Sea Of Solitude is a game which was developed by Jo-Mei Games and was published by Electronic Arts. It is available on PS4, Xbox One and PC via Origin. It is a single player third person adventure game. The game has the player control a character named Kay who explores an abandoned and flooded city.

This was a game which caught my eye only very recently when I first heard about its release. After watching the trailer, I thought the art style, strong colours and animations looked very interesting. Also as a person who went mad one day and subscribed to EA’s Origin Premiere late last year so that I could play some games I had missed out on over the years, I was pleased to see something new added to the store that wasn’t a typical Electronic Arts style major franchise game. Knowing I could get this one for free was enough to give it a go. But if you’re not part of that program to get it for free, I’d say that the $26.95 asking price for this digital title is certainly worth it.

The game isn’t too long, most hardened gamers will probably be able to finish this one in a single session, which I actually managed to do yesterday morning. I didn’t time myself, but I’d say to expect about 3 or so hours out of it, a bit more if you look around for collectables.

Sea Of Solitude Review

On the surface, Sea Of Solitude is about a young girl named Kay, who is searching through a city, which is for some reason flooded. You start the game all alone on a tiny boat, way out at sea on the water. You make your way to the city, where you find a monster clad in darkness is blocking your path. Through exploration and activating certain things, Kay brings light to an otherwise dark city.

Underneath the main plot though, is a game with strong messages and themes related to loneliness and relationships. Kay as a character is someone who has become lonely, isolated and quite depressed after issues with her family and her boyfriend. The game sends the player on a journey to free Kay and other characters from suffering from the effects of loneliness and related themes. What I didn’t expect this weekend, was to play a game which seemed to have the objective of tackling these mental health issues in this way and I never expected to play something this weekend from the gaming genre with such deep meaning to it.

In many ways, Sea Of Solitude reminded me of my experience with Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice which was also a game that focused on mental health issues and is still a game I hold in very high regard. Both of these games were experiences that I could not put down once I started playing as I just had to find out what was going to happen with my character. Games tackling these mental health themes and the issues involved are quite rare in this medium, so when an experience like this does come along, it’s very unique and interesting. The difference between Sea Of Solitude and Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is that Sea of Solitude is a little lighter in tone and not the intense gruelling experience that Senua’s was. This makes a player’s time with Sea Of Solitude one that is peaceful to experience.

Sea Of Solitude Review

The art style in Sea Of Solitude is something I enjoyed looking at. The animations are very rounded, colours stand out on the screen and the use of blacks in contrast with visibly bright blues, whites and orange was what I loved the most. The music and also the voice acting, was soft and did fit in well with the tone of the game’s themes and art style. All together, visuals and audios seemed to be just right.

The gameplay in Sea Of Solitude is something I’d say is probably a little simple. It’s essentially a platforming game where you will jump, swim, drive a boat and shoot flares onto enemies. There aren’t any button combinations to learn or any level up systems. The game is accessible to people of most ages and even to people new to gaming could easily pick this one up and get through it.

Overall coming out of playing Sea Of Solitude, I was filled with positivity and happiness. The story is quite heavy when playing through it, but very warm in the end. The art style and animations are nice to see and the sound and voice acting was just right. I do like to see that the games industry can use the medium to tackle such heavy topics and release games like this which show how well this medium can tell a story and provide its audience with something of great meaning. I’m happy to recommend Sea Of Solitude for your gaming collection.

Stuber is a film which comes directed by Michael Dowse and stars Dave Bautista, Kumail Nanjiani and Betty Gilpin. The film is an action comedy adventure about an Uber driver and a policeman who go on a wild ride together.

Going in to see Stuber I didn’t really know where to set my expectations. Knowing only that the film was a comedy, meant I went in for the lols and didn’t expect all that much from the story. But coming out of the film, I’m sorry to say, but it’s not really that great.

The film starts off okay and the opening scene features both Vic (Dave Bautista) and Sara (Karen Gillan) engaged in a dangerous shootout with some bad guys. Both are seriously injured and Vic loses his eyesight, which means he gets some urgent surgery. His eyes need time go recover, but as soon he’s able to walk he calls for an Uber and continues on with his police business, which is catching the bad guys who got away in the opening scene. This is where Stu (Kumail Nanjiani) comes in and the journey between this awkward duo begins.

I wish I could say that it was all good once the Uber ride began but it wasn’t. The film is only really mildly funny. Dave Bautista who I do really like in action films really isn’t great at comedy. Kumail Nanjiani basically was just screaming and yelling the whole time and talking about his Uber rating and reviews. I admit I did find some of the bad reviews he got from his previous customers in the film funny when they were shown, but that’s about it. Some of the jokes were also drawn out way too long. Dave Bautista’s character being blind was kind of funny in the first minute when you saw him trying to walk around without being able to see. But it’s only funny once and they did this joke over and over again almost all the way until the end!

In addition to this, for quite a bit of the film, I wondered if this was some sort of product placement or advertisement for Uber. There were so many mentions of Uber, Uber reviews and the difference between Uber products and services. What are we paying to watch here? Who cares about Uber!?

In the end I would suggest avoiding Stuber at the cinema this week and choosing literally any other film currently showing. After leaving this I instantly thought that Stuber needs to be on my list of worst movies of 2019 which I created just after seeing this and that says a lot because I was not compelled to make one after seeing X:Men Dark Phoenix.

Spider-Man: Far From Home is a film which comes directed by Jon Watts who some may know as the director of Cop Car (2015) or Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017). The film stars Tom Holland, Zendaya, Angourie Rice, Jon Favreau, Jake Gyllenhaal, Cobie Smulders, Samuel L. Jackson and Marisa Tomei.

Spider-Man: Far From Home is the third film featuring the Tom Holland Spider-Man, but it is also what is meant to be, the last film in this phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. These two factors make this film quite important for people who are fans of all things Marvel, with fans having quite high expectations for this one. But I’m  happy to say that in the end, considering all of this expectation, coming out of it, I thought it was rather good.

Tom Holland is Spider-Man in Columbia Pictures’ SPIDER-MAN: ™ FAR FROM HOME.

In this film, Peter Parker goes on a European adventure with his school and all his friends come along with him. Being Spider-Man though, brings with it a lot of responsibilities and there’s trouble abroad. For the most part, Peter just wants to be a regular school kid and do regular school kid stuff, but he soon finds that his responsibilities quickly interfere with this and it’s not long before things get chaotic, both for Spder-Man and for Peter. I do not want to go too much more into the actual storyline of the film because to be honest I believe it’s better to go into this one as fresh as you possibly can. But in general, the storyline is quite fast paced and the characterisation of Spider-man was done well.

The film is quite well written and at times it feels like you’re watching a comedy more than anything else, with tonnes of funny lines tossed in all throughout it. Like with previous Spider–Man films in this series and in line with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the tone is kept quite light. The film’s story itself is filled with themes of trust and much of the story brings this concept into question, with Peter Parker and Spider-Man dealing with issues related to who they can actually trust in the world and it seems, that is not always clear and it’s a major struggle for the character.

As a Spider-Man movie, it did feel really different to see Spider-Man out of New York. Basically everything I’ve seen Spider-Man in has him in the city. There was a bit in this series when he was in Washington, but a european adventure was something I didn’t expect to ever see. It does work well though and due to all of the many locations, we actually do get to see this version of Spider-Man in a lot of different outfits. This is something that’s present in the comics and the recent video game, but hasn’t been seen too often in the film releases. The changing of the outfits does help to show how versatile the hero can be and I like that it was present in the film.

Peter Parker and MJ in Spider-Man: Far From Home

The actors were all very entertaining. I’ve always enjoyed Tom Holland’s Spider-Man performance, but this I think was the first of his films where I enjoyed what he was doing as Peter Parker. The actor has definitely improved as the years have gone by. Zendaya was great as MJ and I also enjoyed Marisa Tomei as May. But it was Jon Favreau who I thought really did bring a lot to this film. The actor was very funny and as a character he acted as a tie in between what were the Avengers films and what is to be the future of the MCU.

The special effects were also rather good, actually quite impressive. However, it wasn’t consistent. In certain scenes, I felt that Happy’s jet didn’t look that great. But in other scenes, we had some of the best cgi action sequences I’ve seen in a Marvel film. I can’t spoil anything, but if you’re reading this review after watching the film, I thought that the middle cgi sequence, which was the first encounter with the real villain was very well done. I would have loved to have seen the storyboards in the behind the scenes features for this film.

Spider-Man in Columbia Pictures’ SPIDER-MAN: ™ FAR FROM HOME

Overall Spider-Man: Far From Home is a must see film for anyone who enjoys the Marvel Cinematic Universe or is a Spider-Man fan. The film is quite funny and its light tone makes it a very entertaining night out. The actors are all excellent and the cgi is decent. I’m happy to recommend seeing this at the cinema this week and I am keen to watch it again myself some time soon.