I'm still yet to listen to all of The Roots earlier, slightly more acclaimed material, however, after listening to this and their previous release, and seeing fans of their earlier material still predominately enjoying them, I'm not sure it will do me any good. My main issue with this album is just that nothing grabs me a lot. The hooks are too soft and at times annoying with corny, poor lyrics. 'Right On' is an example of the annoyance of the chorus - very whiny high kind of singing. Also, the rappers, largely Black Thought, don't do much for me as far as their voices go, there ain't a lot of distinctiveness. You could pick a 2pac, Rakim, Ice Cube, Biggie etc out of a crowd of thousands, Black Thought doesn't have that quality. Furthermore, just as I give long albums some leeway, a short album like this needs to knock my socks off, which is doesn't. And call me crazy but I don't understand what you are meant to do with the couple of 40-second songs either. They are over before they begin.

I don't get the Chingy hate that you get in some corners of the internet. Sure his lyrics aren't great, but neither are a number of acclaimed rappers. He can rap and his beat selection isn't too bad here. That is, until the last few songs where the quality really falls away. I think I'm yet to hear one song with Fatman Scoop that has been good. Some decent songs. Best Tracks: Club Gettin Crowded, Nike Aurrs and Crispy Tees, Cadillac Door, Pullin Me Back

This has comfortably the best run of tracks I've heard from anything by J-Kwon. Erryone knows he doesn't have the greatest skills or pen but I'm enjoying the beats on this album (more so the first half or so of it) and some of the catchy choruses. Vocally though it's like he is trying to sound like Lil' Wayne throughout much of this album, he even does that Lil Wayne laugh during 'What You Heard About Me' and he also uses some autotune. One of the most heard things anyone says in rap to up and comers is to be yourself. Subject wise it won't be a surprise that it is all gangster and brag rap also. The gangster side of things has increased more than he has done in the past. It's hard to recommend J-Kwon but I've surprisingly found enough I like. Best Tracks: Close Your Eyes, What You Heard About Me, I'm Shinin', Just Don't Kno, Just Livin' My Life, Tipsy '09

After the unfunny intro, where J-Kwon tells us why he didn't buy a beat for the 'Intro', (to spend money on kush among other things), the two standouts, 'Hood Hop' and 'Tipsy' get the bass going. The strength with these tracks is the bangin' production. Most of everything else isn't as bad as some others will have you believe, there are some reasonable beats throughout it, but it isn't special either. Best Tracks: Hood Hop, Tipsy

Being a fan of the films I was looking forward to this and it stays true enough to the films following the storylines which is great to see. Most of the levels are rail shooters with the ability to duck for cover. These are pretty fun offering an increase in difficulty level after level - except toward the end that I'll touch on later - with different enemies and parts of the environment being able to be blown up or ripped to shreds by bullets. They also mix it up enough and don't go on forever meaning that boredom isn't an issue. Other parts of levels are QTE which are unforgiving early on with one mistake meaning death. Playing this on the computer I found this difficult at times, however with controllers being easier to use than a keyboard in this respect, I don't think people playing the console versions of this game would have too many problems. After the early levels though, there is an upgrade that can be unlocked that means not pressing the button in time doesn't result in death. The third type of levels are with the old bow and arrow. This is when the stealth comes into play. Enemies need to be taken out quickly or bang! Rambo gets a bullet between the eyes if he is spotted. In the early trailers the visuals were criticised for being PS2 like, and they aren't great, with mainly Rambo looking a little bit weird, but everything is clear and some levels offer some nice visuals and scenery and are levels above anything on PS2. As I touched on earlier, the difficulty goes up astronomically toward the final stage. The jump is way too high. I completed all of the levels on the middle difficulty, but I had to change it for the final one. The main difference between these difficulties is that with the middle difficulty level, once Rambo dies 5 times the level must be restarted. Whereas for the easiest difficulty, the retires are unlimited. I ended up dying 13 times once I finally completed the final level. In saying that, higher scores mean more unlockables and skills to use, so the better you are the easier it becomes, and similarly, the player can always replay earlier levels to skill up for the harder levels toward the end. Overall this will not win any end of year awards but it's a bit of fun, and for what it is is made well. It's disappointing that it's a rail game with fixed movement though. I feel like the First Blood levels would have made for perfect stealth levels a la MGS. Maybe the developers could have made it like Die Hard Trilogy, with each film offering different genres of gameplay. Gameplay 3.5/5 Graphics 3/5 Sound 4/5 Difficulty 4/5 Originality 2/5