Antzy88

In GEARS OF WAR you control Marcus Fenix, a disgraced squad leader of the forces of the Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG). After his cohorts help him to escape from prison, he takes his squad to attempt to thwart the onslaught of the Locust Horde and to destroy their network of tunnels within Planet Sera. An optional second player can join in and control comrade Dominic.

In this third-person shooter, you must make judicious use of all available cover in order to succeed without being wiped out very quickly. When under cover you can shoot from behind it either by poking your head out to have a look at what you're shooting, or you can blind- fire (meaning that you can just poke your gun out without having to look, which is safer but lacks the accuracy of viewed firing). You can also roll to one side or the other to hopefully get to the next bit of cover quicker, if you are on one side of a door you can quickly spin to the other side, or you can jump over your cover (if it's low enough). There is even an option to run lower and more quickly towards the next bit of cover (provided that it's not too far away), which can be advisable if you are in the open too long as being lower and quicker makes you harder to hit.

You have a multitude of weapons at your disposal, most of which have limited ammunition (which can be picked up if it's lying on the ground, or you can top up a lot of weapons for which you do not have full ammo). There are various kinds of pistols and other handguns, although really these are only advisable if you don't have a bigger gun to use. Bigger guns come in a variety of sorts, with possibly the most well-known one being the Lancer, which has the much-talked-about chainsaw bayonet for close-quarters combat. Whereas with some of the other weapons you can strike with the butt of the gun, with the chainsaw bayonet you can rev it up and enjoy something of a guilty pleasure as your character swings the blade into the foe, ripping its skin apart and sending dark red blood jetting upwards, even spraying your screen! (Don't worry, you can still see through it and it does quickly fade). There is quite a bit of gore in GOW, but by far the chainsaw bayonet is among the goriest imagery in the game.

Other bigger guns include (but are not limited to) the shotgun and the sniper rifle, although its chamber can only accommodate one bullet, so you have to reload after every shot.

Reloading presents an extra facet which, when mastered, will allow quicker reloading and more powerful shots. When you start to reload a reload bar appears, with a meter running from left to right; when it reaches the right of the bar your gun will be reloaded. However, if you can stop the meter when it's within a small marked section of the bar which is about a third of the way across you will gain the aforementioned quicker reload and the accompanying benefits.

Also available are frag grenades, although you can only have up to four of these. When you use these you can either just throw them or you can aim using an on-screen arc that shows where your grenade will bounce and where it will explode.

There are also some other more powerful weapons, which I won't give away, but these should understandably be saved for the more troublesome foes.

When you take a hit you start to see a red cog appear on the screen; the more complete it is the closer you are to dying, so get under cover quickly! If it turns into a fully intact cog with a skull in the middle the screen goes bright red and you are dead (unless you're in multiplayer mode, where another player can go up to you and revive you).

Graphics are dark and moody, sometimes genuinely scary and very gory. There are bits later on where a small swarm of creatures known as Kryll will kill anyone who strays into shadowy areas for too long. Sound is equally cool, although some of the dialogue has voices that aren't quite up to the same standard.

Gameplay is simple enough to pick up, and all the various actions are well thought-out, with one button being a context-sensitive button, where your character might flick a switch, kick open a door or turn a valve. Before too long you will be ducking under cover and taking pot- shots at the foes like a seasoned COG war veteran.

If I did have one minor complaint, the scenes in rocky sections (e.g. caves) seem too artificial, almost as if they had been designed to contain cover (I know they have, but it still seems artificial). In the building-related scenes the cover is justified and logical (e.g. church pews in churches, fountains outside, pillars, bits of broken walls, windows etc), but when you see conveniently-placed rocky outcroppings to hide behind it somehow detracts slightly from the immersive experience that GOW otherwise offers. Another complaint involves the grenades in multiplayer mode; some details of the aiming arc can be off-screen if playing using two-player split-screen, which can make them harder to use than normal.

However, GOW stands out as a brilliant game in its own right, and is probably the main reason for investing in an XBox 360, especially in multiplayer mode.

Kham (Tony Jaa, ONG-BAK), who spent his childhood raising elephants with his father, has two stolen and taken to Sydney, Australia. He then catches a plane to this city in an attempt to rescue his beloved pachyderms.

His trail takes him to a Tom-Yum-Goong restaurant, and he recognises one of the guys that was exiting the building -- Johnny (Johnny Nguyen) -- as one man responsible for the elephant stealing. He inadvertently gets in trouble with the police -- one of whom is officer Mark (Petchtai Wongkamlao, ONG-BAK) -- but is soon back at the restaurant, fighting his way to the upper floor in possibly the most memorable scene (more about that later). But when he encounters Johnny and his gang he finds something more horrific and sinister...

Let's get one thing out of the way: whether we like it or not, this film is going to be compared to Tony Jaa's previous outing ONG-BAK, which really blew audiences away upon initial release, especially as we were being treated to martial artistry completely unaided by wires or CGI in a film world populated by the likes of HERO and CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON where fighters floated and ran up walls using wires. We were also introduced to Tony Jaa and his incredible agility, gymnastics and Muay Thai (admittedly combined with other styles) in a way that just grabbed the imagination. Somehow that same freshness is not there in WARRIOR KING, and there isn't really anything that rivals the superb market chase in ONG- BAK.

Also not as good this time around is the general performances of the cast. Tony himself is called upon to get really upset at a couple of intervals, and he simply does not convince in these bits. Petchtai Wongkamlao, who speaks English a lot in this, is neither as good nor as much fun as his Humlae character in ONG-BAK, and bits of his English were hard to make out. There is, however, a nice cameo from the other main ONG-BAK co-star, the young girl Pumwaree Yodkamol, whose brief appearance involves her speaking English, and her English was crystal clear. But its the Australians whose acting is the worst; just fortunate that it's not nearly as bad as in the Jackie Chan film MR NICE GUY.

The only thing that really saves this from being a low-point is the action. Tony Jaa is still fun to watch when he kicks butt, and he still finds moments that leave you astounded; there just needed to be more of them (maybe he showed too many fancy tricks in ONG-BAK?). The fights here are much more brutal than in ONG-BAK, particularly one scene where he takes on a whole gang and leaves almost all of them nursing a broken bone of some kind. There is also a very exciting fight between Jaa and Capoeira expert Lateef Crowder, which is possibly the most evenly-matched fight scene due to both being very agile, which actually makes us believe that Jaa has a worthy foe that could really be a problem for his character.

But the scene that will probably stand out most in my mind is a true cinematic accomplishment: the scene where Jaa fights his way up the restaurant. When you see it you will be treated to a fun-filled action sequence that lasts about four minutes and is all in one shot! The planning for this scene alone must have been a challenge!

But, ultimately, as a film it falls a bit flat. Only the mighty action saves it.

MAGNIFICENT 7 is not a remake of the classic 1960 western, but, rather, a film based on a real-life family of seven children and their single mother Maggi, played by Helena Bonham Carter. Being a sufferer of Asperger's Syndrome, I felt compelled to watch this one-off when it appeared on British television recently.

Like in the aforementioned real-life family (mother Jacqui Jackson, who, along with her children, helped make the 2003 documentary 'My Family And Autism' -- she and her son Luke Jackson have also written relevant books, and Jacqui herself oversaw this film), Maggi has three girls and four boys. The 'catch', for want of a better word, is that all four of the boys have some kind of disorder, especially the likes of Curtis (he is allergic to Christmas and is panicked by anything that is red in colour), Christopher (he has Asperger's Syndrome, is very naïve and trusting, responds awkwardly and sometimes inappropriately to social situations, and cannot understand idioms and sarcasm), and (if I remember correctly) Davey has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

The film itself follows the family over the course of a year in its 90-minute length, complete with some of the struggles as the boys cause (usually unintentional) problems and this understandably all strains Maggi a bit. Christopher, who is unsurprisingly being bullied at school, soon finds a friend in foreign caretaker Dmitri (Bruno Lastra), who somehow seems to click with the family and know a lot about Maggi herself...

While some bits would undeniably be exaggerated (something I always expect in dramatisations of subject matter of this ilk, especially when it's based on a true story), and there are some faults that somewhat watered it down a bit (including the school bullying of Christopher being a bit too tame -- I felt that it needed to be just a little more vicious to bring it closer to reality; and the other noticeable fault is that we are not satisfactorily told just how Dmitri seems to know so much about Maggi on first speaking to her), the fact that this was made and televised at all should, I hope, further enlighten the nation -- and maybe the rest of the world -- to the autistic spectrum disorders and give some indication of the problems -- and sometimes joy and surprise -- those that have such disorders can bring.

Other than that, most people should find this intriguing and informative viewing.