Darkmatters Review: Unknown

Unknown (12a)

Dir. Jaume Collet-Serra

Reviewed by Matt Adcock

Do you know what it feels like to become insane? It's a war between being told who you are and knowing who you are... Which do you think wins?

My name is Doctor Martin Harris, you’ll never guess what happened to me when I went to Berlin for a biotechnology convention… I’d left my briefcase at the Airport and I had to grab a taxi back – only en-route we were involved in an accident and I was knocked unconscious.

Four days later when I awoke from my coma I found that I wasn’t the man I thought I was. My lovely wife Elizabeth (January Jones) no longer recognised me and to make matters worse some other guy (Aidan Quinn) is claiming to be Doctor Martin Harris!? My only hope of proving that I am not crazy and that sinister things are afoot is to track down the taxi driver Gina (Diane Kruger) whose cab I was in.

Or am I mad? Maybe there never was a Martin Harris? Or perhaps this is all an evil plot and I’m going to have to fight to prove myself.

What would you do to try and take back your life? Surely there’s nothing more worth fighting for… And fortunately fighting back is what this Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) does well. Adopting his ‘Taken’ hard man persona Neeson kicks copious amount of butt in his quest to get to the bottom of what exactly is going on. Car chases, gunfights, beatings and danger lie around every Berlin corner… Director Juame ‘Orphan’ Collet-Serra wants to deliver a Bourne meets Bond actioner but is hamstrung by having to keep the material with the boundaries of a 12a rating. So what could have been a wham-bang crunching cinematic adventure becomes a watchable but unremarkable lightweight dose of low level mystery and thrills.

Unknown doesn’t bring enough new or anything remotely shocking once you get on board with the plot. You can tick the boxes of cinematic ‘tried and tested’ elements including the plucky friend of the hero’s saviour with a short life expectancy, an old-school spy ally, a sinister agent that might not be all they seem – BINGO you’ve got a by-the-numbers action thriller.

As I left the cinema having watched Unknown with my lovely wife, we overheard several people saying the same thing… “It was ok, just not as good a ‘Taken’” and that’s a fair summation.

Out of a potential 5 you have to go with a Darkmatters:

ööö

(3 - single serving of mystery action thrills)...

Awesomeness ööö – nice in places

Laughs ö – no funny business

Horror öö – not very grim at all

Babes öööö – January Jones is hot (see below)

Spiritual Enlightenment ööö – your life is worth fighting for!
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Second opinion - try Geeksyndicate

"Miss January... Jones"

Darkmatters: Killzone 3 Review

Killzone 3 (18) PS3 Exclusive

Developed by Guerrilla Games

Published by SCEE

Reviewed by Matt Adcock

We brave PS3 gamers have fought the Helghast and using the ISA marines pushed into their homeworld thanks to Killzone 2…

Now even with their evil leader ‘Visari’ taken down, we find that the war is far from over…

The Helghast forces are not beaten and are mounting a devastating counter-attack, the few remaining ISA are being pushed back to the point we must evacuate the planet of Helghan.

But if we have to go… let’s go in fine style and take as many of the enemy as possible with us – lock and load soldier!!

"don't shoot until you see the reds of their eyes"

Ok, so there isn’t exactly a shortage of fine First Person Shooter games, Call of Duty and Modern Warfare are mass selling master-classes of the genre, Battlefield Bad Company 2 brought tasty destruction of the environment into play. Medal of Honor got revamped with extra beards, Halo Reach continued its classy sci-fi warfare and newcomer Bulletstorm raised the level of insanity with ‘skill kills’. But as we wait for the promising looking Crysis 2 and the potential game of the year Battlefield 3 ...

There is only one game you need…

Just what can Killzone 3 bring to this overcrowded orgy of destruction then? Well, how about the best and most satisfying online multiplayer frag fest to date, a unique and brilliant motion control method through the Move and by far the richest FPS graphics to grace any console… That’s what I’m talking about… Bring it!!

Killzone 2 was graphically superb but Killzone 3 surpasses it on every level – the levels range from article snowfields which boast the best incidental ‘snow effects’ of any game available through to steamy alien jungles. The industrial Helgan cities and bases return and have been brought to even more vivid life than in the previous games. Both the orange eye Helghast and the macho jock ISA characters are excellent with gorgeous detailing (the feeling of satisfaction when you shoot a Helghast’s helmet off and he turn round to frantically try and find it is immense).

Killzone 3 packs a mighty surround sound punch too – the fear inducing explosions rip from all directions, the screams of the injured and the barked orders of friends and foes echo convincingly around the beautiful battlefields. This game has quality voice casting also with screen legend Malcolm McDowell voicing evil Jordan Stahl and British legend Ray Winstone voicing Helghast Admiral Orlock. Having actors of this magnitude lends the cinematic cut scenes massive watchability and it is a joy to watch the baddie commanders squabbling amongst themselves in the power vacuum left by Visari.

I mentioned that Killzone 3 can be played in two ways – the trusty Dualshock 3 can be used with a Call of Duty button set up which will please fans of those shooters. The new way to play though is through the funky Playstation Move – this uses the glowing light ended controller to ‘look around / fire’ and the nav controller to move. For the most realistic control system out there you’ll want to invest in the sharpshooter peripheral which fits both the two Move controllers into a shotgun / rifle style rig (complete with pump action reloading). It’s just beautiful… Once you acclimatise to set up many have reported getting much better kill / death ratios with the Move controls!?

The main game campaign can be played in either single player mode or through co-op – very satisfying it is too working with a human pal to take down the enemy. It’s good but the campaign is only part of the Killzone 3 package and it’s not even the best part. The online multiplayer mode is where the real fun is to be had – refined and polished from the Killzone 2 online there are a decent choice of game modes including Guerrilla (Team Deathmatch), Warzone (which cycles through different objective based games) and a brilliant ‘Bot Zone’ where you can hone you skills against the A.I. opponents.

Kills and feats will give you points to spend on new abilities and weapons – and the upgrades are very very tasty so it is worth going for them as the gameplay just gets better with each new weapon or skill e.g. the sniper ‘Marksman’ can unlock a powerful Machine Pistol as a secondary weapon which has a ferocious rate of fire…

Overall Killzone 3 is delicious, addictive multiplayer deathmatch perfection… And if you have a 3D TV, this game will show it off like nothing else around. Every gamer on planet earth who has ever enjoyed a shooting game should witness the sheer brilliant carnage that Killzone 3 delivers – there is no substitute!!

"David Cameron's recreation mask"

Out of a potential 5 you have to go with a Darkmatters:

ööööö

(5 - Awesome shock and awe)...

Previous love for Killzone 3 on Darkmatters:
 
Trailer
 
Kevin Butler Advert
 

"If Killzone 3 was a woman in would be Emma Watson"

You can also read this review over at funky Irish site FRANK THE MONKEY