Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

You can find me on Miiverse by searching for draskafer

Halo: Combat Evolved (XBOX) (2001) Review

August 12, 2015August 12, 2015 ragglefragglereviews1 Comment

The Halo series is one of the most beloved video game franchises of all time, the series is often said to be revolutionary and a marvel to modern gaming.

I played the original Halo when it first got released and my 8 year old mind was blown away at how amazing the experience was, but does it still hold up today 14 years later compared to the newer entries of the series?

Halo’s plot is very heavily story driven, so I am going to explain the basic plot with as very little spoilers as possible.

A UNSC Space Craft called the Pillar of Autumn is heading home after the effects of the battle of Reach (A game I will get too some other day).

During the lengthy journey home a very large ring called a Halo is discovered, shortly after the discovery the Pillar of Autumn is attacked by a religious Alien Race known as the Covenent, when the ship is about to be taken over Captain Keyes (Commander of the Pillar of Autumn) orders the games protagonist the Master Chief to protect Cortana who is some very realistic Artificial Intelligence that holds information on the UNSC and the location of many hidden planets including Earth.

The Master Chief and Cortana escape the Pillar of Autumn but unfortunately Captain Keyes gets kidnapped by the Covenant, this changes Master Chiefs escape plan to a search and rescue which sparks the rest of the events in the game.

Halo is a first person shooter which for me is usually when I realise that I wont like the game as I have never really been a huge fan of this game play style.

Don’t get me wrong the game play is fantastic as it controls and feels really good but there really isn’t much that makes the game play feel any different too most other first person shooters with the only major differences being that it takes place in space and you are killing Aliens.

You spend the majority of the game on foot blasting the Covenant with an array of weapons including the famous Pulse Rifle which has been a staple to the series from the very beginning, personally as much as I love this weapon I would say switch for a shotgun as soon as you can because trust me later on you will meet another form of enemy which are very vulnerable to the shotgun bullets, for your secondary weapon I recommend that you find your self a Sniper Rifle so that you can take out most enemies from a distance before getting into a real battle (This is mostly for those play on the higher difficulty settings) the sniper is also in my opinion the best weapon to use on the more powerful and better protected enemies such as Elites and Hunters, you will also be armed with some frag grenades and some plasma grenades (Sticky grenades).

When your not on foot you will either be riding, driving, or shooting from some sort of vehicle, Halo offers a wide range of vehicles that you can use to your advantage, the most common you will see in this game will be Warthogs which are the main transport used for the Marines of the UNSC, another UNSC vehicle is the Tank which I highly recommend if you are lucky enough to find one.

The covenant also use vehicles which you can high-jack, the most common Covenant vehicle you will find is the Ghost which is a small hover craft type vehicle which is armed with a fairly powerful laser cannon, you will also see Banshees from time to time these are the same as ghosts but they have the advantage of flight so they can prove to be very useful, Wraiths are another type of vehicle you will come across every now and again, Wraiths are the Covenant’s version of the Tank.

Graphically the game is a bit disappointing, now before anyone comes to murder me please hear me out !!, the graphical design of the game is absolutely mind blowing and for the time not many games could compete with the efforts of game design that Bungie (Game Devs) put into this game, but generally for a game that got released in 2001 everything looks a little bit pix-elated which is not a massive issue but it is quite disappointing when comparing it to other games that got released the same year such as Fusion Frenzy and 007 Agent under fire.

on the other hand the soundtrack is absolutely amazing, at this point I gather that most of you are familiar with the main theme song for Halo, if you are you will be pleased to know that the theme song plays a hell of a lot in this game.

Halo Theme Song – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5yVOFokLVY

The rest of the music is still very good, its very orchestral and really is a wonderful experience for players to enjoy, it holds fantastic artistic values and is perfectly conducted to suit the games premise.

Overall Halo: Combat Evolved is a fantastic game that I highly recommend to any fans of First Person Shooters or fans of SCI-FI in general, it’s the beginning of a fantastic story, the game control smoothly and plays at a fun and fluent pace, the only complaint I have is the not so great graphics for a game that came out in 2001, I highly recommend playing the 360 remake Combat Evolved Anniversary because of this.

9.7/10

I hope you enjoyed my review of Halo: Combat Evolved for the Xbox

If you respect my opinion, I will respect yours

By Padawan

Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

You can find me on Miiverse by searching for draskafer