"The true and untold story of prolific rapper, actor, poet and activist Tupac Shakur" Despite the tagline, if you are well versed in Pac's life, there won't be much 'untold' information here. If you are not, then I think this fills you in with many of the major moments of his life. At the same time though, I think you'd have to know something about Pac and the rap world in the '90s or you would probably be a little lost as there isn't a lot of background info given at times. However, while it touches on many key junctures and a plethora of Pac's hits from 'Brenda's Got a Baby', 'I Get Around', 'Keep Ya Head Up', 'California Love', 'Hail Mary', '2 of Amerikaz Most Wante'd, and his featured 'Same Song', that will all get you moving, it doesn't quite give you a sense of his impact beyond the hit songs and acting roles. It also doesn't provide much information regarding why he got into music and how he developed his talent of writing and rapping in any detail at all apart from the fact he got a notebook for a present one Christmas. As a lot of his impact has come since his death, I feel they could have even used the closing credits to demonstrate this a bit better than they did. As happened with 'Straight Outta Compton', others have complained about some important figures not being featured, from his close friend Treach, Madonna, his wife Keisha Morris, Yo-Yo to the Outlawz. It could be argued that the film doesn't go into enough depth regarding the enormity of the East Vs West beef or his work rate in the studio either, (there is a nice little detail provided of Pac telling the engineer to double his vocals), but in reality, it all comes down to duration. They're not going to make this film go toe to toe with 'The Godfather: Part II' for running time. What do they leave out? It's already a long film. The only option was to focus on one integral part of his life rather than the whole thing. Just quietly, I think that wouldn't have pleased everyone either and you'd still have many of the same complaints. The 'true' part of the tagline has also come under fire, particularly from Jada Pinkett Smith who has questioned how their relationship was characterized. From what I know the main points of this remain fairly true to the real story of Pac, down to the careful choice of clothing in any scene reflecting an important real-life moment that was captured by film. The acting was always going to be a talking point with Pac being a larger than life figure. At first I didn't think Demetrius was pulling it off at all, but the longer the film went, the more I felt the performance. I think the scenes show this well when Jamal Woolard is on screen who plays The Notorious B.I.G.. I can't remember what I thought when I saw Notorious but Demetrius seems much more like Pac than Jamal seems like Biggie. Elsewhere, Dominic L. Santana, who plays the man-mountain that is Suge Knight, or 'Big Suge' as he is often referred to in this, does a good job portraying the intimidating figure, as does Chris Clarke who is excellent as Shock G. Jarrett Ellis who plays Snoop Dogg, looks enough like a young Calvin Broadus I guess, but because Snoop dubbs the character's voice it felt odd to me... His dialogue was always so basic as well. The super producer, Daz, played by his son Azad Arnaud, was another strange one. While he is on the screen for a short time, it was like they didn't want to show his face and when he speaks it's...uninspiring. As the rating suggests, it's not a brilliant biopic, but with Pac packing so much into his 25 years on Earth, it was never all going to fit into two hours, so people with that complaint need to finance a miniseries. In my opinion it serves as a decent visual representation of his life from his upbringing in New York and relationship with his mother, Afeni Shakur, how fame changed him, how he was targeted by feds, the infamous beef, through to his untimely death. While I knew many of the details about Pac, I was still fairly engaged and it still had me screaming at him to stay with Kidada rather than hitting the club with Suge in the BMW and it had me singing Pac songs to myself for the rest of the day and checking out any of his discography I'd missed.

After finishing Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain [HEAVY RAIN 心の軋むとき], I got into their next title the following day and finished it within two sittings. This game puts the gamer in Jodie's (voiced by Ellen Page) shoes through flashbacks as a young child, a teen and a young woman in the present. While the story isn't difficult to follow, the fact that her life isn't presented in order does make it a touch confusing at times. The story is very basically about Jodie's supernatural gift, her struggle with it and the C.I.A.'s interest in her gift. The plot also features some Terminator and weapons of mass destruction themes - America has what other countries cannot. This game didn't receive the critical acclaim of Heavy Rain for some reasons that I don't agree with, Some claim that it isn't interactive enough and that it is Heavy Rain part 2... This isn't like FIFA 2001 to FIFA 2002. The difference is more than enough. Heavy Rain probably gives the player more choices at times, but it also doesn't feature something like Aiden who adds a lot to the game. My main issues are that as mentioned the way the game plays out of sequence is a tad confusing, and while still emotive-I chose the revenge option whenever I could for people who did Jodie wrong-it isn't quite as compelling as the mystery in Heavy Rain. Some problems though have been addressed from Heavy Rain. The characters' movement isn't as awkward-although I'd still like the option to run at times-the prompts to make choices are more easily recognisable as well, there's also more to it to being a longer game offering a wider variety of environments to play in. Gameplay 4/5 Graphics 5/5 Sound 5/5 Difficulty 5/5 Originality 4/5

Overall, I'm a fan of Quantic Dream's games and the genre. In terms of playability they've improved each time, and again this is a step up from their last title, the divisive Beyond: Two Souls. This time around you play as three main characters, all of which are androids. The first, Kara, is designed to be a maid. She is bought and placed in an environment of domestic/child abuse and becomes self-aware/a deviant to save the child, Alice. They then end up seeking refuge-this is where the connection to the other main character, Markus, is made. Without giving too much away, Markus is wrongfully blamed for the death of someone and becomes the Christ like figurehead of the deviant androids. The third, Connor, is a cop whose role is to hunt deviants. With Kara the decisions are about how to escape/stay safe and how to interact with Alice. Markus' are largely about how you lead the revolution; passively or aggressively. Connor's are about making the right choices to find the deviants, his relationship with his partner, Hank, and the conflict between doing what he's programmed to do or side with his kind. Although nothing too spectacular, the story is interesting, features some surprises and should keep the player engaged with obvious links to racism and the civil rights movement, except in this case the androids are the oppressed. Because the game switches between three characters, I probably didn't feel the connection to the same level as I did with Jodie, who you never leave in Beyond: Two Souls, but the difference isn't a major one. The QTE works well and the game is lenient if you miss a couple of buttons. Graphically the game is superb, as we've come to expect from this developer. In terms of the controls, look and interact are both controlled by the right analog stick, so at times that is a frustration. The way the characters move can be a touch clunky as well. The final issue that comes to mind regarding the gameplay is that you can't skip cutscenes. You'll want to watch them on your first playthrough, but when it comes to replayability it can be an annoyance. While I do think these games would be a lot of work to develop due to their nonlinearity as well as other reasons, and perhaps the years in development reflects that, the starting RRP does seem steep to me given they don't have the replay value of many other genres. It's obviously a story-driven game and your decisions do impact the narrative in many minor and major ways up to its conclusion more so than Quantic Dream's previous games. If you like the genre and the story's themes/subject matter in any ways whatsoever, you should get something out of this. Gameplay 4/5 Graphics 5/5 Sound 4.5/5 Difficulty 4.5/5 Originality 4/5

The reboot of the famous video game heroine is here, with it being five years since the last Tomb Raider game was released-discounting the spin-off Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. This goes right back to the beginning, with a young Lara, who is lovable as the protagonist, on an exploration voyage with a crew. They get caught up in a storm though and end up on a mysterious island, and it goes from there. Playing this game I could see long time Tomb Raider fans thinking that the series has moved too far from its origins. It isn't a maze of an adventure game with puzzles to complete with the occasional animal to shoot like the older games. It has become a mixture of Prince of Persia, Uncharted and Far Cry 3-it's odd how similar some aspects of the game are to FC3 considering how close their releases were-with shooting enemies taking up a lot of the gameplay, a few relatively easy enough puzzles with a lot of climbing and platforming aspects. I haven't completed all of the side quests yet, but going through the main missions, there was only one puzzle that took me quite a while to work out. Personally I would have liked a bit more of this. To be fair though it has been moving this way since Tomb Raider: Legend. The plot, although a bit repetitive-there are a number of times where Lara has the chance to rescue someone, but then something collapses or blows up obstructing her path-is entertaining, the characters and voice acting is first class that we see in games these days. The graphics aren't top of the range, but work perfectly with the environment, that is extremely detailed, together with great character animation. There is a bit of QTE is the game that I'm not the biggest fan of and as mentioned I would of liked the implementation of more puzzle aspects, and a bit less third person shooting, but overall it is a well made game that any fan of action/adventure gaming should enjoy. I look forward to the sequel that the end of the game gives hints to. 4.5-4 Gameplay 4.5/5 Graphics 4/5 Sound 4.5/5 Difficulty 5/5 Originality 3.5/5

Australian rules football is a hard sport to recreate in a video game because of its complexities and to this day it has not been done very well. This was a fun game to play (and still is) and given the lack of AFL video games meant that I played it, but it has a lot of flaws, including being far too easy. Gameplay 2.5/5 Graphics 1.5/5 Sound 1.5/5 Difficulty 2/5 Originality 5/5