LATEST ADDITIONS

Anton van Beek  |  Feb 17, 2012  |  0 comments

If the first two Saints Row games were little more than rather forgettable GTA-wannabes, then this latest outing is a much more interesting proposition. But rather than try to reinvent the open-world action genre, Saints Row the Third tries its hardest to simply subvert it, throwing in every outlandish concept and gameplay style it can think of and hoping that somehow it all holds together.

Anton van Beek  |  Feb 17, 2012  |  0 comments

British cinema lost one of its true legends in November with the death of director Ken Russell. Regularly described as an iconoclast and the enfant terrible of the UK film industry, the Southampton-born Russell carved out a niche as one of our most pioneering and controversial filmmakers, yet one who has been mostly overlooked by the majority of DVD labels in his native country. Indeed, the only bright spot surrounding his passing is that UK studios and distributors might finally get their act together.

Anton van Beek  |  Feb 17, 2012  |  0 comments

Clichés are not necessarily a bad thing. There’s a good reason why some ideas are reused over and over again. Ultimately, it’s all about how you can make a cliché work for you.

Richard Stevenson  |  Feb 16, 2012  |  0 comments

Regular readers of this column may find it hard to believe that I have gone green. I mean I have heard of being environmentally friendly, I am aware of carbon footprints and CO2 emissions, but I was never going to let any of that get in the way of my lifestyle. Previously, I made Jeremy Clarkson look like a tree-hugging hippie.

Anton van Beek  |  Feb 16, 2012  |  0 comments

When an avid film-watcher came to St Albans-based FAB AV with plans for a cinema room under his roof, it didn’t look like the easiest of installs. Fitting in a 2.37:1 projector screen and seating for three people, and specifying as close to reference-level 7.1-channel sound as could be achieved, would be a challenge. But with the help of an anamorphic lens, FAB AV managed to live up to his lofty ambitions…

Anton van Beek  |  Feb 16, 2012  |  0 comments

Spin-off shows are difficult things to get right. For every Angel that comes along there seems to be about 10 Joeys - and nobody wants any more of them. All of which means that things didn't look too promising when Seth MacFarlane announced that Cleveland Brown would be leaving Family Guy and getting his own animated series.

Anton van Beek  |  Feb 16, 2012  |  0 comments

The past couple of years has seen a growing trend for remastering older games for the current generation of consoles. Which is great news for those of us wanting revisit a classic with the added benefit of snazzy new hi-def graphics. This month it’s the turn of Hideo Kojima’s legendary stealth-action series to get a spot of hi-def spit and polish.

Anton van Beek  |  Feb 15, 2012  |  0 comments

After success in most other genres, HBO has turned its attention on the fantasy epic with this adaptation of the first of George RR Martin’s acclaimed A Song of Ice and Fire novels. And once again the result is a televisual masterpiece that looks set to live up to its literary source material, which takes the standard fantasy tropes and uses them as the framework for a truly adult fantasy saga of depth and complexity.

Anton van Beek  |  Jan 26, 2012  |  0 comments

With its reputation confirmed by its CGI character-creation work on the Lord of the Rings movies and Avatar, New Zealand facility Weta Digital seemed the ideal choice to create the myriad simians for Rise of the Planet of the Apes. But how did Joe Letteri, senior visual effects supervisor and a director of the company, tackle the challenge of creating convincing characters?

HCC News Team  |  Jan 26, 2012  |  0 comments

Champagne corks are popping at Hannspree's HQ today following the news that it had ranked second in a report of TV sales in Ireland. According to the report, by industry analyst Meko, only Samsung managed to outperform Hannspree in Ireland during Q3 of 2011, with Philips, Sony and LG all trailing behind.

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