The devastating consequences of the slave trade in 18th century are explored through the powerful but impossible attraction of well-born Frances and her slave Mehuru. From the bestselling author of The Other Boleyn Girl. Bristol in 1787 is booming from its stinking docks to its elegant new houses. Josiah Cole a small dockside trader is prepared to gamble everything to join the big players of the city. But he needs ready cash and a well-connected wife. An arranged marriage to Frances Scott is a mutually convenient solution. Trading her social contacts for Josiah’s protection Frances enters the world of the Bristol merchants and finds her life and fortune dependent on the respectable trade of sugar rum and slaves. Once again Philippa Gregory brings her unique combination of a vivid sense of history and inimitable storytelling skills to illuminate a complex period of our past. Powerful haunting intensely disturbing this is a novel of desire and shame of individuals of a society and of a whole continent devastated by the greed of others.
Roald Dahl himself reads this abridged classic favourite from the grand master of storytelling. When Charlie Bucket hears about the Golden Ticket that will take him through the gates of Willy Wonka’s wonderful Chocolate Factory he longs to win one with all his heart. And then — his dreams come true! But the marvellous factory holds more than simple sweets and Charlie embarks on an adventure that will last him and his family a lifetime! A whipple-scrumptious tale for all the family!
Noir is just as powerful in comics as it is in films: dark angles, shadowy, high contrast images, moody lighting, an anti-hero that struggles with moral conflicts: all these elements work to create a somber, dark tone. In How to Draw Noir Comics, Martinbrough walks the reader step-by-step through layout, thumbnails, staging the action and working with actual scripts. Martinboroughs art is cutting edge, has a 1940s vibe, but comes across contemporary, complelling, dramatic and urban. The book also contains twenty-two page original graphic novel, written and illustrated by Martinbrough.
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Sometimes funny always creepy genuinely moving this marvellous spine-chiller will appeal to readers from nine to ninety. – “Books for Keeps”. “I was looking forward to “Coraline” and I wasn’t disappointed. In fact I was enthralled. This is a marvellously strange and scary book.” – Philip Pullman “Guardian”. “If any writer can get the guys to read about the girls it should be Neil Gaiman. His new novel “Coraline” is a dreamlike adventure. For all its gripping nightmare imagery this is actually a conventional fairy story with a moral.” – “Daily Telegraph”. Stephen King once called Neil Gaiman ‘a treasure-house of stories’ and in this wonderful novel which has been likened to both “Alice in Wonderland” and the “Narnia Chronicles” we get to see Neil at his storytelling best.
Celebrated and enjoyed by critics and millions of gamers alike, BioShock and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion represent the highest achievements in gaming. Both games are true otherworldly experiences, transporting players to other places and other times. Presented in outstanding visuals, BioShock and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion represent storytelling and gameplay at its finest. With a combined bounty of over 80 “Game of the Year” awards, both are absolute must-have experiences for any gamer’s collection.
Minimum System Requirements OS Windows 2000/XP/Vistar> PrProcessor 2.4GHz intel Pentium 4 or intel core duo processor Memory 1GB Hard drive 8 GB Video Card DirectX 9.0c Compatible 128mb video card Nvidia 6600 or better ATI x1300 or better excluding ATI X1550 Â
This review is from: Bioshock/Elder Scrolls: Oblivion – Double Pack (PC DVD) (DVD-ROM)
Bioshock: (4/5)
Beautifully portrayed shooter set in a steampunk-esque 50s enviroment, graphics are fantastic and don’t require a supercomputer to run (I had this working with full visuals on an older dualcore 2.1Ghz AMD system with 2GB of RAM and a mid-range ATI 256MB card). Enemy AI is challenging, weapons are varied and the inclusion of puzzles (though not necessary for the majority of gameplay, just beneficial) makes for a cracking experience. Not great re-playability as you know where enemies are, solutions for puzzles etc. Definitely a good game though
Oblivion: (3/5)
You will need a supercomputer for this one. Graphics are spellbinding (especially with some user-mods that tweak wilderness visuals and lighting), though I often get the feeling with this (as well as with Morrowind and other Bestheda games) that a little more time in production would have turned a very good game into a phenomenal one. It’s only little niggles; minor bugs, the occasional AI glitch, remainders of abandoned ideas (usually in the form of discovered quest items that aren’t implemented at any point) and the vocal acting.
The latter is actually quite a major niggle. This could have been an incredibly immersive game, if only for the wholly inconsistent dialogue. Efforts have been made for NPCs to converse “spontaneously” but with a limited bank of dialogue, they are often nonsensical and you can hear the NPCs switch voices like a schizophrenic with head trauma most of the time. You’ll have walked out of a particularly hard dungeon, walk into a town feeling like a triumphant hero with enough loot to start a small colony of your own…then have this moment of immersion unwillingly tugged away by having a beggar switch from gravelly street urchin to well-schooled peasant with a couple of clicks of the mouse.
Character customisation is bananas, you can sculpt a persona as you please. And with the amount of enchantable armour and weapons in this game, this is a continuous thread.
One huge huge huge problem with this game though is the levelling system. It is frankly bonkers. In order to create a strong character you have to jump through some serious hoops. Let’s say a sneaky archer type in this instance. If you simply chose skills and attributes to support this initially, playing through (not surprisingly) as a sneaky archer type, you’d assume that the game would allow you to build up your character suitably and although you wouldn’t be a tank, you would still be on-par with enemy NPCs in terms of attack and general survivability?
No, you would wind up at around level 30 (with no more scope for character growth) with far lower health/attack than enemies and have an initially fun game turn utterly infuriating. In order to not end up being repeatedly eaten alive by frickin wildlife, you have to take your stealthy character and spend a multitude of in-game hours endlessly buffing their meleé combat statistics so they have slightly more health than a passing gnat (“but I thought I was a sneaky archer type?!” I hear you think), which makes for some serious tedious gameplay. Worse than that, this sneaky archer type is now brandishing an axe and clumping about in heavy armour; forcing you to play distinctly differently to how you wanted to…until you’ve maxed your warrior skills THEN you can carry on with your notions of being a stealthy character…which rather defeats the idea of choosing any attributes in the first place, as you’ll have to go completely against them initially to make any headway.
This was, thankfully, resolved in Fallout 3…but until a mod comes out that fixes this reliably, I would have to say this was a major downer on this otherwise good game.
The two together are a steal at this price, both are good fun and despite my grievances against Oblivion’s inane levelling system, it more than makes up with a compelling storyline, more quests and playable environment than you can shake a stick at.
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This review is from: Bioshock/Elder Scrolls: Oblivion – Double Pack (PC DVD) (DVD-ROM)
Just a quick note about this. The games are fantastic, so not much to say there.
The Package comes in a jumbo sized dvd case (double-thickness) with the 2 discs on one side, and BOTH, yes both manuals and the Oblivion map on the other. I was very pleasantly surprised by this as I was fully expecting pdf manuals. Old school possibly, but I still like having a booklet with my games.
Thoroughly recommended – if you haven’t played either of these grab the package now. Both have a brilliant story and gameplay, but also look amazing.
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This review is from: Bioshock/Elder Scrolls: Oblivion – Double Pack (PC DVD) (DVD-ROM)
To begin i cannot convey what good value to believe this box to be, it contains two brilliant games namely bioshock and oblivion. In bioshock you play as man who cannot remember his past, and slowly unlock it in this masterpiece of story telling, really all of the elements that make a game are here in top trumps for bioshock , visually it is of a very high standard , the story telling is excellent , the gameplay is great , the atmosphere is very eerie and it captivates the player and brings them in making it hard to stop playing it. It honestly in times is a little spooky and is a great game to play in the dead of night when alone on the house in the dark. The upgrading part of the game leads to great enjoyment as nothing can be more satisfying than killing your enemies by shooting wasps and fire out of your arms. 5/5 Onto oblivion which is my 2nd favourite game ever outisde of the final fantasy franchise , but this game is huge and i mean truely huge the map is huge it would literally take hours to walk from one side the other, but there are so many missions in the game to keep you going and stop it becoming stale. Unfortunately this is the maiin game on its own and doesn’t contain the expansion pack, but still it will keep you going for a good 50-60 hours if you want to do the bigger missions and the guilds in the game. It isn’t anything like as immersive as bioshock but it makes up for it with enjoyment overall. The only gripe i have with the game is that to level up you have to find somewhere to rest which can be a pain when you are surrounded by hordes of enemies or some that you can’t find but the game assures you are there. If a fan of fallout this is a must have because its very similar but swords and magic rather than guns and explosives. Overall 5/5 This pack is a must have for someone who is looking for many hours of pc gaming pleasure and doesn’t want to spend £30 on a newer game.
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Amazon.co.uk Review Peter Greenaway (The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, Drowning by Numbers) continues to delight and disturb us with his talent for combining storytelling with optic artistry. The Pillow Book is divided into 10 chapters (consistent with Greenaway’s love of numbers and lists) and is shot to be viewed like a book, complete with tantalising illustrations and footnotes (subtitles) and using television’s “screen-in-screen” technology. As a child in Japan, Nagiko’s father celebrates her birthday retelling the Japanese creation myth and writing on her flesh in beautiful calligraphy, while her aunt reads a list of “beautiful things” from a 10th-century pillow book. As she gets older, Nagiko (Vivian Wu) looks for a lover with calligraphy skills to continue the annual ritual. She is initially thrilled when she encounters Jerome (Ewan McGregor), a bisexual translator who can speak and write several languages, but soon realises that although he is a magnificent lover, his penmanship is less than acceptable. When Nagiko dismisses the enamoured Jerome, he suggests she use his flesh as the pages which to present her own pillow book. The film, complete with a musical score as international as the languages used in the narration, is visually hypnotic and truly an immense “work of art”. –Michele Goodson
