Blogcritics Author: Niall Rough

PC Review: Multiwinia - Survival of the Flattest

Niall Rough — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 18:32:49 EST

Introversion Software's multiplayer-only sequel to Darwinia delivers the missing half of their deceptively cutesy geometric RTS.
Stop me if you've heard this one before. Three like-minded undergrads met at Imperial College London and hit it off. In their love of retro games, Chris Delay, Mark Morris, and Thomas Arundel shared a passion that proved decisive when they banded together to form Introversion Software. Almost single-handedly, Delay cooked up a little hacker sim...

Movie Review: Red

Niall Rough — Sun, 5 Oct 2008 18:04:25 EDT

Cult horror director Lucky McKee adapts Jack Ketchum's down-to-earth thriller about an old man and his murdered dog.
If you’re going to make a movie about a man and his dog and kill off the dog a few minutes in, you’d better hope the other half of the equation can carry the remainder of the narrative. Luckily for Red, Emmy award-winning actor Brian Cox – whose nuanced take on that darling cannibal Hannibal in 1986’s Manhunter remains...

Book Review: In The Woods by Tana French

Niall Rough — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 22:05:34 EDT

To dismiss In The Woods for its genre is to the miss the point. Tana French's haunting debut astonishes.
One Summer night, two decades ago, three missing children: Peter, Jamie and Adam. For them, the woods that reach around Knocknaree have been a home away from home. They've picnicked in the ruins of an dilapidated old castle, made mischief in their favourite clearing, but they're almost in their teens; adult enough, at least, to understand...

Book Review: The Mayor's Tongue by Nathaniel Rich

Niall Rough — Sun, 8 Jun 2008 07:38:57 EDT

A 'New York Trilogy' for our time, Nathaniel Rich's debut novel is a richly textured tour of stories and storytellers.
Nathaniel Rich took five years to write The Mayor's Tongue, and in that time, the erstwhile editor of The Paris Review spoke not a word about it. Fearful, as he says, that all his "notes and jottings might not add up to a finished novel", there were times when Rich "seriously doubted the sanity, let alone the merits, of what...

Internet TV Review: Sanctuary

Niall Rough — Mon, 26 May 2008 12:24:57 EDT

Can sci-fantasy series Sanctuary navigate the no-man's-land of network television to thrive where others have failed?
It's almost a year to the day since Sanctuary began. Championed as "the first broadcast-quality, high definition dramatic series designed specifically for the Internet", it seems an appropriate moment to take stock of Stage 3 Media's web-exclusive experiment. With an innovative distribution model and a high concept to seduce the...

Movie Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Niall Rough — Sun, 25 May 2008 09:19:15 EDT

There are spoilers ahoy as Niall Rough offers a British perspective on The Close Encounters of Henry Jones, Jr.
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS! It's been a while since I cared enough about a film to catch it on its opening night, and let it be said I did not care enough about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull to do so. And yet, the night before last, the curious creature that occasionally steals my sofa appeared at the door and demanded...

DVD Review: Colossus - The Forbin Project (UK Release)

Niall Rough — Thu, 15 May 2008 19:02:32 EDT

At long last, this little-known but much loved cult classic sees a release that does its considerable charms justice.
In 1970, as the cold war began at last to cool and the increasingly controversial conflict in Vietnam took its place at front and centre of the cultural conscience, paranoia was in the air. Not coincidentally, among the hottest topics of the era was humanity’s increasing reliance on technology – in particular where the incremental...

The (Thunder)Cat-People Cometh

Niall Rough — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 21:25:22 EDT

It's 'The End of the World Again, Maybe' in this no-holds barred news item on last week's London invasion.
The end may well be nigh. Last week, the unsuspecting people of London were taken aback by what they may well have believed to be a small-scale invasion of England’s capital city, affectionately known as Old Smoky. From amongst the shaken observers of the tumult in Trafalgar Square have emerged several strange sightings that sources well...

Book Review: The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson

Niall Rough — Wed, 9 Apr 2008 13:57:32 EDT

Winterson takes on the stars and the stones in this passionate and beguiling environmental polemic.
Renowned for her comic novels like Sexing the Cherry, and perhaps concealed by them, Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods is a poetic lament, sung for a world in what the author supposes to be its last throes. Unquestionably passionate, and at times dazzling in its invention, The Stone Gods is another of those science-fiction novels originated...

Xbox 360 Review: Rainbow Six: Vegas 2

Niall Rough — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 12:22:58 EDT

When an expansion pack costs full price in the forest, does anyone hear it sell?
For a so-so author of throwaway airport thrillers, Tom Clancy has done alright for himself. I don’t mean to slight the man – in my younger years I read and enjoyed at least one of his novels – but consider this. From the variously successful big-screen adaptations of his Jack Ryan books to the outright novelty of several series...