Sonata Arctica "Ecliptica Revisited: 15th Anniversary Edition" Review

...Well, this album has taken a drubbing in recent times, hasn't it? Wherever I look to see comments on this album, all of them basically say the same basic thing: "This isn't as good as the original, it sucks, RIP Sonata".

Woah, woah, woah, hold your fucking horses, guys: the original is still out there and this was not an attempt to replace it in the slightest. You don't have to like this re-recording, but I fail to see where all of the anguished screams of "RUINED FOREVER!" are coming from and why people are treating this as the final betrayal from the band when there were far more valid targets for this reaction...like, you know, there is an album like Stones Grow Her Name out there which is just downright indefensible (and makes me wish I was allowed to purchase and own a flamethrower, as the punishment for this album deserves to be more severe than being condemned to gather dust in my record collection...and I can't be assed to carry a sledgehammer halfway across town), and that's not even touching the snoozefests (to me) that were Unia and The Days Of Grays. To borrow (and very slightly rephrase) something from Yahtzee's review of Aliens: Colonial Marines, your sweetums has been putting it out for a good while, guys. The betrayal ship has sailed, circumnavigated the globe and returned to port laden with exotic spice: I think there's far more vile betrayals out there than THIS!

Hey, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery! And at least I attribute my sources properly...

Anyway, I think the important thing that most people seem to have forgotten in their determination to obliterate this album is that, technically, they're destroying THE SAME ALBUM THAT THEY LOVE. Seriously, it's exactly the same material on that classic album, just in a lower tuning and with a admittedly less impressive (on some levels) vocal performance. It's the same high quality songs, just not as well performed and with a different (I don't say "worse" because I found the original version of Ecliptica was far too heavy on the keyboards and made the rhythm guitar nearly inaudible, so having the positions reversed is not something that I personally object to too much!) production. Even if you're judging the complete package of the album and not just the material on it, I think the word "overreaction" springs to mind, and the fact that even professional critics have had this overreaction just makes me wonder whether I'm the only sane fucking reviewer out there when it comes to this album (and Exodus' Let There Be Blood, but that's a discussion for another time...)!

Now that every Sonata Arctica fan who reads this blog probably wants my head on a pike (sorry, Derek!), let's get started with the cover art, shall we? Well, I really like it! It's got the kind of feel to it that makes me think of it being a perfect way of updating an old bit of artwork. If you will, it's new, but it's old at the same time...and that's really all that I could have expected it to be like, so this is just brilliantly handled! I'm actually kind of disappointed that the band didn't make this cover art available as a poster, as I'd have seriously loved to get it on one!

Well, with that said, let's move to the album itself.

To be totally honest, most of what I could say was what I said when I looked at the re-recorded version of "Kingdom For A Heart", as just about everything is pretty much the same as it was on the original, just given a different (not necessarily worse) production job, lower (and more emotional when necessary) vocals and tuning...and that's really it. The band perform the songs with only a few variations in the quiet moments and with some slightly different vocal melodies that fit in with Tony's more natural vocal range than the Timo Kotipelto impression he was basically using on the original album. To the die hard fans, those differences are a horrific betrayal of the original songs and worthy of flaming the album to death...but, if you take the nostalgia glasses off and look at the differences with as unbiased a viewpoint as possible, the differences actually make the songs a bit better. Let's be honest, as good as the emotional moments of the songs were on the original, the band have gotten far better at those moments since then, so hearing those song now being given the more emotional moments that the band can do with ease now shows just how far the band have come. "Different" does not automatically mean "Bad", if you get the point I'm raising: there's nothing wrong with looking at the issues with a classic and fixing them, providing that what you do does actually make it better, and I feel that the band do that here. The original does has a reputation for being one of the best power metal albums out there, but that doesn't mean it's exempt from having the issues with it pointed out and rectified by either the band itself or future bands. In the majority of cases, I do feel that the band does this.

Blasphemy, I hear you cry? Well, look no further than the production to see an arguable improvement. The original production was far too keyboard heavy in the mix. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing, but the guitar and bass were too far back in the mix and it could be nigh on impossible to hear them properly. In the re-recording, the keyboards are pushed back (TOO far back, if I'm totally honest) and so, at last, the guitar (and, to a lesser extent, the bass) get their chances to shine. Now, this does open up newer problems (I think that the production on the re-recording sounds a bit TOO studio sounding, if you get the point I'm raising), but, in terms of the overall mix, I feel that a real improvement has been made.

Another issue that is rectified is in the vocal performance. Now, this is going to be a very subjective point, but I personally found that Tony on the original recording had a habit of sounding like he was singing in a part of his voice that was not comfortable for him (in a few cases, audibly straining to hit the notes he was pulling off: anyone remember the part of "My Land" after the second chorus where he sounded almost off key?). While it was impressive to hear some of the high notes he was hitting, I ultimately thought that the guy was trying to sing something nearly outside of his vocal range and, while I do still like his voice from that album, his more recent singing style is more to my liking because he just sounds more comfortable singing like that. So hearing him take on the songs and NOT sounding like his voice is at risk of turning in on itself and dying was a marked improvement for me. He also has a much better English pronunciation compared to the debut, so understanding him is far easier, and his voice on the more emotional parts of the album does sound much better. That said, I do agree that his voice has deteriorated over the years, his current vocal style doesn't really fit in with the songs properly (although it's nowhere near as bad as some people like to make it out to be) and the fact that he doesn't really try to go for the highest notes properly on this album does feel a bit disappointing. However, if you were seriously expecting him to try to hit those notes, I have to ask what reality you've been living in or whether you've even bothered to listen to a Sonata Arctica album since Silence, as Tony's not been going for screams like that for a good while now, so it's not like there was no precedent to go "Well, that note's not going to happen any more"!

So, thus far, it looks like the re-recording remedies the worst issues of the original album, makes the songs more emotional than they were adds a few issues which can ultimately be attributed to the effects of time (because, you know, we don't live in a place where time and space aren't important) and is ultimately better than the original album, right?

Well...no.

Most of the album is played in a lower tuning compared to the original album, which isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but some of the songs don't quite work in the lower tunings to the extent that they did in the original tunings. Most aren't as affected as most people like to say they are (or, if they are, it's only a minor step down in quality), but some songs suffer quite noticeably from the lower tuning. In particular, "UnOpened" (which wasn't one of my favourite songs on the original album in the first place) sounds pretty dull on the re-recorded version of the album, "Picturing The Past" feels like it's lacking some enthusiasm in the chorus and "Fullmoon" feels a bit too restrained compared to the original and, even when viewed on its own and actually suffers from the more guitar heavy mix, as the end result feels like the guitar is constantly interrupting the music. I also feel that Tony's vocal performance on the chorus of this song is far too stilted for my liking (as it is on "My Land"), as he sounds like he's just singing the chorus one word at a time instead of doing it as a proper chorus. If this is what the old school metalheads mean when they say modern production sounds too tame, then...well, it's nowhere near that bad, but I feel like the big issue with this version of the song is that it lacks energy and seems a bit forced.

Actually, now I mention that, I do feel that the vocal performance by Tony is a bit lacking in terms of energy. I wouldn't say that he is on autopilot over the course of the album, as he is clearly trying to do the songs well, but I get the vibe that Tony wasn't as eager about re-recording this album as the rest of the band was, for some reason. I know he was eager to do it from interviews, but this doesn't translate across very well in his performance on the album. In fact, his most audibly enthusiastic performance is actually on the cover of Genesis' "I Can't Dance" (which is kind of bizarre to listen to, but I'm not familiar with the original song, so take my thoughts on that with a pinch of salt), not one of the re-recorded songs, which really says a lot.

Anyway, the production...well, pushing back the keyboards in the mix as far as was done does here is going to split people down the middle and, in some cases, does hurt the songs, but I feel that the only issues which hurt this album are the mastering and the drum recording. It is a bit loud in the mastering for me and I can't escape the feeling that the drums feel like they're hitting an invisible wall which shouldn't be there in the first place (which doesn't help with the feeling that the record sounds a bit too much like the product of a studio), but the rest of the album is perfectly fine.

So, what do I think of this album? Well...the big problem with this re-recording is that, while it sorts the most pressing issues from the original album, it does create a few newer ones and it feels like it's lacking some enthusiasm when it really needs it. Which puts this album in a bizarre state where I can't recommend it over the original, but can't say it's completely worth skipping at the same time. I mean, one could make the case that the whole album is pointless when the original is still out there and is basically a better version of what is on offer here, but I wouldn't call it outright bad either. The material is still very enjoyable, if lacking compared to the original album, and I do like most of the changes to the actual songs. I guess the best way to sum up this album is that it's a curiosity: if you're a huge fan of Ecliptica, then it's really interesting to listen to this and see how the band does the album today. You'll need to be open minded when approaching this album and not go into it expecting it to be a flawless recreation of Ecliptica, as not doing so will just result in this not impressing you, but, if you do, you'll probably find it a fairly acceptable listen.

When I do my rating system, I usually place Ecliptica as an 8 out of 10 (the Stratovarius worship really gets to me, the keyboard heavy mix does make me grateful for artists who can include keyboards in prominent positions in their mixes without forgetting that there are other instruments which deserve to be heard and I think there's some songs which just don't do anything for me, but the rest of the songs are really good and the performance on the record are pretty great!), so placing this on the same scale, my feeling is that this is a noticeable step down compared to the original, but it is still fairly enjoyable and the few things it does improve compared to the original, while arguably minor compared to the things which aren't as good as the original album, are enough to push it up a little bit more in my opinion. So, after some hard thought, I've come to the conclusion that my final rating is that this is a bit above an average album. Compared to the original album, it's not great, but, on its own, it's certainly not a bad listen. You might want to stick to the original album for general listening, but, as an accompaniment to going to see the band live today, it gives a far better indication of what to expect to hear, so...yeah, I guess the best way to sum this album up is "for the Sonata Arctica fan who never misses a gig by them", as this is about the closest you're going to get to hearing these songs done like the band does them now without getting a live album (none of which have all of the tracks from this album on them) or going to see them live (which has the same problem).

...That's not really high praise when put like that, is it?

Final Rating: 6 Out Of 10

Favourite Tracks: "Blank File", "8th Commandment", "Kingdom For A Heart" and "Destruction Preventer"

Archievement Unlocked: 100 Views

Just a quick update article: my review of McBusted's single "Air Guitar" has just passed 100 views today.

...I have to be totally honest, I'm really surprised it's that article which is the first to have gained 100 views for me: it was pretty much just written in a few hours by myself because I thought "Well, I might as well talk about this". I wasn't even going to do it originally, as I had other stuff to do which I was working on and that just happened to come up! I also wasn't completely impressed with the final article when I looked back over it: I feel that I could have been a bit more descriptive with my review and I do feel that I missed some potential for a few more bits of humour in my review now that I feel like I'm writing with a (slightly!) better eye for where to place humorous comments. It's a good article, but I feel kind of like I've gotten famous on the back of a filler song from an album: it wasn't me trying to write at my best, just trying to get something done as soon as I could! I genuinely feel that I've written far better articles than that one, even in more recent times (...OK, maybe not the GamerGate and Anita Sarkeesian ones, I'll admit: those ones spawned from the gaming scene hitting a berserk button for me and I actually feel kind of embarrassed about the first article in particular connected to them due to just how angry and intolerant I sounded in it, with only the last two of the four articles feeling like they had some degree of professional writing ability connected to them!), so the fact that my most popular article to date is my McBusted review just feels kind of odd for me. It's not quite to the extent of me looking at it like my blog's "Cherry Pie", but the same basic thought process is behind it: I didn't write it intending it to be a big thing, it was just something I wrote because I thought "Well, McBusted have a new song out...eh, I might as well talk about it!" There was no expectation of being the first person to have a review up about it or anything like that: I just wanted to talk about it. That was really it: it was an article that I wrote just because I felt that I had to talk about the song, with no deeper thought behind it. I won't deny that I saw that there were very few reviews about it when I was writing my review of it, but I wasn't aiming to be the first voice about the track to be heard: I just thought it would be another article which would go up, get about 10 views (maybe 15 at most) and then be quietly forgotten like so many other articles before it. So having an article go past the 100 views mark which I didn't think would be any more popular than anything else I've done before...it's really bizarre, as I'm not sure why it's become such a big deal in terms of views compared to my usual stuff! And, with no viewer feedback (not even a "BEST REVIEW EVAR!"), I'm honestly sitting here going "What the heck is going on?"

Still, it's obvious that something about that article has caught on with people (what it is, I honestly haven't a clue: for all I know, everyone kept coming back because they thought it was so entertainingly bad that they wanted to keep re-reading it in the same fashion that most people watch The Room!) and it's great to see that I've finally managed to pass 100 views for one of my articles after so long stalling in the 10's (sometimes not even that!), so huge thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read that article! As dismissive and rude as I probably sound in this article (I'm genuinely not trying to be, I'm just kind of bemused by the whole situation and trying to be as honest as I can be about the whole thing from where I'm sitting!), it's truly great to see that at least someone out there is interested in what I have to say and, while I still don't get why it's that particular article that has caught on with so many people, it's not like I can complain too hard about getting views when I normally barely get any! So thanks to everyone who has read that article: as bizarre a choice of article to keep revisiting as I think it is from my perspective as the writer of it, you're still managed to brighten up my day and I'm really glad to have people coming back to this blog!

Video Game Review: "Rayman Legends"

Well, it's been a while since I've done one of these...

Over the past month or so, rather than the vast collection of games which I SHOULD be playing for review work, I've been playing the two Rayman games that Ubisoft have released in the 2010's, 2011's Rayman Origins and 2013's Rayman Legends. And I do have to say that both games are really good, but tell me to pick a favourite and I will not hesitate in saying Rayman Legends is the better game...but that doesn't mean that I think it's perfect. Let me try and break it all down for you.

Rayman is one of those icons from the console era of gaming to surprisingly buck the trend a bit in that, instead of being popular on the Sega Genesis (or the Sega Megadrive in some aspects of the world) like Sonic The Hedgehog was or on arcade systems and on handheld systems like Mario (originally under the name Jumpman) was, he came around when the Atari Jaguar did (although he did come out on the PS1 around the same time) in 1995, which arguably makes Rayman the youngest of the iconic console gaming heros. Now, Rayman was a REALLY difficult game: I think it took me a few years on and off before I finally managed to beat the game, and I still had to cheat a bit by using the internet to help me find some of the hardest ones just because I never could find them! However, it was a very rewarding game as well, as it felt great to finally beat the last level and it kept me entertained for many years, so I guess one could argue that it is mission accomplished for that game. My only question is what happened to Betilla after you defeat Mr. Dark, as I don't think I remember that ever being answered in the game itself...

Anyway, I surprisingly missed a lot of the games that came out after Rayman did. I did hear about Rayman 2 and kept meaning to pick up a copy, but I didn't manage it until earlier this year, so my next encounter with Rayman was with Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, which I found...well, I didn't dislike it at all, but the Knaaren levels had me creeped out for a long time (and they still do, in all honesty) and playing the game, while fun, didn't feel as rewarding as Rayman did. It felt like it was lacking something which made Rayman so great. I loved some of the touches in the game, though: the power ups were really nice, the villains were all really memorable (Razzoff springs to mind at the minute!) and the level design was all rather good. I also quite like the music from it, the humour in the game itself did get a few chuckles out of me and the "tutorial lessons" on how to kick Rayman all got a good laugh out of me (with my favourite ones being when the hoodlum instructor gets HIMSELF killed instead of "Rayman"!). My next experience with Rayman was with Rayman Raving Rabbids...which I thought was disappointing. I liked the music mini-games and the shooting mini-games and found the costume variety to be really great, but most of the rest of the mini-games didn't grab me much or just struck me as uninteresting. I'll admit, I'm interested in seeing what Rabbids Go Home is like now, but, after playing through Rayman Raving Rabbids, I just found myself going "When is the next proper Rayman game coming out?"

And then the PS3 came out and, being stuck with my PS2, I forced myself to accept that, with my copy of Rayman lost to the mists of time, the only Rayman games I would be playing would be Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc and Rayman Raving Rabbids.

Disheartening to read that, isn't it?

Well, this is where my best friend comes into the equation. See, in our last few months in college, he was selling one of his two PS3's (his dad and him had separate ones) and he offered me it. I took him up on that offer and, to cut a long story short, I've now played Rayman 2: The Great Escape and the two Rayman games of the 2010's. I've not yet re-picked up Rayman yet, but I probably will do that once I've finished writing this review. And I might see what other Rayman games are out there which I missed...

The point of all of this? Well, Rayman, to me, is just one of those icons who I loved from my childhood (I'm not going to lie, there were times that I wished I WAS Rayman!) and being able to finally catch up with him after years has honestly been really great. Yet, if I'm totally honest, I feel sad about it because I now realise that there has never been a definitively perfect Rayman game. Rayman suffered from ridiculous difficulty that, while fun, could be off putting if you weren't used to it (and, even if you were, there were more than a few points which would have been incredibly frustrating) and didn't really have a plot (although, in fairness, most games from the 90's didn't have a lot of plot), Rayman 2: The Great Escape has graphics which don't stand up well now and suffers from rather awkward controls, Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc got a bit too caught up in poking fun at itself and felt like it was lacking something to make it truly great and the less said about Rayman Raving Rabbids, the better. The 3D addition to the Rayman series arguably hurt the series because it stopped playing to its strengths and tried to be something that Rayman wasn't. Now, I'm not saying EVERY 3D Rayman game has been bad, but, like with Oddworld: Munch's Oddysse and Sonic Heroes (although I did actually like that one), the 3D addition to what had previously been a very successful 2D platformer just didn't work for me. Maybe it's because most of the games I loved as a kid were 2D platformers (and I will admit that a 2D platformer is still like catnip for me now, even if it's on the premise of being 2.5D) and shooters only took over that spot because so few people seemed to bother making them on a noticeable scale, but, in my mind, a 3D platformer usually tends to mess up on the fact that what made a platformer fun was the fact that it didn't need a complex plot. What made them good was that getting through them properly took skill (...well, assuming the controls were fluid and responsive, of course!) and that what helped to sell it was the visuals: if they were really good to look at and were creative, then the lack of a proper plot didn't really matter. In the 3D age, however, games seem to need a plot, and that rarely meshes well with platforming games for me. I don't need to know that I'm chasing a guy down because he blew up my house, murdered my wife and ate my sandwich (although it certainly is nice to have context if you wish to provide some...), just give me a fun game to play and I'll be happy!

That's why Rayman Origins struck a chord with me when I finally got to play it: it was fun to play, had great artwork and didn't force a story onto me that I wasn't interested in. The characters were all great, so unlocking them felt like a great experience, the mosquito levels were great fun and I liked the challenge of the game. HOWEVER, I still had issues with it: some of the cages were a pain to find, a distressingly large amount of the challenge felt a bit too much in the vein of Rayman, the replayability of the game feels a bit forced due to having to reply levels just to unlock the final level and the teeth levels...let's just say that I've never bothered to replay those levels since I beat them the first time. I also cannot escape the feeling that Rayman Origins was made in an attempt to see if Rayman still had any appeal in today's gaming scene, as, though it was good and clearly had effort put into it, I still felt a bit like the game was treading water. It felt like Ubisoft weren't sure Rayman had the potential to be viable today in the same way that Mario and Sonic are, but still were willing to give it a go just for the sake of the fans like me who longed for a return to the 2D platforming days of the character's early life...and, while I certainly commend them for their hard work and thank them for it, I still cannot shake the feeling that they weren't completely confident in the game.

No such doubts see I in Rayman Legends. This is the work of a games company who knew they had it in them to make a great game and worked their hardest to make it the best game they could. And I think they did it perfectly, to the extent that I would not be afraid to say that Rayman Legends might just be the best Rayman game ever, if not the best Rayman game since Rayman itself! Yes, it still has issues, but, in the vast majority of them, I consider them nitpicks.

Let us start with the visual style of the game. It's just beautiful! I imagine that, even if you're a member of the Glorious PC Master Race and, as such, think 30fps is unplayable, you'd struggle to disagree that the art style for Rayman Legends is still one of the most artistically stunning styles that has been seen in a video game for a good while, and it certainly casts doubt on the accusation that video games cannot be art! The overall effect can be summed up as making the whole game look like it's been painted, which gives it a very interesting effect that is similarly retro and unique, with some impressive lighting effects work that would put many 3D games to shame! Rayman Origins certainly looked good, but I think that Rayman Legends actually looks better than it does...and I thought Origins looked pretty damn good in and of itself, so let that speak for itself!

The overall controls are really great. They're pretty fluid and responsive, in addition to being fairly intuitive if you've played a platformer before now. I do have one point of contention, however: you don't seem to move towards the ground quite as quickly as you'd expect that you should. It's not a serious issue, but it does mean that there will be occasions where you'll overshoot a jump by a tiny bit because you take longer to land back on the ground than you think you will. I adjusted to this fairly quickly, but I would recommend that you not play this game immediately after you play another platformer, as this will throw you off a bit until you've mentally adjusted to it. This is an issue which has carried over from Rayman Origins, so it could be argued as being a stylistic choice for the games, but I think the games could have done with being a bit stronger with the gravity, as it feels a bit like Rayman is on Uranus (which is VERY close of the gravity of Earth, but is a bit less stronger than it).

Yes, I know, Uranus is funny when said out loud, now can you please stop giggling at the inevitable assortment of immature jokes that you've come up with before I have to tell you to stick them somewhere that the sun doesn't shine?

...Wait, that didn't help at all, did it?

Anyway, the number of characters in the game is pretty impressive. I've not made an overall count, but I know that there are ten princesses in the game who can be unlocked simply be rescuing them (there's two per world, with the obvious exception being the final sixth world) and you start the game out with six characters...and there's MORE than that which can be unlocked simply by collecting enough Lums, with one available if you rescue all 700 Teensies. I mostly stuck with the princesses because I thought they all looked badass, but, as all of the characters play the same, there's not really a lot that needs to be discussed with them.

I didn't get a chance to play the game with anyone else and I was playing on the PS3 version of the game, so I can't talk about the multiplayer very well in the actual game, but I can talk about the challenge mode...and it's a HUGE amount of fun! While I personally liked the story missions more than the challenges, there was a lot of variety to them and they are varied in terms of challenge: you've got the standard daily challenges, the standard weekly challenges, the extreme daily challenges and the extreme weekly challenges, and all of them are addictive in just how fun they are! I will say that having to unlock each challenge mode is arguably a bit of a moot point (I'd have personally said having them all available from the start would have been a better idea), but the requirements to unlock them aren't too tough, so it's only an issue if you've not got a lot of free time or you're speedrunning the game (which isn't as easy as you'd think it is: all of the worlds aside from the first have minimum Teensie requirements to unlock them, with the final world requiring 400 of them, which is pretty much all of the ones available in the main game without playing levels from the remade levels mode!).

The overall level design is great! While I do feel disappointed that there are no new mosquito levels in the game, you do spend two levels playing as a duck (yes, really!) and the music stages are really great: definitely some of the best levels of a game that I've played in a long time, as they're great fun and challenging enough to make you feel epic for beating each stage without dying once! There are also some challenge levels (noted in the game as invaded levels), which are races to rescue Teensies from being killed via firework and (in a VERY nice move that makes me feel nostalgic) being chased by a shadow version of Rayman which kills you upon contact (people who remember the final world of Rayman will be going "Hey, that sounds familiar" and getting nostalgic, I imagine...). They're all pretty challenging, but their unique level designs prevents any accusations of lazy design: none of the challenge levels are lifted from the levels and getting the golds on most of them is one of those frustrating challenges where, instead of wanting to throw the controller away, you find yourself gripping the controller tightly and gritting your teeth...although I REALLY don't like one of them just because the timing on it is so tight on it! That's not to say that the actual levels outside of those are dull, though: they're all seriously great, with each world having a very interesting theme to it. My personal favourite has to be the fourth world, 20,000 Lums Under The Sea, due to it basically being an extended reference to Jules Verne and his novel 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (which I have actually read! Great novel, highly worth checking out if you like novels from the 19th century!), but my favourite level overall would probably be the music world from the third world.

Why, I hear you cry? How does the thought of mariachi version of "Eye Of The Tiger" sound to you?

Absolutely hilarious? Well, that's the background music for that level...and it's coupled with some AMAZING level design to boot! In fact, I'll go one step further and say that ALL of the music is absolutely great for the game! While some songs are clearly taken from Rayman Origins (the music you get for getting a gold medal at the end of every level is the disco music you hear when you get a medal in Origins), the music overall is still brilliant!

What about the plot of this game? Erm...about the closest you get is sending the villain of each world into space at the end of it, but you could be forgiven for thinking that the whole game has no plot. I'm not too bothered by this personally (it's a 2D platformer with occasional 2.5D moments, so long as the game plays great, I'm happy!) and this was something that was admitted as being the case in pre-release promotion for the game (with the guy who first created Rayman, Michael Ancel, even saying that the plot was like that of a porno: going straight for the important part without worrying about the context of it), but I can imagine that some people will find the absence of a real plot kind of frustrating!

Now, all of this sounds really great, I imagine...but I do still have some sticking points. I feel that the final world being mostly made up of 8-bit remixes of the previous music levels, only with additional (and annoying) screen effects to make the levels even harder AND the absence of checkpoints (which can make the fifth world's remix particularly frustrating!) do make me feel that the development team ran out of ideas about then. I also feel that, for the most part, the challenge of the levels is a bit too easy. If you're patient, don't mind taking your time and you're willing to check a few things that you'd normally go right past, it's not too tough to find most of the Teensie cages and, in most of the levels, there's more than enough Lums for you to get a gold medal without too much extra effort than what you'd usually put into getting through the level. Now, this isn't to say that all of the levels are easy, but, for most of the game, the challenge doesn't really feel like enough for me to feel like I'm being challenged by the game...although I DID manage to beat "The Land Of The Livid Dead" level from Rayman Origins with far less difficulty than you'd have thought I'd have managed it in (the only real challenge for me being the boss of that level!), so I'm probably not the best person to judge the difficulty of the game! I also think that the absence of new powers to be unlocked during the game, while a sensible decision, does mean that it's a bit too easy to get 100% completion of the main game. My last issue is that, if you're going for 100% completion (read: unlocking every character and attaining the highest level of Awesomeness), you're going to be playing the game for a LONG time: beating the main game only just got me about 100,000 Lums, (with about 20,000 of them coming from lucky tickets) and 440 Teensies (a few of which from lucky tickets). While I've not played the Back To Origins levels yet (so I could feasibly get all 700 Teensies), getting a million Lums and the eleventh level of Awesomeness are probably going to be out of my range for a while now, so, if you're a person who likes to get 100% completion on stuff, be aware that you're going to be in for the long haul!

That said, the only ones that I think drags the game down are the last world being remixed versions of the music worlds and the huge amount of time and effort required to attain 100% completion (and the second one will ultimately depend on what type of gamer you are as to whether that's a bad thing or not). So, while it's not a perfect game, it's certainly a fantastic game that is really worth playing! If you've not played this game yet, then I would suggest remedying that, as this is a game which is truly worth playing. With this game, I feel that Rayman is finally in a position to reclaim his oft forgotten place as an icon for platform gaming, and it's truly a shame that the game (and Rayman Origins) didn't get the sales that such a titan of platform gaming deserved, as it is a game which could prove that platform gaming is not dead to anyone who has played it.

So go play it if you haven't yet, and see why I consider this game to be a missed classic of the modern games industry and probably the best Rayman game to date. I'm pretty sure you won't be disappointed!

Final Rating: 8.5 Out Of 10

Pink Floyd "The Endless River" Review

Pink Floyd...what can I possibly say about this band that hasn't been said by so many other critics? They are one of the best loved British rock bands of all time, they are one of the biggest names in progressive rock, they released one of the best rock operas in music history...there is so much history connected to this band, and there is so little that hasn't been said by so many that I feel that, even if you were to give me a year to cover the band, I would still end up saying nothing that nobody knew already. From the Sid Barrett-led psychedelic rock of The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn and A Saucerful Of Secrets, the Waters-led progressive rock masterpieces of Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here and, of course, The Wall and the Gilmore-led atmospheric direction of A Momentary Lapse Of Reason and The Division Bell, Pink Floyd have done a lot in their time.

...And yet Pink Floyd, surprisingly, have never been a band that I've really liked. Don't get me wrong, I never hated Pink Floyd, but I was more fond of punk and simpler styles of music as a kid, so progressive music and me have always been more like that weird neighbour you have who you never speak to, but keep hearing about in passing: you know that they're well liked and keep meaning to give them a chance, but you still know that you're not likely to get along, so you don't give them a shot. While I will admit that progressive music has SLOWLY been gaining some interest from me in recent times (Queensryche, Crimson Glory, Seventh Wonder, Kansas and Rush have been making their way up my list of favourite bands in the last year or two), Pink Floyd simply have never gained my interest before now.

So, why am I looking at this, their long awaited fifteenth studio album? Two reasons: one, my mum's a Pink Floyd fan and I figured she would want to get the album anyway, so I got it to stop her from complaining about how much music I get and two, I've been checking out a few of their songs like "Pigs On The Wing (Part 1)" and found them at least enjoyable, so I figured it would be worth taking the plunge into a full on album by them, and where better to start than with the album that the band themselves seem convinced will be their last one?

...Stop typing that message calling me an idiot, I know it's dumb logic as well!

Anyway, this is going to be an interesting album to review for several reasons. Not only am I coming to this album as a relative outsider to the band's music, but I also have little knowledge or interest in ambient music, which is what this album is mostly made up from. Since this is also somewhat new territory for the band as well, this means that I not only have to review an album that many would have a valid reason to say is one which I am unqualified to give an opinion upon, but it is also one which is breaking new ground for the band in question.

...This could well be the worst review I've done to date, bearing that in mind. Ah well, I'm nothing if not a brave fool, so let's do this!

Anyway, let us start with the cover art for this album. It's...well, really plain, in all honesty. I don't think that's a bad thing, but it leaves me asking a lot of questions like "who's the guy on the gondolier?" and "Why is there a boat travelling across clouds?", none of which, admittedly, are essential questions! I guess one could say that the idea is based upon the imagery of the River Styx combined with the typical image of heaven being a bunch of clouds and the man is presumably meant to be Rick Wright sailing over the clouds, but I'm not sure how accurate that would all be. It's possible I'm over-thinking it a bit. Anyway, the idea is certainly interesting, I just think it feels like it's lacking something.

Now, before I start, I'm going to discuss the box the album comes in, as I got the CD and DVD two disc set. You can confidently skip the next two paragraphs if you just want information about the album, but I feel that I should review the set.

The outside of the set is a fairly large white box (about the same size as the set that Kamelot did for Silverthorn) with the cover art on the front and, on the back, the track listing on the album, as well as the full contents of the set. I do find it a bit odd that the track listing of the album is noted down as four sides in the same fashion as a vinyl record, considering this is the CD version of the set, but I imagine vinyl fans will get a kick out of it, so take that complaint with a pinch of salt.

The contents of the set is comprised of several things which will be of interest to most Pink Floyd fans. There is a small 40 page book that mostly is made up of photos of the band, presumably during the original recording sessions for the album in the 90's due to Rick Wright being present in most of the photos. I imagine that fans of Pink Floyd will find this great to look through, but none of the photos have captions, so, for a person like me who isn't familiar with the band, it's not going to be much help at all. It also makes it hard to confirm when the photos were taken, so having a larger book with some information related to the photos would have probably been the better idea. The book also includes the details of the songwriting credits and all of the other stuff you'd expect to see in the liner notes of the album. Also included in the box (aside from the DVD and CD themselves, but I'm getting to them) are three postcards with interesting designs. I don't get why they're described as being for collectors, as it's not like they're rare or anything like that, but, for what it's worth, the designs on them are very enjoyable. One of them is an image of two members of the band (presumably David Gilmour and Nick Mason), one of them is a shadow of the statue from the cover of The Division Bell and the final one is one of those weird ones where, if you move the postcard, it changes what is on it. While I doubt most people who buy the set are likely to ever use the postcards as postcards, they're certainly a very nice addition to the set. Finally, we get to the CD and DVD. It is the way that the CD and DVD have been provided in the set that I have to make my biggest complaints, as they're provided in cardboard sleeves. For a set like this, I feel that this is maybe a bit cheaply done, as they don't really provide much protection for the CD and DVD and don't really give the feeling of a set made with proper care and attention to making it a high quality set. I'm not necessarily demanding that they be done in digipack forms, but a more secure way to store the CD and DVD would have been a better idea for a set like this, as even recessing their container into the set doesn't necessarily make them more secure. So, as an overall set, it's actually not too bad, I just think that there are a few things that a bit more care and attention to detail should have picked up upon and improved for the sake of making a set worthy of mention in and of itself.

Well, now I've got my gripes out about the set itself (and, no doubt, proven myself to be the TotalBiscuit of music reviews...), let's start with the material on the album! I'm not going to review the DVD, as I imagine most people aren't interested in that much, so consider this a review of the CD only from this point onwards!

With the exception of the final track ("Louder Than Words"), the whole album is instrumental, which places the emphasis on the band's music in a very interesting way that I'm not sure the band have done before now (or, at least, not for the majority of an album!).  Now, the problem with instrumental music is that it's very tough to do it right, which is why most bands tend to avoid writing them simply because they're actually far harder to write than you'd think: you have to make the music interesting, but make it able to avoid sounding like a song. This means avoiding common music structures that you hear in songs (you know, the verse-chorus pattern) and often writing the music to be memorable in ways which do not sound so melodic that people can picture it as a song (which may well require writing with an almost progressive viewpoint on the structure of the music and, as such, will require not writing anything that repeats enough to count as a chorus). That's a surprisingly tough thing to get right, even if you're doing stuff with an emphasis on atmosphere like ambient music, and even a skilled musician is going to struggle to write an instrumental properly, ESPECIALLY if they're used to writing songs.

Pink Floyd seem to get around this simply through not having a structure to ANY of the music on the album. The end result feels more than a bit like a long jam session than anything else, which is perfectly fine if you like that kind of thing, but I personally just found it somewhat dull. In fact, I found myself yawning while listening to the album whenever I tried to listen to it more than once in one sitting. Granted, the ambient style of music is generally a style which implies a heavy amount of atmosphere and a soothing sound to it, so you could argue that the band pulled the style off perfectly by making me start to feel sleepy while listening to the album, but I'm not sure that the band aimed for the album to be a cure for insomnia! It's all incredibly pleasant, but I feel that it mostly lacks anything of real interest to make it become actually memorable. There are various moments which are certainly interesting, but they don't stand out enough to prevent the whole album from blending together and becoming a bit of a bore, if I'm totally honest. Again, I'm not really knowledgeable about ambient music and Pink Floyd were never a band who I held to be among the bands that I felt I had to listen to, so this could all be me speaking from a lack of experience, but the whole album feels like it's trying to do something which it simply can't deliver on. I've read some other reviews which indicate that there are quite a few hints towards earlier songs in Pink Floyd's history, but I honestly couldn't pick them up at all! For most of this album, the album simply goes in one ear and out of the other, leaving no real impression upon you. Even repeated listens don't help it to improve the songs memorability: most of them simply don't improve much with repeated listens. It's hardly bad, but I think most people would be forgiven for losing interest very quickly while listening to the album, as there's just not a lot that's really going to stand out to most people.

The performances, luckily, are still incredibly good! While I don't think the music is really that memorable, it's certainly very well performed and I imagine that hardcore Pink Floyd fans will be pleased with the performances on the record. The only performance that I think will be questionable is Gilmore's vocals (and the lyrics to the same song, come to think of it) on "Louder Than Words", as his voice is...I hesitate to say that his vocals are band, but they're certainly not that great. I think the true star of the album, though, is Rick Wright. Now, this is going to sound odd if you've not heard the album, but Wright manages to support the music on the album perfectly while still managing to stand out in his own very interesting way. As a tribute to the guy, this album's only flaw in the lack of memorability: I otherwise feel that this is an album which truly highlights the ability of the late musician and makes his contributions to the band heard in a way which cannot be missed!

The production on this album is really great: it's got dynamics, it's got audible bass, all of the instruments are placed great in the mix...no complaints at all! I'd really love to hear more albums with production like this, as it's just great to hear an album with this type of production.

So, overall, what do I think of this album? Well, it's just...there. I wouldn't call it a terrible album by any measure and, with this being so far out of my comfort zone, I accept that my opinion on this album is going to be useless to most people (and, in fact, I would really encourage you to take my review on this album as just a bemused outsider's opinion on the album instead of that of a real critic), but I ultimately don't see this being an album that most people are going to want to listen to. If you're a hardcore Pink Floyd fan and like ambient music, then this will almost certainly be a treat, but, for everyone else, this is probably not worth picking up, as it's not what Pink Floyd fans will be looking for and will leave people who aren't Pink Floyd fans even more confused as to what the big deal about the band is.

I normally would provide a rating on this album, but I feel that I cannot provide one and be sure that I've fairly managed to represent the album within the style of music it is in, so I shall not include an official one for this review. I personally would like to represent the album with a score of a 4 out of 10, but I'm strictly running by what I'm used to and am not able to compare it to similar albums, so consider the importance of the actual words of this review to help you to make a decision as to whether to purchase this album (if you haven't got it already: this WAS the most pre-ordered album in Amazon UK's history!) and make your decision based upon that instead of my unofficial score.

Why Quality And Personal Taste Do Not Overlap

Oh boy, this is going to be an interesting one...

An article I've been working on and off on for a few months has been related to the whole PC vs console war that seems to be ever popular on the internet. While, for me, I prefer consoles for various reasons, I do recognise the benefits of PC gaming and would even be happy to admit that one of my favourite video game series of all time is on the PC (specifically, the Dawn Of War series).

Yet some PC gamers (specifically, the ones who take the whole "Glorious PC Master Race" thing far too seriously) really get on my nerves whenever they casually insult console gamers, claiming they're deluded teenagers who have never played a PC game before and, if they were to play one, they'd suddenly reach enlightenment and stop holding the whole gaming industry back and...yeah, guys, if you seriously think that EVERY console gamer hasn't played a PC game before now and is clinging to consoles for no valid reason, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you. There are genuinely people like myself out there who have played PC games before now and who recognise the benefits that PC gaming has, yet still prefer consoles overall for various reasons.

So why do console gamers, sticking with an inferior product, not want to take up the glorious benefits of PC gaming? Well, there's a lot of reasons, but, for now, the point I wish to make is that a lot of the arguments all fall upon a line of logic that a lot of people seem to get wrong: the belief that what a lot of people consider to be better will apply to all people. As unbelievable as this may sound to some people, it is very possible to understand exactly why something is so beloved by so many people and recognise the influence it has had on something else...and still not like it. Personal taste and quality do not necessarily mean the same thing, yet a lot of people seem to think that it does.

Let me give you an example that might be recognisable for a lot of people and takes me into (hopefully) less controversial waters: a lot of people say that organic food is the best type of food out there and is the most beneficial overall. And they do have a point: organic food doesn't damage the environment (...well, not to the extent that mass produced food does, at any rate) and the overall quality of the food is USUALLY higher. Yet, if someone were to say that I was destroying the planet through refusing to eat only organic food, I'd think they had a stick up their arse the size of Cuba. There are genuinely valid reasons why someone like myself might not want to stick with purely organic food. Ignoring having allergies and picky eaters (like myself on both accounts) for a few seconds, the simple fact is that organic food is very much dependant on what the country can supply for food...and that means that it can be seriously affected by what can be produced during each season. That variety can be a HUGE problem for some people, as having to change your entire diet every three months due to the fact that some foods only show up for that long (if not even less than that) does not make most people happy. Also, due to the fact that there is more crop losses means that there is less food made from each crop, which it is very possible for shortages to occur (heck, it still happens for mass produced products!) On top of that, organic food usually costs more to produce and, as such, costs more to purchase. If you're living on a low income, organic food is pretty much always going to be out of your budget. On top of THAT, "higher quality" can mean ultimately nothing in terms of the actual taste of it: I've had organic food several times over mass produced food and I've not noticed the difference between the two. If you will, you can make the perfect wedding cake if you want to, but I'm still going to go for a mass produced speckled donut when I want a snack just because I prefer the speckled donut: the fact the wedding cake is perfect don't necessarily mean I'm going to like it more than the donut.

So, before everyone starts asking me what speckled donuts and wedding cakes have to do with video games, let's say that you are a hardcore PC gamer. What does that mean you usually have? Good internet connection speed? Well, hate to break it to you, but there are places in the world which don't have that option available to them. I lived in a hamlet for several years (I actually preferred it there than living in a town, but that's not really the point) and it could take up to a minute for Google to load (granted, on a bad day, but there was still a noticeable wait between ordering the internet to open and it actually opening!), so, even if I'd had a computer which didn't react to games as if I'd poisoned it, I simply didn't have a good enough internet to play games (and the one I have now is still a bit hit and miss due to its fondness for committing suicide at exactly the wrong minute), so an offline console was the only way to go. Good quality computer? Mine struggled to run Dawn Of War and I have never been able to play Morrowind because even the best gaming computer I had (which was a laptop that could run Dawn Of War, but had a habit of crashing every couple of hours when I did) couldn't run it (yet it could run Dawn Of War...yeah, go figure), so I definitely didn't have that! Me and my family didn't have the spare cash to get a new one and nobody in my family or circle of friends knew how to build one, so upgrading it was out of the question! Good number of people to play games against? Yeah, my largest friend circle was about eight people (and not all of them were gamers), so I didn't have that! On top of that, the bus service where I lived sucked (think one bus every fifteen minutes is bad? Try one bus every two hours, and it didn't always turn up when it was meant to!), so visiting my friends was difficult at best and nearly impossible at worst. Wireless internet? Not an option where I lived: we had enough difficulties with the internet when it required a wire, we would have been stuffed with a wireless system!

For someone who grew up around computers and had those things form the offset, it's easy to say that PC gaming is always better than console gaming, but, where I was living, PC gaming was just not an option: I had to stick with a console if I wanted to play games like TimeSplitters, Tomb Raider: Legends and many others. And I nearly always had to get them pre-owned or as presents for my birthday or Christmas because I didn't have a lot of cash back then. Heck, I didn't even get a PS3 until a friend of mine sold me his last year: for most of my teenage years, I was stuck with only a PS2 due to no longer having my Saga Genesis or PS1 for reasons I would prefer not to talk about at the minute, only getting to play my Wii whenever I visited my mum's house (and, when I did, it was nearly always to play Guitar Hero: World Tour or Super Mario Bros. Wii) and having a Game Boy Advance SP for playing various Pokemon games and the occasional other game (and a Game Boy Colour held in reserve, which is paying off nicely now that my Game Boy Advance SP is refusing to recharge for any reason!). The basic point I'm making is that, for me, PC gaming wasn't an option because I simply wasn't living in circumstances which made such a prospect worth it. When downloading a game would take out the internet to the whole hamlet AND would take all day, it really wasn't worth getting the game, and it certainly wasn't worth getting the game on physical release when I was pretty confident my computer wouldn't run it without a lot of reluctance at best!

Now, I'm pretty sure my situation is a somewhat extreme example of being a console gamer by necessity, but there are other gamers out there who will bring out the preference card as their only reason. As much as PC gamers like to scoff at that reason, there is actually some valid logic behind it in this case. See, consoles are far more convenient for what they do than a PC. While one could fairly argue that the PC is worth the extra work to hook up to a TV, most people who play consoles don't have the knowledge or free time to do all of the extra work, so they're happy with just plugging their console into the TV and power socket and booting it up. A PC, by contrast, will usually require you to unplug it from your usual desktop system, carry the thing to your TV (which can be pretty dangerous if you have your PC up a flight of stairs or two from your TV, even if you can lift the PC and carry it safely on your own), set it up, find a way to allow you to navigate the system, find a way of doing all of that without it being uncomfortable or difficult to do (which can mean having to move the whole room around purely for your gaming session if you're unlucky), find your game, open it up AND THEN get to starting to play it. Then, when that's done, you have to turn it off safely, disconnect it from the TV, carry it back up to your usual desktop system and connect it back up. When given the choice between the two options like that, most people will just go "Stuff that" and stick for the easier option. And, since most people can't afford to have a PC purely for their TV gaming experience and another one for work related stuff, that means using a console if you want to play games on your TV or, if you are a PC gamer, sticking with having your PC connected up to a computer monitor. A worse option it may be, but it's the best option for most people for more reasons than just personal preference: it's financially better, it's far more convenient and it's definitely safer (seriously, try dropping a PC on a solid floor and tell me your heart doesn't skip a beat!).

Also, well, some people just prefer using a controller over a mouse and keyboard. I know I do: I find that a controller just feels better in my hands than a mouse and keyboard does whenever I play games!

Now, let me get on my soapbox and say something that may shock people: I HAVE NO BEEF WITH MOST PC GAMERS. In fact, I'd say that the PC is definitely the gaming system with the most advantages (note that I do not say it is "the overall best system for gaming"). My beef is with the people who take the Glorious PC Master Race thing far too seriously, as it is often them who make the whole thing out to be like a war, and treating console gamers like crap just for preferring consoles doesn't exactly put them on my list of people to want to talk to. If you are a member of the Glorious PC Master Race, then may I make a suggestion to you, from one person to another? For the love of god, drop the holier than thou attitude and try a more friendly approach if you want to encourage someone to try out gaming, as your attitude is actually making console gamers like myself have MORE reason to avoid taking up PC gaming because we don't want to be associated with assholes like you! A little kindness and willingness to have a civil discussion to help console gamers at least consider getting into PC gaming without resorting to insults will go a lot further than you think it will!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get back to playing Rayman: Legends on my PS3. Because it's an awesome game that makes me remember when gaming was fun and gamers weren't tearing each other to shreds just because of the systems they played and stuff like that...

...God, that's made me feel depressed, having to say that! Where'd I put my Freedom Call album, I might need it...

Robin Thicke "Paula" Review

...I have to be totally honest, this is an album which I picked up for review fodder. However, this is a rare case where I've picked up something for review fodder where I feel that I have a reason to review it beyond "I need to review something". See, everyone who has even faintly heard of Robin Thicke will have no doubt heard about his separation (and, from the looks of things, soon-to-be divorce) from his wife, actress Paula Patton, in February this year and the fact that this album (which came out in July) is based upon material that might very well have been written around the time that they were going to separate does NOT make it an album that will appeal to most people, especially considering that it appears to be a love album towards Paula, which is INCREDIBLY awkward in light of recent events connected to the couple.

Yet...I feel that most people who reviewed that album actually looked at it not through the perspective of what the album itself sounded like without the knowledge of what was going, but, instead, let their knowledge of events influence their reviews of it. I'm not going to say that nobody reviewed the album fairly, but the overall feeling I get is that most people who reviewed it spent more time focusing on how the album fit in with what was going on with the couple at the time than focusing on the album itself, and that's not really a fair way to judge the album. Yes, it's important to mention, but suppose someone were to pick up the album months down the line with no knowledge of the events that inspired the album? Are they going to be able to join the dots? I think not, and it is for them that I am going to write this review.

That said, before I start, I do feel that I have to give context on why, despite not liking Thicke much and feel that most of the events that lead to his separation (and possible soon-to-be divorce) from Paula Patton can be fairly blamed upon him, I do have to say that I do actually feel a bit sorry for him. See, he and Paula have been a couple possibly since before I was born (I'm 21 now, for reference, and have a birthday in May) and have certainly known each other since before I was born (they apparently met in 1991). Let us put that into context: everything I have seen and done in my life has been while the two of them have been a couple. That's a HUGE amount of history to sweep under the rug and forget about, and even friendly break ups between couples who have only been together for a few months can be really tough to get through (...from what I've heard: I've never even been in a relationship, so I wouldn't know how tough break ups can be from personal experience): imagine trying to sweep nearly 21 years worth of memories under the rug with someone who you have been married to for nearly a decade AND have a child with.

Yeah...let that all sink in and think about it.

Now, while I think that Thicke's behaviour does not make him particularly deserving of sympathy (if some of the reports I've heard are correct, he's been involved in infidelity, which is hardly behaviour most people's girlfriends will take kindly to, let alone wives that you have kids with and have been with in some form or another for over two decades!), I do have to say that I honestly wouldn't have blamed him and Paula of wanting to take breaks from the industries they are in or imposing a ban on discussing their private lives with everyone until they feel like they're ready to talk about it if they wanted to. It's ultimately a very fair thing to say "I'm sorry, but I don't want to talk about that just now" when it comes to painful matters like this (no matter how the press likes to spin stuff like that into making it sound like you're angry with the other person) and I do say that the two of them deserve to have their privacy respected until such a time as they're ready to discuss these matters in public. I don't know whether both of them have done that, as I've not followed them (I'm a metal fan, for goodness sake: why would I follow the private lives of an R&B/pop singer who I cared nothing for when I heard his breakthrough into mainstream popularity (sorry, but I didn't like "Blurred Lines": I'll stick with "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk and "Treasure" by Bruno Mars when I want to hear disco influenced hits from last year, thanks!) and an actress who has not appeared in anything that I've watched before now?), but, if they haven't, then I'd be very surprised!

Now, why do I bring all of this up when I'm going to ignore it once I actually start the review? Two reasons: I want to highlight why this is an album that is REALLY awkward listening experience when you listen to it if you have those factors in mind, but also explain why I think that a lot of people have been surprisingly insensitive to both Robin Thicke and Paula Patton by focusing on the circumstances surrounding the making of this album and, in the process, done a bit of a disservice to the people who wanted a real review of the album. Yes, it would be impossible to talk about the album without mentioning it, but there is a difference between mentioning something for the sake of context and speculating on everything connected to the album purely because you think you know why the album was made and using that to form your opinion of the album, and that is what I feel most people who have reviewed this album have done. Some people might feel that is justified, but, at the end of the day, the quality of the material on the album is the actually important thing, not the circumstances surrounding it.

And that really is the question which needs to be asked: is this album actually worth listening to or are the circumstances surrounding it more interesting than the album itself? Well, let us put aside the circumstances of this album and let us find out!

First up, the cover art. I'm not going to lie, I took one look at this and thought "Well, that's one black mark against the album already". I don't like cover art which is just a photo of the performer on it at the best of times, but this feels kind of like it's taking the piss a bit. Seriously, Robin Thicke in front of a black screen with various lights (that oddly make me think of a stereotypical Rastafarian hat) covering him? That's pretty fucking unimaginative! I'm not exaggerating much when I say that I probably could come up with a more imaginative idea for cover art for this album in less than five minutes...in fact, I have: an image of a somewhat realistic looking heart (obviously, drawn, not a picture of an actual heart!) with cracks covering it to form the album title (the cracks can be removed if that's not the point of the album, but the idea is still basically the same). Want to know how long it took me to come up with that? About a minute (technically two, as I came back with the idea for the cracks to form the album name a bit after writing that and moving on to continue writing this bit), and I did it sitting in my chair without having actually listened to the album (beyond a snippet of the first track of the album) at this part of writing the review AND without putting any real thought into it. In fact, I got the basic idea for it from Good Charlotte's album Cardiology, so it's not even me being original! And I STILL came up with a possible cover art for the album that is more imaginative than the one we've got here! Either I am in the wrong industry or everyone involved of working out the cover art for this album was being completely unimaginative...

Well, that's that over and done with, so let's finally move on to the album!

The good thing that I can say about this album is that it's surprisingly varied: musically, it does a lot more than I'd have expected from an album by a pop artist. You get some points which remind me a bit of big band music, some more typical modern pop music and a few RnB influenced songs. The variety, unfortunately, doesn't stop most of the songs from being uninteresting outside as background music...and it's REALLY tough to do that when you get to songs like "Lock The Door" and "Black Tar Cloud", which both can be downright harrowing to listen to even when you don't know the circumstances behind the album, as they're very harsh depictions of things which you'd not expect to see in a pop album at all.

This is not an album that is easy to listen to, even with forward warning like I had, because it's really not an album that's meant to be listened to so much as experienced. If that was Thicke's intention (creating an album that sums up the breaking up of a marriage in rather unpleasant detail), then I have to admit that it's an intriguing idea that I could get behind if it was very well done. Unfortunately, the album hits two pretty serious road blocks which drag the album down for me: the fact that it is based on reality (which I'm trying my best to ignore, but it's very hard to do that when some of the songs indicate some VERY unpleasant behind-the-scenes stuff!) and the fact that so little of the material leaves a proper impression upon you (or, when it does, for entirely the wrong reasons!). I almost feel like this album is looking inside the mind of a man who is on the verge of falling apart...and I wouldn't be surprised if this is actually pretty accurate for summing up Robin Thicke at the minute, as it doesn't feel like an album that Thicke wrote when he was wanting to create an album to be listened to by the general public, but, instead, wanted to use the album as a reason to get his thoughts on the breakdown of his relationship out into the public. Some artists have done that and made it work, like Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Fleetwood Mac, Bruce Springsteen, Phil Collins, P!nk (yes, seriously: Funhouse was produced after she separated from her boyfriend (or husband? Not sure which he was...)), Adele and Paul Simon (seriously, anyone else notice that most of those artists have been solo artists of some sort?), but Robin Thick isn't going to be on the list of artists who can make classic (or, at leave, very good) albums with that idea on their minds. He probably won't be the worst artist to have made an album running on this idea, as I can at least listen to some of the songs on this album without complaint and, on another album which...isn't like this one, they could be rather enjoyable listens, but, when the best songs feel like they're still lacking something to make them worth listening to frequently..."abandon all hope, ye who enter here" sounds about right.

OK, dropping the cynicism for a second, none of the material on this album strikes me as being completely unsalvageable. Sure, it's HIGHLY awkward to listen to if you know the circumstances behind the album's creation and there's very little material which is worth taking from the album...but it's not in that position out of being insufferably bad. Mostly, it's just not especially memorable, which is not the same as bad, but is arguably WORSE overall in terms of what you expect from the album, as being left with a bad impression of the song at least means the song had an impression on you. This album, however...most songs leave either a poor impression or no impression on me. The closest song to being a highlight is "Something Bad", as, despite being a bit repetitive, it is at least given a fairly enjoyable hook and is pretty catchy overall, although the lyrics to it do let it down pretty seriously (in particular, the final two lines to the second verse would probably make Steel Panther blush and left me going "Did you seriously just put that line in a song? Because I've heard more subtle innuendos from glam metal bands!"). No word of a lie, if this song was given better lyrics, I'd actually be inclined to call it a fairly good pop song! No luck with the rest of the album, though: "Get Her Back", despite being the album's single, leaves me bored, "You're My Fantasy" is an overly long song that doesn't even warrant being nearly six minutes long and, while I like the swing jazz influence to "Time Of Your Life", it's not interesting enough to really warrant repeated listens. These songs all had potential to be good, but, whether it's due to their lyrics, their overall connection to a theme for an album that is somewhat uncomfortable to listen to or just not being especially interesting in their released forms, that potential is never really capitalised upon.

I have to give some credit to the performers for their very good work on this album. While nothing they do is particularly difficult, they perform the music very well. Also, credit to Robin Thicke for one thing, he doesn't actually have a bad singing voice: he has a very pleasant tone to his singing voice which makes him very listenable, he has a fairly decent range (although I wouldn't say his singing range is exceptional either) and he doesn't really try to force himself to do something which his voice isn't suited for. I don't think Robin Thicke is likely to have any major lasting appeal as a mainstream pop artist and his lyrics put forward some very unsavoury opinions about women which makes me wonder whether Steel Panther could just cover a Robin Thicke song without changing the lyrics and nobody would notice much beyond the lack of strong language or sexual references, but he certainly has a voice that paints him as at least a passable vocalist and I can understand how he managed to maintain a career for about a decade before getting noticed among the mainstream.

If I did have to give the album proper praise for something done well, I have to say that the production is actually pretty good overall, aside from my usual complaints related to modern production rearing their head (although, happily, to a much smaller extent than usual!). It's got the polished production job that you'd expect from a pop album, but none of the instruments feel like they've been neglected to me in the mixing process and the mastering, while still a bit loud, feels a bit more respectful to the ears that a lot of metal productions that I've heard. I almost feel like commending this album for the production values alone...but, in all seriousness, this album's simply not good enough to suggest checking it out just for the production.

So, overall...actually, I think this review makes my point clearly enough to not really need to sum it up here. This just isn't an album that I can recommend, as there's so little to it that's worth checking out that I actually feel kind of surprised that Robin Thicke (or his label) thought this album was release worthy. If you're a die hard fan of Robin Thicke, you might find this worth at least a single listen (and might come out finding it an acceptable album), but, for most people, this is not really worth checking out, even ignoring the elephant in the room about the album's creation. I highly doubt Robin Thicke is reading this, but, if he is, I'd suggest he take a break to allow himself to get over Paula before he writes his next album, as making another album like this one is just not going to be a good move for him in the slightest!

Final Rating: 3 Out Of 10

Personal Favourite Tracks: Erm...none really, but "Something Bad" (ironic, when you consider the title of the song...) had the potential to be pretty good and only sabotaged itself due to the lyrics being pretty poor.

Toy Story 4: A Franchise Ruined Forever Or A New Start For A New Generation?

One thing which has popped up in my Facebook's news feed recently is this little gem: there is going to be a Toy Story 4 coming out in June 2017, and it's going to be directed by John Lasseter, who directed the first two, but NOT the third one (that one was directed by Lee Unkrich).

Now, I have to say that my first response was not euphoria OR immediately screaming that the franchise was officially going to produce its Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (which I actually liked, but that's another matter for another time...), but was "Well, that's an interesting decision...". Don't get me wrong, I was excited about the idea of it, but I'd felt that Toy Story 3 was the perfect ending to what I consider to be the best trilogy ever made (yes, I would seriously put the Toy Story trilogy as the best trilogy ever made in the history of film, and I'm saying this as someone who loves The Lord Of The Rings trilogy and the original Star Wars trilogy! I won't even say "best animated trilogy" ever just to attempt to hold some form of critical integrity (since when have I ever had any?), because I hold that animation is a completely valid medium in and of itself to tell stories (if anything, I'd argue that it's STILL an underrated medium for telling stories due to the status among most people for animated works to automatically mean that it's only for children), and making out animation to be a lesser form of art than live action works is completely wrong to me, as I'd argue the inverse is actually true when you sit and think about it hard enough!) and, even now, I do not feel confident that there is any way to continue the story from where Pixar have left off today.

However, after some deeper thought, I think there is some potential in this idea, but, as shocking as this might sound when I say it, I do have some concerns for potential pitfalls which could make this the worst Toy Story film to date...although, granted, that's probably like being the worst Golden Globe winner, as you're still talking about something which is still likely to be really good, just not the most exceptional of the best!

Let us look at this cynically for a bit and see what potential pitfalls this film will be facing before I turn towards a more positive (and, hopefully, interesting) take on this.

First of all, focusing purely on the reputation that the Toy Story trilogy has, you're dealing with a fourth addition to a film series that is one of the best film trilogies ever made AND which is having to tell what is likely to be a story without Andy (because, let's be honest, getting Andy in Toy Story 4 is not really likely to work out well). This is going to mean a whole new environment to get used to, so this sequel already is starting off on a poor foot: the characters are the same, but the setting they are in is going to be VERY different from the last three films and, with that, is likely to come a change in tone. Toy Story 3 got VERY dark at points (incinerator scene, anyone?), but I don't see them being allowed to go further than that, so the tone of Toy Story 4 is likely to be more light hearted compared to Toy Story 3...and that's going to feel like a step back, no matter how well it is handled. And, well, any step back is going to hurt the film, even if it's for a justified reason in the creation process. In all honesty, weighing up the reputation of the Toy Story films and thinking about it hard enough, one could fairly argue that there is no way to make Toy Story 4 without it being seen as a decrease in quality on some level: if the film goes darker than Toy Story 3, it's going to probably be too dark to be considered a family film and, as such, would cause complaints from quite a few people, but, if the film takes a step back, everyone who liked the darker tone of Toy Story 3 is going to dislike it for taking a step back. It's really a bit of a lose-lose situation, from where I'm looking at it at the minute.

Secondly, moving to my earlier complaint, I think that there's no real way to continue the story of Toy Story without hurting the perfect ending to Toy Story 3. I've used the word "perfect" twice to describe the ending for Toy Story 3, and I do not use that word lightly: the ending hit every emotional note I should have expected from it, did it in a way that struck a chord with me, being about a year away from entering college myself when I saw it, and was a conclusion to the trilogy that I simply think could not have been bettered. Everything was just done to perfection, and I couldn't imagine a better ending to a trilogy that I hold so close to my heart. I do not exaggerate much when I say that the first two Toy Story films defined my childhood, alongside Monsters, Inc., The Hunchback Of Notre-Dame and The Pirates Of Penzance, so for me to say that I consider Toy Story 3 to be on the same level as the first two films...that is not just me saying that to seem impressive, that is me basically saying that, if Toy Story 3 had come out when I was still a child, I would have considered it a defining part of my childhood. Let that sink in...

So having the ending of Toy Story 3 effectively turn out not to be the end...I'm really sorry if I sound like I'm stuck in the past, but I simply cannot picture a story that I think would work to follow that film up or improve upon that ending in any way. For me, and most other people like myself who grew up with the first two Toy Story films, that was the ending we all were looking for, as heartbreaking as we might have found it when we actually saw it happening, so there is no way that a continuation can take that and make something new work without ultimately making that ending seem hollow now. I'm actually fighting back tears having typed that now that I've realised that, that's how much that film's ending meant to me and how hollow it's going to seem now that I know it isn't the final end to the trilogy any more.

The third issue is one which might not seem obvious at first, but requires me to look at the fact that John Lasseter is going to be involved in this. On paper, that's a brilliant thing: the guy who helped write all of the Toy Story films and A Bugs Life AND the guy who executive produced films like Frozen, The Princess And The Frog, Wreck-It Ralph and WALL-E is involved in this? SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!

...Except he's also the guy who co-wrote Cars, Cars 2 and Planes? I WANT A REFUND ALREADY!

...OK, in fairness, I did actually like Cars (it was a fun watch, if not one of Pixar's finest moments by any measure), but the point still stands: since he co-wrote three of the worst received Pixar films, that indicates that it is possible for him to drop the ball, and the fact that his most recent involvements on a writing level (except for possibly The Pirate Fairy) have been among the worst received Pixar films means that there is a valid reason to have a healthy level of scepticism about the strength of the writing for Toy Story 4.

That's all I can really say for now, as no other details have been revealed. So let me try that other spin: maybe Toy Story 4 isn't going to be a film for the audience who grew up with Toy Story and Toy Story 2 being watched frequently on VHS (anyone else remember those?), but is for the audience who are coming up today who never got to experience the joys of Toy Story like I did. While the old grumpy sods like me will probably be sitting and complaining about how it's not the same any more when we see it, it should not be forgotten that, when we were in our early childhoods, it was films like Toy Story, Cinderella, Hercules and Pocahontas that entertained us when we were growing up. Yet, whenever I look at animated films today, I see no films like them out there any more (and I'm not just on about the 2D hand drawn style of the last three I mentioned, although I would really like to see more films like them today). In this day and age, there isn't the next generation's Toy Story. There isn't the next generation's Dragonball Z. There isn't even the next generation's Harry Potter. In this day and age, so many of the great works which defined our childhoods and inspired us to become writers, artists, actors and critics simply do not exist any more. And that is truly heartbreaking for me, as it leaves me with the sad belief that so many great creative mediums are going to be lacking the John Lasseters for the generation after the next, the Akira Toriyamas of the generation after the next...even the J. K. Rowlings of the generation after the next.

So, in essence, I feel it is our duty, as the generation who is watching this new generation start to develop, that we step up to become those people who they will look up or, if we cannot be those people, to guide them to find the works that will inspire them to become those people themselves. And, if that means we have to watch as our childhood icons have to become the icons of a new generation, then I feel that is a small price to pay if it means that we can inspire the great artists, writers and actors of tomorrow to become who they have the potential to be.

So let us inspire them.

Doctor Who Finale Part 1: A Brief Look (Contains Spoilers)

I figured I might as well do something related to Saturday's episode of Doctor Who, so here we go. If you've not watched the episode, then go do that BEFORE you read this article: I'm going to be discussing a few things which are very important to the plot of the episode and giving my take on them, so this is not going to be a review so much as examining some of the more important (and, arguably, controversial) points that the episode brought up and saying whether I feel they were good or bad.

Before I start, let me be completely honest about my thoughts on the season so far. While I do think there have been some good episodes, my overall opinion leans towards the only really good part being Peter Capaldi. Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor was the first person I saw in the role and, I have to be honest, if you'd asked me before this season which was my favourite incarnation of the character since the revival of the show, I'd have probably said it was his version. This was a version of the character which had anger and intensity to him and I just think Eccleston captured it perfectly. He really made the character into a figure that you could imagine as having gone through a lot and being tormented by his past, which isn't something that I feel David Tennant, Matt Smith or Peter Capaldi have done QUITE as well as he has. However, Capaldi has done a brilliant job of capturing The Doctor and, overall, I feel that he's managed to be the kind of Doctor that you could imagine from the classic series, which is not something that I feel Eccleston, Tennant or Smith managed. Tennant was an undeniably good Doctor, but his incarnation felt a bit too romantically driven for me to accept him as the alien he was (let's be honest, if you KNEW you were going to outlive someone and had to watch them grow old while you remained young, you'd find that heartbreaking!) and Smith's version of the character felt a bit too much like he was playing the role of a clown instead of an incarnation of The Doctor, although I do not think he did the role badly overall. That's really the big problem: Eccleston managed to capture the character at his most pained and tortured, but the other incarnations between him and Capaldi didn't quite have any special thing to make them really click with me. I guess the best way of summing it up is that Eccleston was the best example of The Doctor of today for me while Capaldi is a channelling of The Doctor of days long gone, and that makes him closer to being the definitive Doctor in possibly more ways than he really should be!

However, Capaldi has been the only really strong thing in the show for me this season, and I feel that this has been probably the least enjoyable season of the show for me overall. Clara and Danny's relationship has overtaken the show a bit too much for my liking, the stories have (mostly) been watchable, though not exceptional, and I'm really getting sick of Moffat building up each season on one overarching thing which only comes into play in the finale of the episode and nearly always has a twist to it that, when really stopped and thought about, makes no fucking sense. Now, that's not to say that Russell T Davis did not do this in his time as the guy in charge of the show, but at least you didn't need to practically have your own office and giant sized whiteboard just to keep track of everything that could make a reappearance later in the show! I joked with a friend that every Doctor Who fan becomes a conspiracy theorist when every new season of Doctor Who starts due to Moffat doing that and, while I imagine I'm exaggerating more than a bit, the basic point still stands: it's almost become a cliché of Moffat's writing for this to happen every season, and I really wish he'd stop leaning on it and just do good stories of Doctor Who without HAVING to have everything be connected together. There comes a point when it stops feeling like you're watching the show because you want to, and I feel like I've hit that point with this season in particular. In fact, even when I'm in the house when it's on, I usually am not excited checking when it's on and sitting down while enthusiastically going "DOCTOR WHO'S ON!!! IT'S GOING TO BE AWESOME!": I'm going "Oh look, new episode of Doctor Who. Well, I've got nothing else to do, so might as well watch it...". I've become apathetic to the whole series now, and I just want someone to politely inform Moffat that dangling important plot threads at the start of every season like a bunch of keys does not make you look clever (or that you have some grand plan for the season) and stops being interesting (and starts being very annoying) when you do it EVERY. FUCKING. SEASON.

So yeah...I'm not exactly coming to this season with the most upbeat and optimistic viewpoint. I'll be fair, the show has still be watchable, but here's the thing: Doctor Who never got by just through being watchable. It was the success it was through being creative, well written, enjoyable and exciting (not to mention more than a bit scary!). This season has felt like it's had none of those things in it to me: it feels like the whole season has got by just on the fact that it's Doctor Who. Honestly, if this season was of a completely show debuting now and WASN'T Doctor Who, I think I'd have stopped watching after "Time Heist"...and I'd have DEFINITELY stopped after "Kill The Moon", which is hands down my least favourite episode of revival Who...and yes, I'm including "Love And Monsters"! I could at least give that one credit for trying something new that was at least an interesting experiment, if not one that was executed very well, but "Kill The Moon" has no such excuse!

But you're not here to read me ranting about my thoughts on the declining state of Doctor Who. You guys want the article that I said I was going to do. Very well, now we all know what playing field I'm on, let us get started...and grab yourself a large amount of salt, you might need it!

First up, the decision to have Danny Pink be killed at the start of the episode by a car due to not looking both ways. For me, this is a pretty poor decision: if you liked Danny and have knowledge of how the army works, him dying like that seems a bit out of character (ex-soldiers do still have their training in their memory and one of the things soldiers are VERY good at is observation skills: after all, what good would a soldier be if he wasn't able to tell the difference between a tree and an enemy in poor light?), but, if you didn't, his death not meaning that he IS actually dead (as in, no longer in the show from that point on) will have you going "What was the point of killing him if he wasn't going to stay dead?" Yes, one could make that case that, had he not been killed, there would be no episode of the show, but, even as someone who felt Danny was being pushed too far towards the centre of attention in a show that's MEANT to be about a time travelling alien, his death felt a bit like a cheap attempt at drama for me. Something like this SHOULD have been at the end of an episode, where his death would have carried some real weight and really should have been done in the same episode as The Doctor finally admitting that Danny was a good man who he approved of, as it'd ultimately give The Doctor a reason to care about Danny beyond "Clara is telling me to". I'll admit, I didn't finish watching "In The Forest Of The Night", so I could have missed The Doctor having that moment in the episode, but still, Danny's death should have been more than just being hit by a car at the start of the episode.

The second important thing is Clara's scene where she is trying to force The Doctor to take her back in time to rescue Danny. I have to be honest...I actually rather liked this scene! It was tense, it showed just how important Danny was to Clara (as if we didn't know that already...), it gave us more than enough reasons to want The Doctor to finally agree to do something...it was great!

...Then it turns out to have been all just a dream state and there were actually no stakes to it.

I...I just...WHAT?! You have possibly one of the best scenes this season of Doctor Who has had to date and it's a fucking DREAM?! What the actual hell?!

OK, in fairness, maybe I'm overreacting a bit, but this trope in writing just ticks me off every time I see it. If you're going to do something that would have a lasting effect, having it turn out just to be a dream and, as such, completely pointless just rubs me up the wrong way. It's not necessarily lazy writing, as some brilliant twists can be done via this when handled well and I respect that it gives writers a chance to try out things which they wouldn't be allowed to do normally in the show, but it feels like a cop out here. If there had been elements to the scene which gave the idea that, when you looked at them carefully, it might actually be a dream (or it involved nightmarish imagery of some sort to give it an unsettling feel to it), I might have been able to go "OK, that was a clever way to do that", but, in this case, I'm just sitting in my chair and asking what the point of getting invested in the scene was if the writers weren't going to go through with what they were showing us. Protip for aspiring writers reading this blog: if you DO have to use this trope, you really need to be clever with it and plan the use of it out, as just using it without considering how it looks to the audience has a very high chance of annoying your audience. I've never used this trope in my own writings, but I can appreciate it when it's done very well and doesn't have the reveal come out of left field, so a good way to do it (assuming you're not working with a visual medium: if you are, then careful use of lighting can do the trick very well by having it be off by just enough during the dream sequence for the audience to recognise that something's not quite right, but not so far that you run the risk of overdoing it! I would still recommend that you consider what I'm about to say, though!) is to be subtle with it before the reveal: if the audience thinks something is a bit off about the sequence in advance of the reveal, but can't quite place what it is, the reveal that it was a dream sequence can be a very good twist that will make the observant members of the audience go "I KNEW something was off" and the less observant, on a second watch, will go "Wait...that's not quite right! That explains how this was a dream sequence!".

Note the use of the word "subtle": if you're throwing in nightmarish imagery throughout the dream sequence and all sorts of stuff which any sensible person would recognise as being completely off from the show's usual tone or the character's usual characterisation, you might as well cover the screen with the words "This is a dream sequence", as the audience are very likely to figure it out within the first few seconds (and the people who don't figure it out before the reveal will probably not be amused that you've mistreated characters they really like and may well have stopped watching the episode BEFORE you make the reveal!). Keep it to things that could be ignored by someone who isn't paying attention, such as a sandwich being pushed aside by a character (obviously, not the one having the dream) only to be back in front of them in the next shot without even being commented upon, or, if you do want to have a character act off, try to be subtle about it in a way which matches up with how you'd expect the character having the dream to imagine them: if a character is noted for being grumpy around the character having the dream, don't make them angrily yelling at them, but have the grumpiness dialled up to be about things that the character isn't usually grumpy about, or have them not comment on it at all. For example, to continue this example, let's say one character is always complaining about another character's hairstyle: instead of having the character be complaining about everything connected to the character having the dream, have them either complain about the character's choice of clothes (without discussing the haircut at all, even if it's the same one that they usually cannot resist commenting on) or, when the character having the dream asks why they've not commented on it, have them go something like "Eh, it's not bad, I guess". Both could clue in observant members of the audience that something's not quite right, but they're subtle enough for people to miss the importance of if they're not paying attention to every little thing (...well, the first one is: the second one is a bit more obvious, but is unlikely to make an impression on the first viewing to most people). Most people will say that dreams can be really weird, but most of them don't have a real flow or story to them and, short of having the character having the dream be bemused every time he finds himself in a new location (as if he's just arrived there without any warning to even themselves) or having the tone and setting of stuff change frequently and without warning (representing the chaotic nature of dreams), there's no real way to represent that without throwing subtlety out of the window!

...Wait, I was supposed to be talking about why I don't like Clara destroying the TARDIS keys in the lava being a dream sequence, wasn't I?

Well, anyway, the problem for me is that the stakes were too high for me to accept it as a dream sequence and there was no indication in advance of the reveal that it even WAS a dream sequence. I guess one could say that Clara piloting the TARDIS to a lava planet on her own COULD have been the clue, since she's not been seen piloting the TARDIS on her own before now (although I may have misremembered if she has), but she has been technically able to pilot the TARDIS this season through the use of the TARDIS matrix thing in earlier episodes, so that actually isn't much of a clue if it is meant to be one!

Also, as pointed out by votesaxon07 in his review of the episode (thanks, dude, I forgot about this detail when I was starting to write this!), Clara KNOWS that The Doctor can open the TARDIS doors by clicking his fingers. So destroying the TARDIS keys...not actually a big deal to The Doctor. How Clara and the script writers forgot this, I've no idea...

The third important thing is more an instance of fridge logic than anything else, but how did The Doctor know that the TARDIS could find Danny AFTER his death? And, more importantly, if he knew that option existed, why hadn't be done anything involving it before now? Seriously, he could have got every companion of his who has died to return back to travelling with him if he wanted to, but he hasn't even tried that before now? Now, I guess one could make a case that it was because Clara insisted that he do it and he normally wouldn't do it, but it still doesn't explain why he hasn't tried this before if it was an option! I know, minor nitpick in the grand scheme of things, but it does seem like an obvious question has been ignored!

The fourth thing that I feel is worth pointing out is the whole "afterlife" thing. I'm jumping ahead a bit, but how could the TARDIS not recognise that it was in St Paul's Cathedral? It's been to London so many times now that you'd have thought it'd recognise the location of the place very easily! On top of that, why exactly would the Cybermen be happy to remain seated inside giant tanks of water for what might have ended up being years (if not DECADES)? I know the Cybermen aren't likely to have been there that long, but the ONLY reason that The Doctor found out about them was because he was looking for Danny by Clara's request: if Danny had never died, it's VERY unlikely that The Doctor would have even stumbled upon the plan at all! Were the Cybermen literally just going to sit there until The Doctor FINALLY found out about them? Because, if so, that's a kind of daft plan that relies on a huge amount of luck and The Doctor actually wanting to investigate someone's death via the TARDIS. Even considering the Cybermen (and Missy, AKA The Master) know The Doctor well enough to know that a bunch of strange disappearances is like a giant sign saying "Please come and investigate me" to him, their plan basically seems to have amounted to "Wait until The Doctor arrives". Unless the car which killed Danny was driven by Missy (or one of her accomplices), there's absolutely no way they would have even been sure they could have got The Doctor near them to allow them to pull off their plan!

The fifth important thing is the reveal of what Danny did which seems to still affect him: that, in a warzone, he killed a child when clearing a building that he thought was inhabited by the enemy. Now, this is actually a breach of military rules, as killing an innocent in war is one of the worst crimes you can commit and can result in a dishonourable discharge from the service if your court marshall finds you guilty of doing so. I'm not sure of the ins and outs of that myself, but, judging from the fact that his method of clearing the building was actually not the way the military are instructed to seize them, I imagine it is not impossible that he would have been guilty of at least improper execution of his orders! However, glossing over my (admittedly, limited) knowledge of military rules and assuming that Danny would not have been dishonourably discharged from the service for what he did, I do have to admit that it is a very powerful scene and the only complaint I have is more an instance of fridge logic than anything else: why would he become a teacher if he has what seems to be post-traumatic stress disorder from killing a child? I'd imagine that being around children would probably be a trigger for reminding him of what he'd done, so I'd have thought that he'd have done his best to avoid being around children to avoid aggravating his condition. Maybe I'm putting too much thought into it, but still, it feels a bit odd that an ex-soldier who has killed a child (even if it was in a warzone and he didn't mean to do it) would have even been allowed to become a teacher, let alone would have applied to become one voluntarily! However, let's ignore those things which make the whole concept of the character fall apart far quicker than you'd think they should and focus purely on the reveal...and I'm not going to lie, it is a scene that is done brilliantly! I'd suspected that Danny had killed someone who he hadn't intended to from the moment he had the reaction to being mentioned of having killed an unarmed person, but I'd never have guessed it was a child before now, which makes the scene surprisingly powerful and seeing Danny trying to apologise to the child for killing him is a scene that is engraved in my memory. No wonder the guy has a sensitive nerve about killing being mentioned, something like that could mess you up for life as you consider the life that never was because of your actions!

The sixth important point is the reveal that the dead are still connected to their bodies. I'll not going onto too much detail about this reveal, as the thought of being stuck in my body post-death and able to feel everything it goes through is absolutely horrifying to me, but I do have to ask whether it applies purely to the people who have been upgraded or EVERY human being, even if they're not connected to the matrix thing. Because, if it's the latter...well, that's my nightmares (and, now I've spelt that out in an unambiguous way, probably yours) for the next few weeks!

The seventh important point is the reveal of the dead in the chairs being Cybermen. I've ranted in some detail about why this isn't as smart a plan as you'd think when you think about it hard enough, but I do have to give credit for this reveal, as it caught me off guard! I'd seen the Cybermen in the trailer and, as such, expected they would be in the episode, but I thought they'd be beaming into heaven (those words are making me think of a song, for some reason...) to convert the dead into them, so them having been there the whole time...that was actually very clever! Granted, it does fall apart a bit when you think about it too much (I'm pretty sure a scan of the skeletons in the chair by the sonic screwdriver would have revealed that they were not actually dead bodies, so I'm a bit bemused that The Doctor didn't check that they were what he thought they were, as it'd be something you'd expect he'd do instinctively whenever he sees something that's out of the ordinary for him!), but it was still a very impressive twist that I didn't see coming at all!

The eighth important point is Missy's identity being revealed. I will say that, like votesaxon07, I'm slightly disappointed that it wasn't The Rani, but the reveal that Missy was The Master...well, my jaw was still on the floor, so let that speak for itself! It's referencing something that could have been missed from the season 6 (of the revival, so that's...season 32, I think?) episode "The Doctor's Wife", when it was off handedly mentioned that The Corsair changed their gender through several regenerations, which was an idea that I found really interesting, so seeing The Master use this ability as well...it kind of makes you wonder whether The Doctor has the same ability and deliberately chooses not to use it or whether (as has been implied in a few classic era episodes, with Romana's regeneration springing to mind at the minute!) it is possible to control regeneration when taught how to do it properly, which is something that The Doctor never bothered learning how to do.

Lastly is everything involving Danny after his encounter with the child he killed up to the end of the episode. Holy crap, Danny was put through the mud in this episode, but, when he was able to speak to Clara and had to try to find a way to make her not go after him in death, it was just gut wrenching to watch. Seeing him holding the iPad (seriously, how the hell (pun not intended) does Apple have a market in the matrix thing? Did they branch out under the belief that even the dead wanted to have a chat with their neighbours or something?) and on the verge of deleting himself from existence...I was actually yelling "NO! DON'T DO IT!" to my TV, and I'm saying this as someone who had more tolerated Danny in the show (due to his relationship with Clara basically pushing The Doctor out of the spotlight of a show which was MEANT to be about him and his companions stopping aliens and stuff like that!) than liked him! Let that speak for itself, dear readers...

So, after all of my complaints, you'd think that I didn't like this episode too much, wouldn't you? Well...not quite. Sure, some of the plot points were points of contention for me (the dream sequence thing being chief among them), but, overall, it was a really good episode of the show that has me looking forward to the next episode of the show already. It doesn't redeem what has felt like a somewhat dull (if still very much watchable) season of the show for me, but it's certainly looks set to end the season on a high note! And I guess that's all that I can ask for, so that's what I'm going to hope for!