IN DEFENCE OF: Peter Molyneux, the man of many promises

A few days ago it was announced that Peter Molyneux, formerly of Bullfrog Productions and now head of Lionhead Studios and creative director of Microsoft Game Studios Europe, the creator of games like Populous, Black & White, Dungeon Keeper and most recently the Fable series, is being honoured with a British Academy of Film and Television Arts Fellowship, placing him in the esteemed company of the likes of Anthony Hopkins, Stanley Kubrik and Christopher Lee. It's a continuation of the pleasing trend for influential videogame designers being recognised by the mainstream entertainment industry (Molyneux joins Mario's main man Shigeru Miyamoto and sim superstar Will Wright, who have already been inducted).

But the gaming community isn't as thrilled as one might expect at this latest evidence of game design being ushered into the limelight. That's because, if the internet is to be believed, Peter Molyneux is A Bad Man. If you check out the comments pages on many of the news sites running the story, you'll see quite a few comments like this one from The Telegraph: "If there is an award for failing to deliver then Peter Molyneux should certainly get it." Type Molyneux's name into Google and two suggestions that automatically spring up are "Peter Molyneux lies" and "Peter Molyneux is a liar".

What is it about Molyneux that has gamers so riled? Well, he's an overenthusiastic public speaker with a tendency to make grand proclamations about his games that aren't quite delivered in the finished product. The infamous quote that is often rubbed in his face like a facial scrub of shame is his idea that in Fable, his most recent series (a fantasy role-playing game that emphasises player choice and morality), a player could plant an acorn at the beginning of the game, which would grow to an oak tree as the story progressed, or words to that effect. It has now become assumed knowledge by hardcore gamers that Molyneux is at best a chronic promise-breaker and at worst a PR droid who boosts his game sales with cynical campaigns to build unwarranted hype.

So is Peter Molyneux a liar? Should his BAFTA Fellowship be revoked on the grounds of slithering cynicism and masochistic mendaciousness? Well, no. Molyneux has indeed developed a recent habit for getting excited at press conferences and making statements that probably make his Lionhead developers wince. But this isn't lying or up-selling a poor product.

With the exception of his latest game Fable III, which was a genuine disappointment, Molyneux and his teams have a brilliant record of creating games that positively buzz with innovative gameplay, novel concepts, charming presentation and genuinely British sensibilities and humour. He has done more than anyone to make British game development what it is today. Not through brash talk, but through his games. They're not always flawless, but they've been consistently imaginative, eccentric and forward-thinking from the early days of Populous and Syndicate through to Fable II in 2008. Even Fable III was bursting with ideas, even if most of them were the wrong ones.

It's pretty demoralising to see a game creator as passionate and idealistic as Molyneux being pulled down for the very ambition that makes his games great. The man shoots for the stars on every project. Even if he never quite gets there, his games reach heights that 90% of humdrum military shooters and annualised sports games never even bother to try for. Dungeon Keeper, my favourite of Molyneux's games, crams more wit, character and addictive gameplay into one level than a hundred more polished games that are cranked out via committee and compromise.

And if we're now criticising developers for promising too much, what of the other BAFTA honorees from the gaming world? What happened to Will Wright's Spore, which was due to join us all together in an infinite God simulation, with our evolving races interacting with one another? Miyamoto's Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess had problems with its "revolutionary" Wii controls that put it below the best of the series and disappointed many fans in the long run. But although many of the grandest ideas don't have a hope of perfect execution (at least the first time out), the games industry, which tends to avoid risk and stick to proven concepts, desperately needs these people and their teams for their willingness to stick their necks out and shoot for glory.

I'm not saying don't call Peter Molyneux out when he makes a game that is not up to par. And feel free to take his excited press conference chat with a grain of salt. But let's recognise the role of gaming's innovators, the people who pave the way for other less courageous souls to iterate on. We need to be careful what we're wishing for when criticising the people who emphasise progress over slick layers of polish. If we keep dragging them down, we'll be the ones to blame for turning a great industry into a conveyor belt.

The King of Limbs review

This is a blog that purports to be about, among other things, music. According to the unspoken contract I apparently signed upon becoming a contributor to the internet, I am obliged to write something about any new album that Radiohead brings out, especially if they bring it out in some revolutionary, web 2.0 kind of way.

So here are some thoughts, which I will try to keep as succinct as possible, as I'm not sure how much thinking time this planet has left to dedicate to Radiohead. I don't want to be the thought-straw that broke the camel's meta-back, after all.

I should preface this with the fact that I never signed up to the Radiohead Guild of Obsessives. I like the band; their music yields some jaw-dropping moments (the breakdown in 'Sit Down. Stand Up' on Hail To The Thief and 'Pyramid Song' on Amnesiac immediately spring to mind). I stand firmly against the naysayers who claim that everything the band released after OK Computer is navel-gazing nonsense, but neither do I subscribe to the notion that Radiohead get critical immunity on the grounds that they are automatically "interesting". In other words, Radiohead is a band I follow, but not unquestioningly (never that).

The King of Limbs is certainly a bold statement in minimalism. The first five tracks feel like variations on a theme - long, looping melodies composed of guitar, samples and Thom Yorke's sinuous voice, accompanied by fast, soft beats to nail down the mood (Phil Selway's percussion is subtle and nuanced as always, confirming his place as Radiohead's unsung genius). Opening track 'Bloom' follows its name in structure, starting slowly and adding elements in a gradual unfurling, culminating in the introduction of distant brass. The following four tracks work on this template and softly toy with it; 'Morning Mr. Magpie' has a more aggressive tone, muted guitars quietly insistent as Yorke calls out a parasite ("Now you stole it, all the magic/ And took my memory"), while on 'Little By Little' the drums have an almost Madchester, 'Fools Gold' quality that marries well with the song's atonal guitar lines and dusty vibe.

After 'Lotus Flower', the album opens up and allows itself some room to manoeuvre around those all-eclipsing beats. 'Codex' is a gorgeous, bittersweet piece in the vein of 'Pyramid Song', lilting piano playing off what sounds like distant whale calls. It's an escape song, revelling in the isolated beauty of a safe underwater space, illuminated by dragonflies. A horn section slowly begins to puncture the song as it approaches its climax, with a repeated line that speaks as much to past pain as contentment in the here and now ("The water's clear/ And innocent"). 'Give Up The Ghost' is the only song that hints at something new for the band, mixing a little organic strumming and guitar thumping in with the trademark distorted backing vocals, while 'Separator' brings back those clockwork drums for another lonesome trip, complete with psychedelic imagery and surprisingly idyllic guitar twiddling and synths as the dream progresses.

The King of Limbs won't be winning Radiohead many new devotees, and is likely dividing opinions even in their own dedicated fanbase. It's a little too comfortable, too safe, to fully win over those who want the band to be eating boundaries for breakfast, and the old-school brigade will be sighing once more at the lack of assertive guitars and acerbic choruses. But while no single track (with the exception of 'Codex') stands out on its own, this album sees Radiohead committing to a single, alluring world. It lacks the vibrancy and punch of In Rainbows and will probably end up seen as a minor entry into the band's discography. But that's okay, because The King of Limbs isn't an album to enjoy with friends. It's a record to to embrace in dark corners with headphones and high volumes, an untrustworthy dance partner that might waltz the night away with you then suddenly insist on a suicide pact.

Paul review: missing Mr Wright?

We all know Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are fanboy royalty, especially here in the UK, where the duo could probably film themselves strangling nuns and get a standing ovation, as long as they were dressed up as wookies while they did it. There's a sense of trust when we see these two onscreen together that's almost unique in the hyper-critical vulture's nest that is the online fan community. That's what Spaced, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz buys you in nerd currency.

But Paul, the road movie/Close Encounters homage Pegg and Frost wrote together and roped in Greg Mottola (Superbad, Adventureland) to direct, marks a momentous watershed for the pair, it being the first film they've appeared in together without the guiding hand of co-conspirator Edgar Wright behind the camera. After all, their records outside of their Wright collaborations are considerably more spotty - Pegg has been earning his bread with amusing but lightweight rom coms (Run Fatboy Run) and "funny little Brit" comic relief roles in massive US blockbusters (Mission: Impossible III, Star Trek). Frost, meanwhile, has mixed some TV roles with the likes of The Boat that Rocked, Kinky Boots and Wild Child, which range from unremarkable to somewhat dreadful.

So here's a story Pegg and Frost have been working on since filming on Shaun of the Dead, a passion project that they're properly invested in, which aims to stake their claim as great screenwriters and comic actors in their own right. They certainly made smart decisions in the lead-up to the film, working with a director with proven comedy chops and bringing on board a veritable troop of credible US comic talent (Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Joe Lo Truglio and Bill Hader, among others). So did they bring it together, or does Paul feel worse off for its Wright-shaped hole?

Well, as Daisy Steiner would say, it's ups and downs. This story, which follows a couple of British geeks who have their sci-fi obsessed US road trip interrupted by the appearance of the titular foul-mouthed little space man who needs to catch his flying saucer home before the M.I.Bs on his tail harvest his magical gizzards, has plenty going for it, but some crucial missteps hold it back from the upper echelons of the action-comedy pantheon.

Let's start with the bad. Perhaps the most surprising thing that occurred to me watching Paul, a criticism I never thought I'd make of a Pegg/Frost movie, was the relative lack of chemistry between the two leads. The script makes a big deal of Graeme (Pegg) and Clive's (Frost) lifelong friendship and the constant assumptions by passersby that they're lovers, but oddly enough, Pegg and Frost lack the amiable onscreen fizz that is so central to all their other collaborations. Their banter at the beginning of the film seems forced and dull (along the lines of "Who'd have thought we'd be here at Comic-Con/this UFO hotspot, eh? Amazing!") and the relationship lacks the little details of familiarity that sell an onscreen friendship to an audience. The fault lies less with Pegg and Frost's performances and more with the script, which fails to differentiate the characters enough to generate some engaging back-and-forth.

Sadly, Paul also lacks the gag hit-rate to really register as an unreserved slice of fried gold. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of really funny moments (on which more later), but few of them are in the saggy first half hour when Graeme and Clive are touring around in their RV. A comedy really needs to hit the ground running to warm up an audience's funny bone for the meat of the movie, and in this regard Paul falls short.

There are also some pretty lazy, easy-target jokes, most notably an ongoing seam of perfectly truthful but painfully cliche anti-Creationism gags. Speaking of ongoing gags, Pegg and Frost somewhat overplay their hand with the movie references - a little goes a long way when it comes to sly nods to other movies, and there are moments (our introduction to Special Agent Lorenzo Zoil chief among them) when what should be a wink feels more like a oversized cock punch.

So there's the bad, but what about the good? Well, there's plenty to choose from here, as well. Alien stow-away Paul is the heart of the movie, as well as the adrenaline shot that kickstarts the plot just when it seems to be flatlining. Voiced by Seth Rogen, Paul is a brilliant creation. Hilarious, sweet and expertly rendered, Paul is an extraterrestrial with a difference. He's been cooped up in government facilities since his ship crashed in the 50s, and his exposure to earthling media has made him a foul-mouthed product of pop culture (in a clever little twist, he's also been the secret consultant behind xeno-inspired artistic endeavours over the years, from Close Encounters to The X-Files). Rogen is an unlikely but surprisingly inspired vocal choice, imbuing Paul with a soft human side as well as the expected sense of comic timing.

Backing Paul and his Limey cohorts up is a dynamic and well-considered cast of supporting players. Kristen Wiig is foremost among them, playing sheltered Christian fundamentalist Ruth, who has her entire theological belief system blown apart the minute she catches sight of Paul's fat grey head. Her overenthusiastic attempts to embrace the sinner's lifestyle, complete with jarring mish-mash swearwords and hyperactive drug freakouts, yield some of the film's funniest moments.

Bill Hader, Joe Lo Truglio and Jason Bateman all shine as the trio of goons on Paul's trail. Hader and Lo Truglio suffuse their bumbling over-zealous rookie roles with a child-like stupidity (Lo Truglio's character at one point loses his shit over the thought of Paul's "space man balls", which in turn sets up a cracking visual gag down the line) that does a lot to bring the movie's hit-rate back up to par. Bateman as the aforementioned Zoil indulges his inner bad-ass, delivering his lines with a straight-faced conviction that counterplays well with his ridiculous subordinates.

Although Paul might lack a little of that consistent comedic flair to put it up there with the greats in terms of comedy, praise should be given to Pegg and Frost, and director Mottola, for creating a genuinely feel-good story with real warmth. Pegg has described Paul as a love letter to Steven Spielberg, and there really is a pleasantly Spielbergian tone here. The story's impetus picks right up as the movie hits the mid-way point, with Pegg and Frost showing they have a real knack for mixing broad humour with more touching moments, especially as the gang get closer to the end-point of their journey.

No doubt Paul would have been a different movie had Edgar Wright been at the helm. But it feels unfair to speculate what Wright could have brought to the table when Frost, Pegg and Mottola have crafted a movie with an atmosphere of its own. Paul is not without its flaws, but as a broad, accessible comedy blockbuster, it's pretty loveable. In its own way.

Review: Drive-By Truckers - Go-Go Boots

Here's my review of the new Drive-By Truckers album Go-Go Boots, which went live on the BBC Music website. To see the review on the BBC's site, click here.

BBC Review - Drive-By Truckers, Go-Go Boots

The prolific Truckers hit yet another career peak.

Chris Lo

Georgia-based rockers Drive-By Truckers have to be one of the most prolific bands working today; ninth LP Go-Go Boots comes less than a year after its predecessor The Big To-Do. The songs for both albums were recorded during the same sessions, with the more strident rock 'n' roll tracks released first. Go-Go Boots is no haphazard collection of leftovers, though. It's a well-crafted set of weatherworn country, soul and Southern blues that makes up for its lack of stomping riffs with raw emotion and a more diverse sonic palate, particularly indebted to the Muscle Shoals country-soul sound that the band grew up with.

While The Big To-Do felt a little patchy between its big numbers, Go-Go Boots is rock-solid throughout. The mix of different styles, all filtered through the lenses of lead songwriters and vocalists Patterson Hood, Shonna Tucker and Mike Cooley, effortlessly sustains the album through its 14 tracks and 66-minute run-time. The Truckers have always been evocative small-town storytellers, and these tracks are no different. 'Used To Be A Cop' sees Hood inhabit the ragged old bones of a tired ex-cop riding a mean streak of bad luck, accompanied by a funk-inflected bassline and resigned slide guitar. Tucker's voice evokes the tear-stained cheeks and bleary panic of faithful girlfriend searching about town for her missing lover on Eddie Hinton cover 'Where's Eddie'. Cooley ekes every drop of yearning from the simple line "I think about you when I can / And even sometimes when I can't, I do," on banjo-pluckin' tearjerker 'Cartoon Gold'.

It's this Hood/Cooley/Tucker trifecta that makes Drive-By Truckers such a consistently fresh proposition. Apart from allowing the band to crank out records at the speed of sound, each of the three brings their own angle to the songs. Hood is the go-to guy for full-bodied, heart-on-sleeve rock; Cooley is the band's strongest connection to that stiff-backed, Willie Nelson-esque bare bones country music; and Shonna Tucker brings a sparkling voice and a much-needed female perspective to break up all the bruised masculinity on show. Go-Go Boots is one of the best examples yet of the separate yet complementary skills of the Truckers' three leaders, melding styles and switching moods but retaining an overall feel that's distinctly theirs.

True Grit: the masters of subversion go classical

Movie fans have come to expect certain things from a Coen brothers film. Foremost on the list of expectations is, conversely enough, to confound our expectations. Whether teleporting a hard-bitten noir crime story to small-town Minnesota with a pregnant, mumsy police chief as our guide (Fargo) or finishing a thrilling chase movie with a brutal rumination on their sheer randomness of life (No Country For Old Men), the brothers Coen are masters of the sly left turn.

These trademark jarring moments make it easy to forget that the Coens also clearly have a deep attachment to simple genre filmmaking, even if they do like to kick a genre down a flight of stairs every now and again. It's this unvarnished appreciation that seems to guide True Grit, the Coens' re-telling of the Charles Portis Western novel, 40 years after the Henry Hathaway version that yielded the Duke his first and only Oscar.

The movie follows Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), a plucky 14 year-old who steams into town looking for a suitably tough lawman to help her track down Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), the hired hand who shot her daddy down for the gold in his pocket and the horse beneath his saddle. What she gets is a two windbags, one drunk (US Marshall Reuben "Rooster" Cogburn, played by Jeff Bridges) and one sober but pompous (Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, played by Matt Damon). The three of them head out to the Indian Territories to bring Chaney to justice, where he's thought to be taking refuge with an outlaw gang led by the fearsome "Lucky" Ned Pepper (Barry Pepper).

True Grit is a Western with a capital W and an old, dusty six-shooter replacing the R. It's the kind of classically told, ripping yarn that faithfully adds to a genre that has mostly either been ignored or revised over the last decade. Mattie's journey with Rooster and LaBoeuf (pronounced "le beef", in as laconic a drawl as you can summon) has an irresistible sense of forward momentum as they pin down Pepper's gang of marauders. There's also a surprisingly light tone, as the two lawmen bicker over war records, marksmanship and honour, strutting like old hounds to impress their surprisingly formidable young ward.

There's still a smattering of stylised Coen touches, like the surreal moment that Rooster and Mattie, waiting for LaBoeuf, encounter a bizaare old witch doctor covered in a full bear pelt riding towards them. "That...is not...le beef," drones Rooster. The film's violence is not pervasive but, in true Coens style, is distressing and dehumanising when it does crop up, the shock of bullet wounds and finger amputations leavened only by Rooster's occasionally amusing brutalisation of LaBoeuf.

Roger Deakins' predictably superb (and now Bafta-winning) cinematography also brings the film a sense of detail that the original was happy to gloss over, the camera lingering over the ugly crevices of 19th century Arkansas (corpses, hangings) as much as its inspiring vistas (evergreen forests, autumnal plains, snowcapped peaks).

True Grit's heart lies with the three captivating performances at its centre. Mattie, Rooster and LaBoeuf form a strange triangle made credible and moving by Steinfeld, Bridges and Damon. The former two are getting plenty of attention for their portrayals of Mattie and Rooster, and deservedly so. Steinfeld avoids the typical precocious child performance trap with a genuine sense of wit and pitch-perfect dialogue delivery, while Bridges brings out Rooster's irascibility, poor social skills and deeply buried honour in a way that would have been beyond John Wayne even if it had been expected of him. But for me, Matt Damon stands out as LaBoeuf, a character who reveals the layers behind his loudmouthed vanity as the story progresses. The Texas Ranger's misguided attempts to take Mattie under his wing, as well as the genuine affection that grows between the two, is one of the film's chief pleasures. Rooster Cogburn might get to be the hero, but it's LaBoeuf's fragile nobility and unraveling ego that steals our hearts.

I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed that the film's riveting storyline wasn't joined by an equally impressive sense of meaning. Although True Grit left me satisfied and elated, there isn't the rich seam of subtext that made No Country For Old Men such a meaty offering. The film does take some time to ponder on the fleeting nature of life in a callous era, and one scene involving a night-time ride that pushes Rooster to the limit of his failing frame is particularly effective at delivering that message.

But all in all, the impression that we're left with is a fine story, well told and beautifully acted, and one that could reward repeat viewings in the same way as another Coens genre classic, Miller's Crossing. Even if True Grit doesn't deliver much subtext-jerky to chew over, it's still an incredibly powerful, unashamedly traditional Western story. And that's a helluva thing, pard.

The Fighter: a tale of loyalty, family, and punching

The Fighter is at least partly about punching. But it's about other things, too. That's important when a movie features a lot of punching, as it tends to overshadow the scenes that are cursed with a lack of punching. But if a movie has non-punching scenes that still pack an emotional punch, that's when you know you've got a good movie with punching in it, rather than just a good punching movie.

The Fighter is a good movie with punching in it. In many ways, it fits into the archetypal underdog sports movie mould, in the vein of Rocky or, uh, The Mighty Ducks. Based on a true story, the film follows Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), an Irish-American welterweight boxer living in the blue-collar city of Lowell, Massachusetts, splitting his time between getting pummelled in the ring and laying tarmac on the street. Micky's older brother Dicky (Christian Bale) is the former 'Pride of Lowell', famed for besting Sugar Ray Leonard back in the day. He's now Micky's part-time trainer and full-time crackhead.

The movie charts Micky's rise from a glorified punching bag to a title contender, complete with appropriately stirring training sequences and surprise turnarounds in the ring. As a simple addition to the 'inspiring underdog story' stable, The Fighter more than holds its own. The punching scenes are effectively shot, maintaining an authentic feel but slowing the action down just enough that we can register the force of every haymaker and body blow.

What elevates the movie from its genre is what's happening outside the ring. Micky's family is a tornado that swirls around him while barely acknowledging his existence. He's henpecked into mismatched fights by his domineering mother Alice (Melissa Leo) and his seven sisters, who are more interested in indulging Dicky's boxing past than supporting Micky's present. Dicky means well, but he has become a liability, failing to turn up for training and getting Micky into trouble with the law. Into this scene storms Charlene (Amy Adams), a no-nonsense, bar-tending college dropout who acts as the catalyst for Micky to take control of his life and career, both of which are being dragged down by his oblivious family.

This family drama is heightened by a raft of excellent performances. Christian Bale is superb as the drug-addled Dicky, infusing the character with a bug-eyed charisma that intoxicates the audience as much as it does his family and friends. But he's a ghost of his former self, a wispy shade obsessed with his one defining moment in boxing and deluded about an HBO documentary crew following him around. He thinks they're there to chart his comeback, despite the crew's insistence that they're making a film about the ravages of drug abuse. Dicky's inhabiting his own fantasy, and Bale works hard to heighten the impact when he's finally, brutally, evicted from that fantasy and shoved out into the cold light of day.

There are also great turns from the female influences in Micky's life. Melissa Leo brings out the steely pragmatism of Alice when it comes to shaping Micky's career, as well as her blind, unjustified dotage on Dicky, her first-born and the apple of her eye. We also see a new side of Amy Adams, such an expert at playing timid, as Micky's rock-hard girlfriend Charlene, who hates what Alice is doing to her youngest son's chances but might share more characteristics with the aging matriarch than she cares to admit.

Behind it all is Mark Wahlberg's quietly brilliant performance as Micky, a man undermined at every turn. He embodies the quiet resignation of a younger brother, aware and unresentful of the fact that Dicky casts an inescapable shadow. He's there in every scene, physically cringing at all the shouting and posturing around him. He's at once fiercely loyal to his kin and painfully aware that they are poisoning his chance to make a name of his own. Watching Micky's growing assertiveness despite his reluctance to take the spotlight is a genuine pleasure, and its a real shame that of all the film's Oscar nominations for acting, not one was for Wahlberg.

All of this struggle and tragedy outside of the ring makes the events that go on inside it all the more bracing. Micky's relationship with his family rings out with every punch, both given and received. His quiet determination gives weight to training sequences that would otherwise be simple genre staples. The script, along with director David O. Russell (Three Kings, I Heart Huckabees), makes us care more about this family of nutjobs than the outcome of any title bout. In fact, I can't think of a better recommendation for The Fighter than the fact that none of its most memorable moments involve punching, including one of the most heartwarming and beautiful final scenes that I've watched for some time.

The mathematics of reviewing

The title of this post is pretty misleading. Reviewing isn't maths, after all, and boiling a review down to a simple formula is anathema to reading something new and surprising (although it seems to work pretty well for the Daily Mail website, which operates on a strict formula of liberal baiting + contrived outrage x gross hypocrisy - basic human compassion = mad web traffic).

Of course I'm not going to argue for some inane system for reviewing; each one has to be written in its own way. But writing (and reading) a lot of reviews makes you think about what exactly it is that you like or dislike about an album or a film, about the process you naturally go through before you sit down to try and express your conclusions. Exactly why are you willing to forgive those crappy lyrics on that album you just bought? Exactly why do you love that beautiful film that has no plot or dialogue?

Reviews are my favourite things, both to read and to write. As a deep down obsessive, I'd generally rather spend my time deliberating about chord changes and camera angles than trying to vicariously be friends with the people behind them. So I tend to give a lot of thought to qualifying what it is that makes a great album great, or what makes a guilty pleasure guilty, or what makes a film that seems so brilliant on paper such a chore when you're sitting through it.

The best I've come up with so far is a variation of the classic "style/substance" idea that we've read in so many reviews. I always thought the "style over substance" phrase was a little dismissive of the "style" part, given that it's the style that makes an immediate impact on the listener and appeals to the oft-underrated gut. I'm going to explain my idea in relation to music, but I think it applies just as much to film (not so much to games, which I'll touch on in a bit).

It's helpful for me to split an album into two broad, subjective scales - the satisfying scale and the interesting scale. Satisfaction replaces "style" in the aforementioned metaphor as representative of that instant gut reaction that you can't reason with - in essence, it's that feeling we all got from listening to The Darkness' first album and now feel a little ashamed of. The interesting scale is the "substance" that comes after; all the opinions on pacing, lyrics and the musicians' choices that form after bedding down with a record for a while. All the stuff that gets channeled through a thought process rather than a cocky toe tap, in other words.

I think an album generally needs to captivate me on both counts to feel like a lasting classic. An album that you'll love in the moment for its immediate impact, but revisit month after month to plumb its depths. I love all three of Arcade Fire's LPs because they fill my brittle bones with the urge to stomp around like a mad baby rhino, but in the long-run they offer me three very different worlds to explore, from Funeral's inner-city carnival through Neon Bible's great foreboding plains to the restrained desperation of The Suburbs.

An album can be excellent just by nailing one of these two criteria. Biffy Clyro's 2009 album Only Revolutions had me caterwauling up and down the walls of my flat, but the songs didn't quite match those on Blackened Sky or Vertigo of Bliss for atmosphere and strange rhythms. This doesn't detract from my enjoyment of Revolution's bombast, but it gives the album a natural shelf-life that the very best records transcend.

On the other side of the coin, an album can connect with your intellect and build a fascinating space for your ears without ever really grabbing you. I can recognise the poetry and character of Bob Dylan's music, but it has only ever impressed me. It never ambushed me, pushed me up against a wall and had its way with me. When people patiently, sighing all the way, try to explain to me why Dylan's songs are so powerful and timeless, I can understand and agree. But my gut remains stubbornly unstimulated. Give me Springsteen any day of the week. When that guy revs his engines, he leaves tire-marks all over my heart.

This satisfying/interesting balance tends to help me when thinking about films and movies, but falls down a bit when it comes to videogames. Partly as a result of the games industry's relative youth, combined with the prevalence of interactivity over passivity, games can often be considered masterpieces for simply delivering truckloads of sensory pleasure. Genuinely interesting concepts are a bonus, but at the moment they're optional. What developers really have to nail is providing game mechanics that are satisfying to interact with. Games like Bioshock and Braid might be pushing the medium to new heights, but their exploration of the human condition doesn't make them any more fun to play than Tetris or Pac-Man, even after all these years.

So this isn't my "system" for reviewing. There is no system. It's just a broad categorisation of the feelings I get from listening to an album or watching a film that helps me formalise where those feelings come from when I want to express myself about it in the clearest way possible. In order to express myself with clarity, I find that I need to delve a little into why I've reacted to an album in the way I have.

So are there any albums or films that max you out for satisfaction but feel a little empty after the first few spins? Or those that you can appreciate on a cerebral level but leave you yearning to be swept off your feet? Let's compare notes in the comments below. Also feel free to let me know if I'm talking a load of bollocks. I find it hard to tell sometimes.

Escape Artist's Best Games of 2010

I've just spent a couple of hours playing Dead Space 2 on my own, in my flat, at night. This might mean nothing to you, but trust me, this pretty much makes me a goddamn superhero. Horror games are the perfect example of the power of the interactive medium. I get scared watching [REC] or Night of the Living Dead, but the difference with horror games is you're expected to actually do something about the awful things happening on screen. The whole appeal of horror is putting yourself in the shoes of someone experiencing a terrifying ordeal, and there's no better way to do that than to pick up a controller and take part.

Anyway, to distract myself from thoughts of horrific mockeries of nature ambushing me from air vents, I thought I'd do a quick round-up of some of the best games of the past year. 2010 was a pretty strong year for gaming, with a great mix of reliable sequels that built on the work of their predecessors and new titles to expand our horizons.

There were disappointments - Fable III and Vanquish spring to mind - but for the most part last year's games delivered. 2010 also marked a bit of a turning point for the games industry, as publishers began to release more top-drawer titles outside of the traditional pre-Christmas period. This is a great thing for gamers and for the industry itself as it begins to realise that quality speaks for itself, no matter what time of year. With the success of early-year titles like Red Dead Redemption and Mass Effect 2, and now Dead Space 2 in 2011, this promising trend looks set to continue.

Bayonetta (Platinum Games)

The third-person action genre is a pretty crowded one, with the likes of Ninja Gaiden, God of War and Devil May Cry filling our screens with musclebound anti-heroes grunting and shouting for our entertainment. Bayonetta trumps all of these games on most counts, and adds a healthy dose of batshit insanity for good measure.

At the game's core is a rock-solid combat system. Titular (not to mention tit-tacular) heroine Bayonetta feels lithe and responsive to control as she pirouettes between enemies unleashing a wide array of crunchy, satisfying combos. But the game really separates itself from the crowd with its sheer eye-humping visual splendour. The design of levels and enemies is consistently surprising, throwing an astonishing variety of extra-dimensional environments and enemies at the player. The story is pretty inscrutable (something about witches and motorbikes and angels with glowing vaginas?), but when a game offers you the chance to throw a reborn god-queen into the fires of the sun, the wheres and whys are pretty irrelevant.

Mass Effect 2 (BioWare)

Hands-down the best videogame story of 2010, as Commander Shepard recruits a new crew on his space-faring mission to defend the galaxy against the planet-harvesting Reavers. Yeah, it might sound like an episode of Stargate SG-1, but the appeal of Mass Effect lies in making the story your own. With the best conversation mechanics of any game so far, the ability to make meaningful choices that alter your game world in sometimes unexpected ways, and some of the best characters this side of the Omega-4 Relay, there's a real feeling of consequence behind the superb firefights. I got my entire team through the game unscathed because I am the King and Queen of Cheese, but the very real chance of losing treasured teammates before the game's end adds consistent tension and even (whisper it) a hint of emotional resonance.

Red Dead Redemption (Rockstar San Diego)

How did it take this long for an unreservedly great cowboy game to come out? All the elements are right there - quickdraw duels, roaming the open plains, fisticuffs in smoky saloons... you know, cowboy stuff. Whatever the case, it wasn't until 2010 that a game brought all these elements together, bundled them into the back of a rickety ol' wagon and rammed them into our eye-holes. Rockstar San Diego has made expert use of Grand Theft Auto's game engine to create a gorgeous natural game world, spanning pine forests and great plains in the north to the ochre-tinged sandstone monoliths of Mexico in the south. The diversity of gameplay options is more than a match for Red Dead's setting. The long journey of blackmailed ex-outlaw John Marsden makes for a great story, filled with imaginative diversions and the colourful characters that have made Rockstar releases so special over the years.

Limbo (Playdead Studios)

A brilliant X-box Live Arcade puzzle-platformer with a unique atmosphere. Players control a little boy searching for his sister in a spectral purgatory realm. That's all the story there is, and this game needs no more. Everything else in Limbo is conveyed through its shadowy, silhouetted world. Threatening little details emanate from every crevice, from the world's mysterious and hostile inhabitants to the shockingly gory death animations when the player slips up. The game's puzzles, which revolve around using physics to move through areas, constantly introduce new mechanics to keep things fresh for the duration. Limbo is an excellent puzzle game, but it's the melancholy ambience that makes it great. Oh, and the giant spider chase sequence. Can't go wrong with a giant spider chase sequence.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (Ubisoft Montreal)

After two games that struggled to match their immaculate sense of style with equally engaging gameplay mechanics, Brotherhood is the first game in the AC franchise that's an unmarred pleasure to play. The action may see players jump back into the bejewelled pantaloons of AC2's Ezio Auditore as he murders his way up Rome's corrupt Borgia hierarchy, but Brotherhood comprehensively refines the series' ideas that work and overhauls those that don't.

Combat is smoother and more interesting; assassination missions are better structured and reward good planning; stealth sections are now a joy rather than a chore. The most impressive thing about Brotherhood is the sheer amount of content there is to distract the player in Rome's vast play area, from the simple pleasure of chasing thieves and couriers across the city's terracotta rooftops to piloting a frankly absurd 16th century stealth bomber. The story continues to be sub-Dan Brown secret society wankery, but if the franchise's gameplay continues to improve at this rate, all that nonsense can be forgiven. Now let's have Assassin's Creed III set in Victorian London, please.

Halo: Reach (Bungie)

The only straight-up shooter on this list, Bungie's swansong to the legendary series just radiates the experience and dedication of its development team. The Call of Duty franchise might have overtaken Halo as the number one blockbuster FPS, but for my money Reach outstrips Black Ops both as a single-player story and a multiplayer playground. The game's premise of fighting a losing battle against overwhelming Covenant forces on a doomed colony world packs more emotional punch than most other shooters (including a brilliant ending), and the enemy AI is superb, creating combat moments with a real sense of space rather than the shooting galleries that have become so popular of late.

Online, Reach is the best of the best. I may have spent more hours compulsively logging into Modern Warfare, but Reach makes every new game a unique encounter. The game types are varied, the maps are stupendously well-designed and playing Firefight mode with friends is like a whole extra game. And for hardcore fanatics, there are the well-featured Forge level creation tools. With this treasure chest of riches, Bungie has ensured that Reach will continue to thrive long after the studio has moved on to new projects.

Alan Wake (Remedy Entertainment)

Not a smash hit by any means, but if Alan Wake doesn't get a sequel it would be a great shame. This isn't necessarily because of the scares and solid combat (based on giving your corrupted enemies the willies by lighting them up with your torch), both of which are excellent, but because Alan Wake is quietly revolutionary in its approach to interactive storytelling. We guide our titular confused writer through the town of Bright Falls and the surrounding forests in search of his missing wife who has been abducted by a dark presence that's infecting the whole area.

The fascinating layer buried beneath the narrative is that Wake has lost time, during which he seems to have written about the events he's currently living through. Pages found on the forest floor or strewn about rusty old sawmills serve to deepen the narrative as well as warn players about dangerous encounters ahead. It's an amazing way for the developer to communicate with the player, not to mention push some pretty far-out ideas about authorship and the constraints of moving through a world that has been designed for you. As the game progresses the rabbit hole only gets deeper, with Wake beginning to question why he wrote the things he did and realising that his words might be the key to breaking free of the town's strange curse.

Fallout: New Vegas (Obsidian Entertainment)

After 60 hours or so of exploring Fallout 3's post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland, the thought of diving back in to a sequel that uses the same creaky engine and transports the story from Washington D.C. to the ostensibly less memorable Mojave Desert didn't seem all that appetising. New Vegas didn't immediately prove me wrong - the first couple of hours is filled with the critter hunting, stat-levelling and V.A.T.S. combat strategies that had become all-too familiar from the previous game. The story's opening is also a little contrived. The player wakes up after being shot in the head and having his courier package stolen, and decides, with a slightly incredible level of job dedication, to hunt down his ambushers and get it back.

It was only when I arrived at the New Vegas Strip, filled with decay and corruption but a bustling vibrancy that was missing from Fallout 3's communities, that it all started to come together. Obsidian, a team that contains some of the original Black Isle developers who worked on the first Fallout PC games, has pushed the modern franchise forward by thrusting players into a more rich and morally confusing world. None of the Strip's factions are unblemished, which makes choosing who to support (if any) all the more thrilling because there are no convenient signposts. You begin to realise that you are, much more so than in Fallout 3, a catalyst for massive change across this seedy desert, and by leaving you to make your own mind up, New Vegas burdens you with the full weight of your actions. It's a scary prospect, and one that provokes real thought. After another 60 hours of wandering the wasteland, I really would like to see the back of the game's charming but tired and buggy engine. Then again, I've been proved wrong before...

Film review: Black Swan

It's a Gothic melodrama. No, it's a companion piece to The Wrestler. Oh hang on, it's classic body horror in the vein of Cronenberg. But it's Polanski-esque in its exploration of the darkest corners of the mind. And surely it's an unflinching character study about fear and weakness and transcendence, right? Just what is Black Swan?

All of the above descriptors apply to Darren Aronofsky's (Requiem for A Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler) latest film to some degree. The movie tells the story of fragile mummy's girl Nina (Natalie Portman), who gets cast for the prestigious role of the Swan Queen in a New York ballet company's new production of Swan Lake. In the process of preparing for her role, for which she must excel as both the virginal White Swan (which comes naturally to Nina) and the sensuous Black Swan (which decidedly doesn't), Nina is plagued by nightmarish visions and paranoid fantasies.

Black Swan brings together all the aforementioned elements and sharpens them to a razor's edge to stab its point home. Taken at their face value, a lot of these elements might seem derivative or cliche, but all these techniques are ruthlessly honed by Aronofsky and aimed towards what the film is trying to express. The use of tight, over-the-shoulder camera angles and the constant presence of mirrors are both staples of the horror genre, but here they reinforce Nina's inability to escape her panicky bubble of existence and her crisis of identity (of course, they also serve to make you shit your breeches on several occasions).

Similarly the transformation scenes, in which Nina begins to see herself physically morphing into a swan, owe a debt to the mortification of the flesh seen in some of Cronenberg's best films, and even Clive Barker's Hellraiser. But again, Aronofsky bends this concept to serve his film's specific goals. As such, we see some fairly tired ideas find a new lease of life when bound to a fresh purpose.

Nina's strange hallucinations signpost the growth of her repressed dark side, leading her ever closer to the performance of the Black Swan she so obsessively desires, and ever closer to the brink of madness. When those two roads converge at the end of the movie, it's so cathartic because of the constant tension that Aronofsky has built up throughout.

Black Swan's performances are roundly superb, with Portman the obvious standout. She excels at conveying her character's brittle vulnerability, but really shines as Nina's darker impulses begin to flutter to life. Mila Kunis isn't stretching herself as the Nina's new friend Lily and the liberated yin to Nina's tightly-wound yang, but she's excellently cast and carries an effortless charisma that serves the character well. Similarly, Vincent Cassel's natural sly charm translates perfectly for idealistic but cruel ballet director Thomas. Special mention should also go to Barbara Hershey as Nina's overbearing mother, exposing the character's cloying need to live through her daughter while somehow finding her sympathetic side by the film's end.

So yes, the film is all the things I mentioned at the top of this review. All those things and more. Subtlety has never been Darren Aronofsky's M.O, and Black Swan is no exception. It's gloriously over-the-top, unapologetically theatrical, and hits home with the force and precision of a laser-guided missile. Black Swan isn't out to confound audiences. It's not a brain teaser. It simply concentrates on throwing its every resource behind expressing its ideas (perfection, psychological extremes, absurd dedication, the fracturing of identity) as clearly and as forcefully as possible.