Gotta fit more ‘of the’ in there somehow. Let’s really get that sucker going.

My memories of the few Planet of the Apes movies I have seen are vague and not particularly prominent. Like a birthday party you had three years ago, you know you attended, but damn if you can describe anything that went on beyond ‘a bunch of monkey business’.

Such handicapped, I enlisted the aid of my cinematic plus one and brought my Dad.

After watching Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes with him, I asked what he thought of it.

He nodded and delivered his package of paternal wisdom for that day.

“I’d see it again.”

The highest of praise.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes starts with a brief funeral for Ceaser, the all important Ape Jesus who first learned to talk and led the revolution that resulted in the first Ape societies emerging and overtaking humanity.

Then it skips forward by an unspecified amount of time, ‘several generations’.

At once I’m impressed.

A brief link to its past, then Kingdom is right into its own story, neatly severed from any previous baggage.

The last few films become the mythology the completely original characters in this one have to ponder, they are now the mysteries of the past.

In an age of cinematic cowardice, where millions of dollars can only be safely risked on what’s proven to already work, wilfully jettisoning the safety net like that is a move that take some guts.

From then on in we follow a young, intelligent ape named Noah as his tribe of eagle raising Simians comes under attack and he becomes involved in the life of an unusually clever human while trying to save his people.

The greatest impression this movie left on me, one that will stick for a while, was the masterful presentation of its setting.

Human made buildings and urban features sit buried under layers of decay and creeping nature reclaiming it. The world is a jungle slowly overtaking the concrete and metal it’s growing over and some of the scenery we see on Noah’s journey is genuinely awe inspiring.

Never is it made more clear that this is a changed world. The potential of what we unleashed has been realised and we are officially dethroned as the dominant species on this planet.

We don’t get to see the big bad guy on the movie poster for a surprisingly long time.

We hear his name spoken, the bad guys are acting in his name, but we are well into it by the time he first literally swings onto the scene. He is first established as your pretty typical primal warlord type. Seemed the only difference between him and the Scar King from the recent ‘Godzilla x Kong’ movie was that he was much smaller and could talk… also the movie would have been a great deal shorter if he had an ice breathing, weather manipulating Dragon the size of a container ship on a leash, but I digress.

Plot unfolds and dimensions unravel. He gets a chance to explain what he’s about and at some point, the evil monkey dude starts making a worrying amount of sense.

You start to ask if he’s even wrong in the first place. On top of that, the heroes we are following are not necessarily following the same agenda and it becomes a question of who, if anyone, truly has the right idea about what the world should become.

The ending had me genuinely not knowing what was going to happen next. I wasn’t expecting the funny ape movie to have characters with damn near Shakesperian levels of complex motivations and secrets behind secrets but here we are.

By the time we are in the third act, we have multiple conflicting agendas between the main characters and we can’t be entirely certain any one of them is entirely wrong. Even the main villain has goals that at the very least make you hesitate to truly condemn him.

This is a world of Apes now, is it time for humans to really take a back seat? To retreat to our own little islands and let our successors take their rightful place?

Well the characters of the movie have a lot to say on the subject and by the end you won’t be so sure either way.

The post Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (20th Century Studios) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

PlayStation have pioneered console gaming over the years, leaving a path for others to follow.

They were the first to make the move from side scrolling platformers that we had become used to in the 90’s to 3D free roam adventures.

Then there was augmented reality with EyeToy, EyePet still being one of my faves.

Now we have the only home console that offers VR Gaming and now, Playlink.

Playlink allows PS gamers to instantly and effortlessly connect their smartphone to their PlayStation 4 making your iOS or Android device a crucial part of the gameplay.

Two years ago, when the Next Gen version of Singstar released, was our first introduction to Playlink. Downloading a Singstar App turned your phone into a wireless microphone for you to belt out ballads to your overly impressed (or frightened) friends and family (and pets).

In the last few weeks, PlayStation have really hit home the smart device connectivity with a slew of Playlink releases.

Planet of the Apes – Playlink

The first one of this year was That’s You!. A multiplayer trivia game where when played with friends, you are tasked with working out who knows you best.

A series of trivia questions and hand drawings about eachother results in at least one of the players scoring a result that makes them your true best friend… or stalker as they know alot about you.

Now there’s Planet of the Apes.

In this one your mobile device syncs to your console and becomes a controller.

In Planet of the Apes Playlink title it is a story based game, produced by Andy Serkis (actor from Planet of the Apes films) and it tells an untold story in the films’ timeline.

You are presented with a series of choices in which you need to choose the decision for the characters. Ultimately this will affect the outcome of the game. With most having only two decisions to choose from, there are two at least endings.

Singstar has risen again, this time in the way of Singstar Celebration. A handful of recent songs for you to do a hearty rendition to are included and as with the previous PlayStation 4 Singstar, your smartphone becomes the microphone.

Hidden Agenda – Playlink

Hidden Agenda again sees you pair up your mobile phone with the Playlink App and it’s your choice within gameplay to Solve or Sabotage.

Up to five smartphone equipped friends can play with each player having their own set objectives in this suspenseful title. What makes this a killer game is that you will not know if the other players are working with you or against you…

Remember Buzz!?

Well… Knowledge is Power is very very similar. With this title you can pit your general knowledge and speedy response times off against Playlink equipped pals in a race to the Pyramid of Knowledge.

All questions are themed and you can add your own selfie in to the game aswell as choose anyone of the 8 playable characters. Use your smartphone to answer the Questions as quick as you can.

Knowledge is Power – Playlink

Playlink is most definitely a holiday season gig worth treating yourself to. As mentioned your device will connect up to your PlayStation 4. Download the free App that corresponds to the Playlink game that you are playing and then start the game. Once the game is loaded, tapping the games’ App will scan for your PlayStation 4 (you need to be on the same WiFi Home Network) and magic, it will find your console and you connect… and it’s game on.

With it’s simplistic ease of use and even more Playlink titles on their way, PlayStation are setting a new standard for how we play games, all over again.

This season it’s a PlayStation Party at yours… just remind your friends to charge their phones before they arrive.

The post PlayStation Playlink Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

There was the experiment followed by an uprising, the rogue Ape and then the flu that affected humans. Now there is just survival.

Set two years after the events of ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ the human population within the Ape affected areas is still recovering from the virus outbreak. A flu which affected humans mental capabilities, placing a victim almost in to a vegetative state, or in mild cases unable to speak.

Caesar (Andy Serkis) has retreated in to the forests with his clan, living there in hiding with his young family.

The peace between the two races, that Caesar is hopeful for, is compromised by a rogue U.S. Army Colonel (Woody Harrelson).

With an army of his own making and the remaining Apes that once followed Koba they infiltrate the forests and force an unwanted war upon Caesar.

The Colonel himself wants to see the entire species wiped out, not only for revengeful motives but also due to his paranoia that the Simian Flu virus will continue to spread.

Broken away from the U.S. Army, the Colonel and his team have a base in the mountains where (he assumed) he would not be discovered, waging his own personal war at any cost.

War of the Planet of the Apes sets out to offer a conclusion to the prior two films and viewers get to see a darker side, more primordial instinct of Caesar. His prime for peace gets overshadowed by revenge.

With outstanding effects from New Zealand’s own WETA War of the Planet of the Apes is not only an action filled thrill of a film but also one that will emotionally divide the audience.

Apes against Apes, humans against humans and then humans aiming to decimate the Apes.

This third chapter throws humour in to the mix by way of an almost slapstick Chimpanzee called ‘Bad Ape’ (Steve Zahn). A name he picked up from being in the confines of a Zoo and believing this to be his title as this is what his human keepers would repeat to him constantly.

I guess that this was included to lighten the dark mood of the film (but isn’t that the reason we want to see a Planet of the Apes movie?). To be honest, the slapstick Chimpanzee didn’t do it for me and was more of a unwelcome distraction from the main narrative. The film would have done better without ‘Bad Ape’.

Nonetheless, we all forgave George Lucas for Jar Jar Binks – and ‘Bad Ape’ is no where near as bad as Jar Jar.

War of the Planet of the Apes is a foreboding encounter, an emotionally charged action film that takes it slow, at it’s own pace.

For me a perfect score would have been mandatory – if it weren’t for ‘Bad Ape’.

The post War of the Planet of the Apes (20th Century Fox – 2017) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.