Category: Culture
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EA Sports return this year with the latest instalment of their award-winning franchise, FIFA 12. This year’s version, of what is arguably the most essential game for any football fan, is the most feature-packed to date, sporting new in-depth online and multiplayer modes, innovative new gameplay additions and improved graphics. But what’s new in the gameplay…
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Anime tends to hang from a huge chain of stereotypes, both good and bad. But one particular stereotype that constantly hangs over the majority of this medium of animation is being completely over-the-top. The bar has constantly been pushed, with planets being destroyed in Dragon Ball Z, adoring crowds being hammily addressed in Code Geass,…
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Upon first glance, you will almost certainly think that gaming has gone backwards. With the polished style and intensity in graphics to which we have now become so accustomed, it’s hard to see what would grab your attention about the blocky pixels of Minecraft. But if you dig deeper (quite literally), you will find a…
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Pocket G&S wow in their latest performance, as Kirsty Hough discovers
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Apart from being a better game in general, the main thing that sets The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim apart from its predecessor Oblivion is the fact that you don’t feel as if you’ve been put into a gaming environment; you feel as though you’re a part of a whole other functional world – a world…
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Bill Bailey points out during the beginning of Dandelion Mind that he was recently voted the seventh most intelligent person on TV. In a poll topped, obviously, by should-be Prime Minister Stephen Fry, Bailey is proud and right to make his audience aware of his intelligence. Such a statement may seem egotistical, but he manages…
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Reviving an old classic is always difficult, and a musical with a plot firmly set in the beliefs of a society totally different to today is even tougher. However, the recent return of South Pacific to the stage makes such a task look easy, with Lincoln Centre Theatre combining a lively and entertaining display with…
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In one of the promotions for Life’s Too Short, Ricky Gervais laconically states: “Watch it. It’s like a cross between The Office and Extras.” From watching episode 1 this seems like a pretty accurate description, though that’s not to say that it’s as good as either previous sitcom. Life’s Too Short is not much more…
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Alex Preston’s debut novel is by no means autobiographical, though it is a reflection of the insights he gained when working in the city of London in the boom years preceding the 2008 recession. Preston, by his own admission, does not intend the book to carry a political message, but rather seeks to explore the…
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The stage adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s ‘War Horse’ is captivating and poignant, bringing the reality of the First World War to London’s National Theatre.
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This winter sees the return of Absolutely Fabulous, or Ab Fab as we all know it. After twenty years, Patsy and Eddy are celebrating theri anniversary in assuredly drunken style with three new specials for the BBC. Although the show started before most of us could even walk, the re-runs and Christmas specials have always…
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Space Rogue was a game that in its day very much broke the mould for top-down 2D RPGs by including in it a flight simulator. Taking inspiration from the Star Wars character Han Solo, and adopting the gameplay of popular 80s fantasy role-playing game Ultima and the space flight simulation and trading concept of Elite,…
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For the first review in the brand new Retro series of video game reviews on The Edge, I thought I’d go with my favourite game of all-time, naturally. In my opinion Final Fantasy IX has everything that a video game needs: an emotional and engaging storyline, relatable and genuinely interesting characters, and an epic amount…
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) and Michael Finnissy (b. 1946) are two names which one might not expect to see in the same sentence. While both are visionaries in their own right, the two musicians could not have more contrasting styles of composition. Why mention these two names you might wonder? Well Finnissy, Head of Composition here at Southampton University, has…