By now, you might have read the story we posted earlier, reporting that George Lucas has finally addressed the issue of who was supposed to shoot first in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. The area of contention, as many of you are oh-so-familiar with, is whether Han Solo shot first, or Greedo.

In a new interview at The Hollywood Reporter, George Lucas suggests that the original plan was for Greedo to shoot first all along, saying that “It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down.”

However, Star Wars fans have not been convinced by his words (whether they're bothered if Greedo shot first or not). And, it seems, Mr Lucas might just be rewriting history a little.

With thanks to Den Of Geek reader Chris Lunt, who you can find on Twitter here, we have the text of George Lucas’ 1976 book (published in 1978 in the version we have here), Star Wars: From The Adventures Of Luke Skywalker.

It says it's written by a Mr George Lucas, although it was, in his defence, revealed to have been ghost-written by Alan Dean Foster, presumably under Lucas' supervision, though. As you'll see from the text we're about to show you, it leaves no ambiguity.

You can see the cover up there, and here’s the copyright page so you can verify the dates.

So then: here’s the crucial passage.



May we draw your attention particularly to:

“Light and noise filled the little corner of the cantina, and when it had faded, all that remained of the unctuous alien was a smoking, slimy spot on the stone floor.

Solo brought his hand and the smoking weapon it held out from beneath the table, drawing bemused stares from several of the cantina’s patrons and chuckling sounds from its more knowledgeable ones. They had known the creature had committed its fatal mistake in allowing Solo the chance to get his hands under cover”.

Note that it does not read:

"Greedo suddenly fired a shot, and in a move of pure self defence, the heroic Solo, as a last resort given that peace negotiations had failed, reluctanlty fired back, quietly sobbing as he did so. Why had it come to this? Why? Why?".

Hmmm. No matter what angle we read that from, it looks to us that only one person fired first. Shoot first, Greedo did not.

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here. And be our Facebook chum here.

It's being reported over at Kotaku, that Blizzard and Valve are getting themselves all riled up over legal rights to the DOTA (Defence of the Ancients) trademark.

First created as a mod for Warcraft III in 2003, DOTA has since become a fully-fledged game in production at Valve, after the developer hired the mod's creator. DOTA 2 was born, much to fans' delight, and the game is coming along nicely.

In 2010, Valve set about applying for the trademark to the DOTA name, which didn't exactly please Blizzard, but there was no legal scuffling, until now.

Blizzard has spoken up before the US Patent and Trademark Office and argues that it has the stronger case for ownership of the DOTA name and its associated variants. The main points of the argument state that Blizzard, and its fans of Warcraft, have been using and building up the DOTA name for over seven years, and as the original DOTA required Warcraft III in order to be played, and due to the ongoing existing use of the term, it has a stronger case than Valve.

It sounds as though this could get rather ugly, and whether it'll affect the release of DOTA 2 is unclear, but Valve certainly isn't going to let this one lie.

Kotaku

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here. And be our Facebook chum here.

The Diablo series has a very loyal fanbase, which is lucky, as it's certainly needed it over the last few months. The next instalment of the hack and slash lootfest was originally expected sometime in 2011, but has suffered several delays. More recently, the game was expected to release in early 2012, meaning fans had just a little while longer to wait, but the light was shining at the end of the tunnel.

Well, now that's not quite the case, and Activision has announced, in its financial yearly report, that the game will most likely ship in the second quarter, meaning sometime in the April-June period.

The publisher also stated that there's only going to be one more title from Blizzard this year, even though the dev team are currently also working on Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm and WoW: Mists of Pandaria. Our money's on the panda-centric WoW update arriving first.

Whilst this isn't exactly a huge setback, it's yet another push back for the release of a game that an army of fans are watering at the mouth for.

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here. And be our Facebook chum here.

Want more info on Mass Effect 3? Then you're in luck, as over the past few days, a bunch of new trailers have appeared for BioWare's upcoming title.

And we've gathered them together for you right here...

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here. And be our Facebook chum here.

As The Phantom Menace arrives on cinema screens around the world, with the added extra of 3D, George Lucas has given a new interview to The Hollywood Reporter, where he’s addressed an issue of much consternation for Star Wars fans.

You know which one it is, too. Back when Lucas put out the special editions of the original Star Wars trilogy, he re-edited the moment where Han Solo seemingly shot Greedo in A New Hope. It went from Han shooting first, to Greedo, and different Star Wars fans have different theories on just how much that affected the tone of the film.

Lucas, though, is adamant that it was right Greedo shot first. And that’s how it was always meant to be.

“The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV", he said, “what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t.”

He continued: “It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down.”

It was all camera angles, then? Just seems a bit odd that he's never said that before.

Elsewhere in the interview, Lucas said of Indiana Jones 5, “I’m supposed to be working on it right now!”. Expect developments there in the months ahead, then.

And expect Greedo arguments to continue to rage...

The Hollywood Reporter

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here. And be our Facebook chum here.

Yesterday, Tim Shafer's Double Fine took a rather novel way to obtain funding for its next project, by asking the fans to donate money to make the game happen.

Using the online fundraising service, Kickstarter, Double Fine asked fans to pledge donations to reach the $400,000 target required to get the project off the ground. Well, it certainly beats harassing publisher after publisher.

Now, this may sound like a crazy idea, but when you realise that the Internet has dutifully donated over a million dollars already, it becomes more of a master stroke. In fact, the $400,000 target was hit within eight hours.

Of course, whilst there are plenty of generous people out there, this kind of fund raising wouldn't work for just anyone. Tim Shafer isn't short of fans, being one of the most respected developers around. With such titles as Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, Psychonauts (of which sequel talks are still underway with Minecraft creator, Notch) under his belt, and input into classics like Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle, it's no surprise that the gaming public want to see another adventure from the studio.

The new project proposed is a classic point-and-click adventure, a genre that's not exactly been given the love it deserves of late. This will be developed by a team under Shafer's supervision and then documented with the video series being made available to the public to view, taking the development of the game and truly placing it in the public eye.

There's a reward scheme in operation for donations, and if you donate $15 you'll receive the finished game, whilst people donating more will get added benefits, such as access to full 1080p copies of the documentary, bonus footage, concept art and so on, including a painting of themselves by one of Double Fine's artists.

Those who donate much more ($15,000 and above), will be able to go for lunch with the Double Fine team, be a character in the game, or even receive one of Tim Shafer's last four shrink-wrapped copied of Day of the Tentacle, in the triangle box.

Having already gone way past the original target, Double Fine has posted an update on Kickstarter thanking the community for the overwhelming support, and has pledged that the extra money will go towards making the game bigger and better.

The return of Shafer-created point-and-click adventures? Now that's something we here at Den of Geek can't wait for. Be sure to visit the Kickstarter page to see Tim's request video, its well worth a watch.

Kickstarter donation page

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here. And be our Facebook chum here.

This article contains spoilers.

So we've all seen it now. The slate has been wiped clean for the current series of Being Human, and the departure of Nina and George, on top of the earlier exit from Aiden Turner's Mitchell last year, has not gone down well with viewers. There are of course those happy to roll with whatever decision showrunner Toby Whithouse comes up with, but there’s also a much more vocal faction who have expressed strong feelings towards the slightly clumsy revelation of our favourite werewolf couple's tragic fate.

These are the viewers Whithouse has publicly called out in various interviews, as he reacted to their refusal to follow the show into its new era at all. But is change always a bad thing? It seemed impossible to comprehend at first; how can a television series built around three (and then four) central characters carry on without three quarters of that magic team? As it stands, we're left with original cast member Annie, returning werewolf Tom and newcomer Hal.

Not many fans outwardly hate Annie, but I've not heard of any queues of fans lining up to call her their favourite either. I may be alone here, but I always felt that the series' power revolved around Mitchell and George's relationship, and to have both branches severed within the space of two hours (watched consecutively) could have considerably cheapened that importance in retrospect. I also, however, would rather there be more Being Human than the alternative, and shifts this substantial can sometimes actually rejuvenate a flagging show.

Last weekend's premiere episode proved that there's still life in the series, but such a sudden shift in the dynamic of the cast is hard to take for even the most dedicated of fans. The fact that some are  reacting so negatively is completely understandable, but there have been a number of classic series that have lost a main cast member in a similarly sudden manner and lived to fight another day. But there have also been those that struggled to stay afloat after their stars chose to walk off into the sunset, and it's unclear which path Being Human will take at this juncture.

The most recent example is Misfits, which unexpectedly lost one of its most popular members after its second series. Forced to write Nathan's exit into a web-only short, fans of the show were offered little in the way of reasoning or explanation come last year's premiere, which introduced the similarly hyper Rudy into the gang as a replacement. Series three survived viewer distaste and emerged stronger than ever, but time will tell whether the further departures of Simon and Alisha will spell greater trouble in the future. 

At the end of the Misfits finale, left only with Curtis and Kelly from the original line-up, a few alarm bells rang for the show's die-hard fans. It seems that British shows are more subject to change than their US counterparts, which often rely on familiarity to draw disparate viewers into each week's adventure. Just think of Doctor Who as a prime example. Who would have thought, having witnessed the furore that's surrounded Being Human and Misfits over the last year, one of our most popular shows makes a habit of changing its entire cast every few years or so.

The closest the BBC series came to the same violent reactions was with David Tennant's departure on New Year's Day 2011. While I'm sure there are some people who stayed true to their threats never to watch the show again, many more have persevered with the new line-up, and the nation has taken Matt Smith to their hearts to almost the same extent as they had with Tennant.

Skins, too, chose to avoid the post-college slump in its attempt to portray the teenage condition, and thus bravely changes its cast every two years. I'm almost certain that the quality of the E4 show would not have been so high for so long had they stuck with the original generation of teens, and the unique take on keeping the show fresh has paid off. 

There are, of course, those series that rely so heavily on their leading man/lady, that a change in the subordinate line-up goes largely unnoticed. House MD, for example, changed its medical team more times than viewers could count, and the current cast consists of doctors collected over its eight year run. Only three original characters remain, Chase, Wilson, and Dr. House himself, and the entertainment value has been all the better for the risks the showrunners dared to take, though sadly it wasn’t enough to save the show from cancellation, as announced this week.

But there are also those series that fail miserably after a member of their cast is removed. Some continuations after a notable departure simply smell of greed, and Scrubs learned the hard way that a popular show may quickly lose favour once your leading man has moved on. The Office: An American Workplace, too, recently lost its Ricky Gervais, in the form of funny-man Steve Carell, and speculation on who was to replace him was rampant. Two and a Half Men seems to have blown through the Charlie Sheen controversy, but not all shows get that lucky.

No one is sure whether Being Human can survive this latest blow, but fans owe enough to the show to at least give it a chance. Lesser series have gone on to have long and successful runs after a prominent or popular cast member is lost, and there are just as many that could stand to lose some of their stale cast members. Would another eight episodes of Mitchel, Annie, George and Nina really have satisfied viewers, or could getting some fresh blood into the bed and breakfast be the best thing to have ever happened to Being Human?

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here. And be our Facebook chum here.

There have been mixed messages as far as a fifth Rambo movie has been concerned. At one point, Sylvester Stallone was plotting a Rambo 5 that involved its hero pitting his not inconsiderable firepower against aliens. That plan was rejected, but eventually, so it seemed was the idea of a further Rambo movie.

However, it appears that the project has signs of life to it, according to the Twitter page of Sean Hood. 

Hood has been attached as screenwriter of Rambo 5 for some time, and was reported to have completed a draft of the film. And when asked what the status of the project was, he answered that “Rambo 5 on hold as Sly finished Expendables 2. He hasn’t decided if R5 will be an "Unforgiven" or a "passing of the torch."”

That certainly tells a different story to earlier reports that Stallone had dropped Rambo altogether. Could there be yet one more hurrah for John Rambo on the big screen? We guess we’ll see once The Expendables 2 is finally done and dusted, PG-13 and all…

Twitter

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here. And be our Facebook chum here.

We've got until the start of April to wait until the second season of Game Of Thrones, and it really can't come soon enough. HBO has helped with the wait, though, by unleashing a large collection of pictures from the upcoming season. 

You can see them all here, and, as always, you can make any of the thumbnails bigger by clicking on them.

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here. And be our Facebook chum here.

Things are pressing ahead on Robert Rodriguez’s sequel to Machete, Machete Kills. With filming set to start in April, the movie is heading to the European Film Market at the Berlin Film Festival, for rights to the project to be sold. And in preparation for that, a special promo poster has been produced. 

Without further ado, then, here it is. And Danny Trejo looks mighty angry in it too.

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here. And be our Facebook chum here.

Bad news, guys. In Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close, Tom Hanks meets his maker. Don't fret though - It's only a film, and the Hankster isn't really dead at the time of writing. He also doesn't have Forrest Gump's 'airbrush yourself into milestone moments of American history', skill, and so hasn't perished in a past disaster either.

However, none of this is of comfort to his screen son Oskar Schell (played by Thomas Horn) who is living in the movie and dealing with this massive loss. Over the course of two hours we'll share his - and New York City's - grief in the wake of a tremendous, tragic disaster.

How will this child cope now that his dad (Hanks) has departed and left him to be raised by Miss Congeniality? Without his father - who sounded reassuringly like Toy Story’s Woody - will this vulnerable youngster  be able to overcome his fear of the swingset, deal with his acute sensitivity to loud noises and grow to become a happy, stable young man in a shellshocked city?

Luckily enough, Hanks’ character Thomas Schell is acting from beyond the grave and spurring the kid on by engaging him in a scavenger hunt. Oskar has been left with a key and all keys must surely unlock something.

The child’s quest, then, is to cross New York City and search for the correct one of the Big Apple’s 162 million locks, meeting a whole array of people on the way (including Max von Sydow, John Goodman and the guy who invented the Source Code). Everyone will then come together and find a human connection amidst the ashes and aftermath of 9/11, undoubtedly creating an audience-pleasing tearjerker.

This is all very nice. Oskar needs companionship and a purpose to distract him from gloomy depression, and an incredibly challenging treasure hunt strikes me as a positive, practical response. On second thoughts, though, I begin to worry about the intrepid hero of Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close. If he had the ever-dependable Tom Hanks at his side I wouldn’t be concerned, but the Hankster's gone and now the vulnerable youngster is exploring Earth’s biggest city on his own.

I’ve never been to New York City, but I know it well, because I’ve watched a lot of films about it. There’s danger in them there mean streets, and I fear that even if he’s got Max von Sydow (atrained exorcist) as a travel companion, Oskar’s exposing himself to great peril.

Nevertheless, “you can’t be afraid” as Oskar himself spits out in the trailer. (I think he’s trying to impersonate Dug the golden retriever from Up - “My name is Dug! I have just met you and I love you! Squirrel!”) I don’t want to dissuade him from this Big Apple odyssey and prevent him from undertaking the nigh-impossible search for the mystery lock.

What I will do, though, is briefly skim over Manhattan movie history and outline some of the dangers he should be wary of. It’s a big city full of bad things, kiddo. Keep a tight hold of that key, keep on banging your comfort tambourine to ease your anxious mind and avoid the following fixtures that make NYC a scene of dramatic jeopardy...

Crime

According to some movies, The Big Apple is rotten to the core, and riddled criminals and illegal affairs. Even if you aren’t brushing past the Five Families or major mobsters on the mean streets (see Once Upon A Time In America, American Gangster, Carlito’s Way, A Bronx Tale, etc) you’re liable to encounter small-time hoods and nefarious nasties with no concern for morals or the law.

Gangs are everywhere in the movies, and I worry that Oskar is going to get bopped by the Baseball Furies from The Warriors or cut up by both the Sharks and the Jets of West Side Story. What’s more, he can’t rely on the police because - as proven by Serpico and Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant - they’re just as corrupt as the crimelords. Drugs, prostitution, racketeering, extortion and ultraviolence - this place is America’s prime wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Monsters

The USA’s top tourist destination, New York also attracts an inordinate number of beastly creatures and consequently, exists on perpetual terror alert. Simply by being in the metropolis you are risking your safety and placing yourself in the path of the full force of a potential monster invasion, whether it be in the form of aliens (Cloverfield, Men In Black), gargantuan lovestruck gorillas (King Kong) or revived dino-sized prehistoric reptiles (The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Hollywood’s Godzilla remake).

The Spider-Man flicks also illustrate the point that New Yorkers are liable to turn themselves into abominations when things get boring. I’d urge Oskar to hide underground in the subway system, except the giant cockroaches from Mimic would probably get him. Be cautious and careful when you go to Gotham, kids - it’s the go-to hotspot for all grotesque monstrosities with a taste for trashing landmarks.

Sex

New York’s a city of romance, you reckon? Put aside all those syrupy delusions that The City That Never Sleeps™ is all about innocent love. Really, it’s one of the most depraved places on Earth and its streets are soaked in vice and stalked by sexual predators. Even if Woody Allen (“behind his black-rimmed glasses was the sexual prowess of a jungle cat”) has abandoned his hometown, it’s still true that Manhattan is an enclave of erotic extremity.

It’s not an ideal environment for children and I'm concerned that kids may encounter characters like Travis Bickle (screwy psychopath and porno theatre patron) or Brandon from Shame (obsessed sex addict). Consider Tom Cruise's misadventure into the shadowy high society masque orgy cult of Eyes Wide Shut or the whole premise of Sex And The City and feel the revulsion as you remember that they're in the same city as Oskar's treasure trail.

If Oskar can circumvent these hazards, chances are he’ll emerge from his urban scavenger hunt adventure intact and succeed in eventually finding the holy grail of locks. We’ll therefore have a happy ending which is the kind of promise that cinematic New York City specialises in. (Unless the key turns out to be a red herring life metaphor that the kid can't grasp. Tom Hanks, can you help him out?)

James’ previous column can be found here.

You can reach James on his Twitter feed here, see his film cartoons here and more sketches here.

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here. And be our Facebook chum here.

The opportunity to speak to a director, a screenwriter and the author of the novel they’ve adapted is a rare treat, so we relished sitting down with novelist Susan Hill, screenwriter Jane Goldman (Kick Ass, X-Men: First Class) and director James Watkins (Eden Lake) to discuss The Woman In Black, putting Harry Potter in your film, how to unsettle an audience, and why really scary horror films are hard to find. Oh, and there just might be a teeny mention of Kick Ass 2, the X-Men: First Class sequel, and Doctor Who too…

Jane, what was your first introduction to The Woman In Black?

Jane Goldman: I first saw it on the stage when I was quite young, and then immediately afterwards was very keen to read the book and then had seen the stage play subsequently with my children.

As soon as Hammer approached me and offered the opportunity to adapt it I didn’t need more than a couple of seconds to think about it. What was exciting about it was staying true to the spirit of Susan’s book but telling the story with the language of cinema in the way that the theatre adaptation uses the stage to technical advantage.

Were you a Hammer fan growing up?

JG: Sure, I think it’s part of everybody’s childhood isn’t it? There are some wonderful Hammer movies and there are some dreadful ones…

James Watkins: We enjoy talking about the dreadful ones

JG: Weirdly, Dr Jekyll And Sister Hyde was on the Horror Channel last night. It’s an extraordinary piece of work (laughs).

What are the ingredients of a scare would you say? How do you craft one?

Susan Hill: I read a lot of ghost stories, because I was writing a ghost story. I didn’t think at all that I was writing a horror or a thriller or whatever, because the novel is about a ghost, whereas a horror book can be about aliens or things that rise out of the marsh and have no human shape.

It’s easy to write a short story and frighten people for five pages but to work at length, when you do it as in The Turn Of The Screw or A Christmas Carol it’s different, you have to build it and build it.

I think it’s two things: it’s building tension in the reader so they’re thinking ‘Hello, what was that?’, and then relaxing it as in The Turn Of The Screw, and then building it a little bit tighter. That’s probably true of all the medium but I was very conscious that to sustain the length you had to do that.

Certainly with a book, people are going to be able to read it and give themselves permission to have that delicious feeling of being terrified because they’re in a safe place while they’re reading. That’s what you can rely on as a writer, that people can let themselves be really frightened because they’re really all right. Being frightened when you’re not sure you’re all right is a big difference.

JG: I think the rhythm of film is slightly different but it’s exactly what Susan says, it’s about pacing and building intensity. In terms of when there were additional embellishments to be added I tried to draw on things that had genuinely scared me rather than being too technical about it.

I’m really quite hard to scare so it was about mining times when I have jumped, and what creeps me out. I collect Victorian automata and coming across them in the dark does give you a little shudder, so it was a case of finding those things that are a little unsettling from that period.

JW: To pick up on what Susan said in terms of it being a ghost story, I think that’s a very important thing. Rather than a horror film, a ghost story is different because a ghost is what you can’t quite see. If you go back to the literary source of this, the sense we try to achieve in the film is one that can play on people’s imagination, because that’s what books do brilliantly, and far better than films. What people can imagine is always going to be scarier than what you can film and what you can show, so through indirection, through staging, through all the grammar of film, if you can somehow achieve that then it can get under people’s skin.

With a lot of horror films now they are nasty and gory, and I’m not using those terms pejoratively at all but those things so not necessarily mean the same as scary and what we’ve tried to achieve is how we can make this film scary.

Even if you go back to cave men and history, ghosts are so hard-wired into our culture, it’s a real primal fear, like fear of water or fear of the dark, which is obviously a big factor in our film. We really worked very hard to tap into that in terms of the ghost, it’s just caught in the very corner of your eye, blinking on the edge of the frame, peering out of the black, and if you can really start to work that arena of dread then you’re approximating something that the great ghost stories do.

What about in terms of the audio on the film?

JW: We wanted to have a less-is-more aesthetic, you want to pull the audience in, you want to be there in the present moment with him [Arthur Kipps, Daniel Radcliffe's character] in the space, you want to hear his breathing, hear his footsteps and what we didn’t want to do was to go into the Hollywood-ised American way of drowning it in sound.

The film is very pared back in terms of its atmosphere so there’s an immediacy there. You want it to be like you’re leaning in and looking into the darkness and the sound design is only half heard so you’re going like that (leans forward) and like that (leans in further) and then occasionally (jumps backwards) like that. It’s analogous to what Susan was saying about building and building, then hitting, then letting it off, similar to comedy in a way, you build towards a joke and a pitch and you then come back, but the trajectory is always moving upwards.

When he brought The Awakening out, James Murphy suggested there was a kind of fatigue about splatter and gore horror amongst some audiences who were after something a bit more cerebral. What’s your take on that?

JG: I don’t have a fatigue for it, I love splatter gore horror!

JW: I think there’s a broad church and room for lots of different things. We’ve shown the film to teenagers and it’s very gratifying to be able to say, look there is no real violence or gore or anything like that but to see them…

JG: …an absolute wreck afterwards, it’s very gratifying.

JW: To have a more classical, elevated old-fashioned approach and for that to really work and scare people and get into their imaginations is great.

JG: I know what I miss as a cinemagoer is that balance of films that actually scare me, they’re so few and far between. I loved ghost stories, I love horror stories, I love all of that stuff, but I really yearn for something to actually frighten me. It’s more of a yearning for that than something that has to necessarily be cerebral or sophisticated. Good storytelling and something that actually frightens you.

What has frightened you in the past?

JG: Which films? They’re all quite random and few and far between. Jacob’s Ladder I thought was frightening, The Shining, The Vanishing, The Exorcist III oddly, there’s one very specific shot, the long shot down the corridor in the hospital is incredible. I’m quite fussy.

Talking about other films, Susan’s novel quotes Keats and Dickens and references other gothic literature, James, did you ever feel you were quoting from other films making The Woman In Black?

JW: It’s a funny one isn’t it, in that you are what you eat so it all goes in. Consciously I wasn’t quoting but I know there are areas where there are probably films referenced. There are notions. I know the genre very well and if I look back at films like The Innocents there are definitely techniques.

The techniques are different, though, because we’re in a much more modern idiom. You could not make a film quite at that pace now, it would bore people. Our film is made at a particular pace different to that most films are made at now, but not as slow as those made forty years ago. 

There are little things, if you look at the saturation of the colour we’ve got sort of bruised, dark colours, purples and blacks and deep crimsons, colours of decay and death in the production design, and I really wanted it to have a rich, saturated palette in the house. Often the default setting for some of these films is to go really monochromatic and bleach the colour out.

If you look for example at the recent BBC Great Expectations, they just sucked all the colour out and that’s not a particularly interesting choice for me. That is probably informed in some way by those early Terence Fisher, the rich, saturated technicolour there, but it could easily have been Dario Argento and those movies. It’s very hard to pinpoint exactly what your influences are.

Did you have any hesitation about working with Daniel Radcliffe seeing as everyone’s going to see this as his first post-Harry Potter movie? Did that put any pressure on things?

JW: It would be disingenuous to say you don’t consider those things. I mean, absolutely, you know that there’s this huge industry, 10 years of Dan and associations and issues that people have with him. Some are very good and people respond to Dan and they have views on Potter, whatever they are. But ultimately when you’re casting a part you’ve got to look at the part and the actor and you’ve got to see if there’s a good fit. And I met with Dan and I thought, put all that baggage aside for a second and I met with him and he’s a very, very bright guy, he’s a very, very committed actor, he’s very smart, he’s very focused and determined. If you look at the choices he’s making he wants to and he will have a long and varied career.

So, we talked about the part, we saw the part in the same way. He really understood this character, the grief, the weight of loss on his shoulders and we worked very hard to achieve that. One of the things that we worked hard at, and from the response that we’ve been getting is very reassuring is the sense that Dan looks different, he’s got a different air about him. I think he really carries the film. I think it’s a real proper grown-up performance. And we’re proud of what he’s done. So, the Potter thing is what it is and it’s always going to be there but if you start worrying about actors in terms of what they’ve done, the pool of talent you can cast just becomes negligible.

Jane, can you tell us what you have coming up next?

JG: I’m working on two different American studio projects now which haven’t been really officially announced yet, one of which has been sort of announced and the other hasn’t so unfortunately I haven’t really anything to…

Is that the Tim Burton one? (Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children)

JG: That is one of them yes.

Are you going to be writing for Johnny Depp then?

JG: Actually I’m not sure, I don’t know if there’s an ideal role in there for him, surely there should be!

Are you working on any sequels by any chance?

I’ve spoken recently about Kick Ass 2 and all my quotes are online on that but with X-Men I probably can’t say anything about that either, but there will definitely be one.

That sounds like you’re involved…

JG: (laughs) No, I’m honestly not. Simon Kinberg’s writing a draft right now, so… 

Would you consider taking a cue from Neil Gaiman and guest writing an episode of Doctor Who?

JG: I would be terrified to do it because I’m such a huge fan. Neil Gaiman’s more confident than I am. When it’s something you really adore, I think you don’t want to be the one who accidentally writes a crap episode. 

Neil, quite rightly so, has great self-confidence but I’m one of those writers who’s plagued by self-doubt. I think when you really adore something and you’ve grown up with it you almost don’t want to be part of it. I want to enjoy it as a fan and don’t want to ruin the magic.

James Watkins, Jane Goldman, Susan Hill, thank you very much!

Read our interview with Daniel Radcliffe on The Woman In Black here.

It's fair to say that one of the most attractive aspects of the original Shank, and one that certainly made people interested, was its striking visual style. It was a game that just looked cool. Luckily, Shank was more than looks alone, and the high speed, frantic combat, littered with nifty little moves and touches, made for a genuinely entertaining title.

With the arrival of Shank 2, we've got even more violent action than before, with perhaps more over the top, gratuitous killing, all still delivered with that hand-drawn, striking style, and accompanied by a few tweaks.

For the most part, Shank 2 is a carbon copy of the first title, and it delivers almost the same exact experience as before. Little touches like a separate pick up button and 360 degree aiming for guns are welcome though, and the visuals are certainly improved, with more detail and variety.

Sadly, there's not all that much more to it. The co-op mode is now a survival mode where you have to fend off waves of enemies, and the game does play a little faster than the first, but that's it really, and everything else is window dressing around the same old idea, albeit one that's still fabulously entertaining while it lasts.

Of course, if you enjoyed the first game, this is irrelevant, and more of the same is going to be welcomed with open arms. And, the fact that Shank 2, whether it's the tweaks or some form of engine optimisation, plays more smoothly and feels better than the first, helps make this a necessary sequel.

Shank 2 is a great little game, and it's just as enjoyable to nimbly slash through several guys with daggers and leap onto the next, drilling into his face with a chainsaw, before blasting someone point blank with a shotgun, as it ever was. It'll be a little too similar to the first for some, but it's certainly the superior of the two, and is well worth a shot.

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here. And be our Facebook chum here.

The first Darkness, developed by Riddick veterans Starbreeze, was an underrated gem of a game that placed you in the expensive Italian shoes of mob hitman, Jackie Estacado who, on his 21st birthday received a rather unique gift, the powers of the Darkness, an ancient and evil demonic entity that devours people's souls. Call us boring, but a gift token would be more appreciated.

This power quickly propelled him to the top of the mob's hit list, and although he successfully took out his enemies, Jackie lost his girlfriend, Jenny, in the process, as the Darkness forced him to watch her execution.

Fast forward a few years and we have The Darkness II. Jackie is now the boss of a powerful mob family, and somehow, he's managed to keep the Darkness in check for all this time, not letting it take him over, or even letting it out to have a little nibble on someone's soul.

Of course, as the game opens, this period of relative calm, and Darkness-free living is interrupted, as an unknown enemy group attacks Jackie, leading to another Darkness-tinged rampage strewn with all sorts of psychological weirdness and enough blood and gore to fill a small stadium.

Comic carnage

If you've played the first Darkness game then you may be expecting more of the same, and in some ways, that's what you get, but there's also plenty of change here. Instantly noticeable is the graphical style. Gone is the more realistic look, replaced with a cell-shaded comic-style approach. I was initially a little displeased when I saw this change of art direction in the various promos, as I've always thought the original Darkness was one of the best looking FPS games I've seen, but after playing the sequel, I'm happy to say the new look works.

Although more colourful and vibrant than the gritty realism of the first, this aesthetic doesn't stop the game from being suitably serious and violent, and the visual style looks great. From environments to character models and OTT executions, it's all gravy, and although there are inconsistencies, such as poor lip synching and some awkward character animations, on the whole it works very well. The Darkness is ever-present as an extra character all its own, and the many and varied actions and powers you can use all look good, especially the gruesome special kills.

What I'm not as keen on, however, is the main mechanical change of making the game a linear, stage-based shooter, as opposed to the psudeo-open world setting of the original. Whilst it was no Elder Scrolls game, the first Darkness outing gave you the chance to wander around various city districts and accept side missions and tasks as you saw fit, with main story missions wrapped around this open structure. Basically, it played exactly like the Riddick games, and it was great.

Here you simply move from one level to the next, killing and maiming as you go. There are some story sections, such as trips to Jackie's mansion or his twisted psyche, but these are all linear too.

That's not to say this makes the game bad, far from it, it's just a shame that it's a little step backwards in some ways. One thing is very true though, the move to a more linear system has made the core gameplay far more focused and accessible and there are plenty of improvements.

Feed the Darknessss!

In the original title, controlling the darkness was more than clunky. Using powers such as the creeping tendril could be nigh on impossible at times, and in general the Darkness was little more than a bullet sponge, and guns played more of a role.

In the Darkness II, however, this certainly isn't the case. Now it's your constant and dependable ally, with abilities that are not only much more effectively woven into the gameplay, but are much easier to use. You do have access to all sorts of guns, both single and dual wielding, but in order to survive the Darkness powers are just as essential.

Split into a left and right demon arm setup, you use L2 and R2 shoulder triggers to command the Darkness (L1 and R1 are for guns). The left arm is used to grab and interact with the environment (picking up ammo, eating hearts, breaking through doors etc) whilst the right is the offensive of the pairing, used as a vicious whip or spiked cudgel, the direction of which can be controlled by holding the trigger and moving the analog stick in the needed direction.

This simple method, combined with a few basic button combinations makes using the darkness a much more enjoyable affair than before, and with new powers such as the swarm, which can distract enemies and the ability to use such things as car doors as shields, it's a much more flexible system too, all the time letting you wield guns at the same time, thanks to the quad-wielding controls.

Sadly, the darklings have been paired down, and there's less of a focus on your underlings than before, with only one at your side this time. That said, you can now directly control the little guy in some situations, which makes for a novel diversion, and the darkling is a likable character, with more involvement in the story this time.

Gotta light?

The Darkness II makes more use of the Darkness' weakness, which is any form of light. There are areas of the world that are lit up, and to traverse them easily you need to break any light sources or find generators to shut off the power, otherwise you're unable to use the Darkness, and you're left vulnerable. Your darkling is also instantly banished should he enter the light.

As well as this basic premise, some additions force you to think on your feet and adapt quickly. Enemies will throw flash grenades to strip you of the Darkness and blind you at the same time, and others carry shoulder mounted lamps that bathe the area in light. To overcome this you have to either kill the light carriers with guns, or shoot out the light to get your powers back.

I've mentioned that you can interact with the world, and again, this is much more in-depth than the first game. Now you can pull doors off cars and either use them as shield, as I mentioned earlier, or throw them as a projectile, and you can impale enemies with poles, cut them in two with circular saws and hurl gas canisters, with explosive results. It's all implemented well, and is integral to combat, as you'll often run out of ammo.

Dark power

Alongside the basic Darkness abilities, there are extra unlockable powers you can utilise. These are obtained by earning essence points by killing foes, consuming hearts and finding collectables. Once amassed, you can redeem these points for various buffs and abilities. The ability to carry more ammo, earn more health from hearts and Darkness-powered guns are all useful, as are the abilities to conjure up a black hole, throw your darkling around and use the Darkness as a suit of armour.

Another main use of the Darkness is to perform special kills, or executions. By stunning and then grabbing an enemy you can perform brutal kills to earn health or ammo, and this is also a way to easily kill otherwise tricky opponents. You'll have to break the armour off some foes before you can do this though.

Demonic progression

As the story follows on directly from the first game (there's a catch up you can watch if you missed it), many old faces return, and you're instantly thrown into Jackie's world, which is good, as the story continues to be both interesting and unique. Jackie's struggle against both the Darkness and his still painful loss of Jenny underpin the proceedings, and the mob war and eventual fight against a powerful cult makes for a good driving force to keep you going, always punctuated between missions with Jackie's monologues. It's not an engaging as the first game's origin tale, but it's good nonetheless.

Once you're done with the story, there's the multiplayer mode to have a go at. Lightly tied in with the main game, here you can play as Jackie's special, Darkness-powered henchmen, and go on various missions, some of which are mentioned in the main story.

Although each character isn't as powerful as Jackie, there are enough special abilities and co-op play here to make the mode enjoyable, but it's nothing amazing (although it's much better than the first game's lacklustre offing). It'll certainly add plenty of hours to the, admittedly, very short campaign.

Fear of the dark

The Darkness II does most things right, even if it does tend to play it safe as a linear shooter, stepping back from its predecessor. When blasting through the story, you really do feel like an ultra-powerful killing machine, and each and every confrontation is littered with multiple possibilities on how to dispatch your foes.

The combat is key here, and the controls, both for standard actions and the Darkness are solid, and the stylish gorefest never gets dull. It's just a shame that the game is so short, and once you're played it through, there's little incentive to return aside from a a co-op mode that won't hold your attention for all that long compared to other alternatives.

You can rent or buy The Darkness II at Blockbuster.co.uk.

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here. And be our Facebook chum here.

Some statistics for you.

Last year, The Smurfs movie, a hybrid of live action and CG animation, overcame generally not overly kind reviews to grab over half a billion dollars at the worldwide box office. As did fully-CG fare such as Cars 2 and Puss In Boots, too. The Muppets, meanwhile, tucked up $87m in its US run. Not a bad sum at all, but some way off the levels of a DreamWorks animated movie.

I can’t be the first to wonder it, and it’s a horrifying thought, but had Disney opted to make The Muppets as a CG film, would it have made more hard cash at the end of it all?

Thankfully, Disney held its nerve, and chose not to. And for the second time in a year, very much to its credit, it launched what seems to have become a non-traditional family film into the market. After all, the current definition of a modern-day traditional family movie now appears to be a CG animated (in full or in part) romp, with star voiceovers, perhaps a bit of quirky breaking of the fourth wall, and heaving leaning on comedy. Fortunately, over the past year or two, there are signs that things are changing a little.

Disney’s attempt to do something a little different had actually come a bit of a cropper earlier in 2011, when the delightful hand-drawn Winnie The Pooh feature barely scraped together $33m worldwide (not helped by opening opposite Harry Potter, a film perhaps too dark for the full family, in the US).

With The Muppets? It again swam against the tide, funding a film that relied on traditional puppetry, along with musical numbers, a willingness to reference older material, and a desire to play to a full family audience.

This approach has not gone without reward. The critical reception to The Muppets was strong, and the film banked more than any other Muppet film in the US, with its worldwide roll-out in cinemas beginning around now. It’s fair to suggest that the DVD and Blu-ray release should do well, too.

What’s more, The Muppets, whose last cinematic outing was the borderline-tragic Muppets From Space, have been brought firmly back into the public consciousness (courtesy, it should be said, of a spectacular marketing campaign, that stretched right back here).

Now: it would be expected at this stage, I would imagine, for me to go on about what a sorry state family movies are in. But my thoughts are actually increasingly the opposite. What the success of The Muppets has proven is that there is room for real range in the family movie sector.

Sadly, more than most, it’s an area of the market that’s ripe for bandwagon hopping. Pixar hit big? Let’s go and make CG films! What’s this? A CG/live action hybrid works? Hollywood couldn’t commission them fast enough. Some of the products of the bandwagon following, to be fair, have been grand. Rango and Arthur Christmas last year, accepting the former was skewed towards an older audience, were both real treats, and The Adventures Of Tintin, too, offered a lot of fun. Even the less memorable CG movies, you can generally be pretty confident that they'll have some entertainment in them somewhere.

What I’d like, though, is for hand drawn animated films, and movies such as The Muppets, to be seen as less of a novelty. That Hollywood, and audiences too, lose the ties that seem to have developed towards CG, and show continued willing to adopt the appropriate format for the appropriate material. Time will tell, for instance, if the decision by Disney to pursue The Snow Queen in CG was brought about by it being best for the look of the film, or by market demands.

There a few films are coming out this year that offer particular hope, with stop motion movies particularly leading the change. ParaNorman, Frankenweenie (Disney again) and The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists! all look like they have a strong identity of their own. As such, they look infinitely more interesting than something like a third Madagascar movie, or a fourth Ice Age promise to be.

Perhaps the biggest casualty of the quantity and current surge of family movies, though, has been live action. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island is the current exception to the rule, but the bulk of family movies still involve animation somewhere along the line.

I sort-of made this point last year, when I questioned whether PG-13 and 12A had killed off good live action family movies, here. I’m not utterly sure they have, yet it strikes me that good live action family features are as much as a novelty as something hand drawn right now.

But still: as The Muppets explodes into UK cinemas, the choice for families this weekend is rich. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island is a hoot, The Muppets is pretty unmissable, Big Miracle is something a bit different (even if it’s not much cop), and there’s Monster In Paris, and Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace all inhabiting the multiplex (those pesky chipmunks are still around, too). That’s a range there, for different segments of the family audience, that means there should be something for most, and that has to be healthy.

It goes without saying which one I recommend, though...

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here. And be our Facebook chum here.

1.1 and 1.2 Magus; Marbeley

Time was, waterborne adventure and thriller stories cast their characters out on the ocean. From Odysseus to Long John Silver, via the Ancient Mariner and Captain Ahab, the thrill of the sea has been its openness, the capacity for adventure when the characters can go almost anywhere. Rivers are different. Rivers are claustrophobic. With rivers, you have only two choices, forward, or back. 

Joseph Conrad knew this. In setting Heart of Darkness on a river, he was able to use it to support his narrative while creating a sense that his characters were being drawn towards something. There was something awful waiting for Marlow, but he had no choice but to keep following that constant, inexorable stream towards Kurtz. 

The makers of The River (Paranormal Activity's Oren Peli and Michael R. Perry) are clearly hoping to use the same natural dread. Here, Bruce Greenwood is the Kurtz. He reprises his Star Trek role as father figure in jeopardy, playing the Steve Irwin-esque TV adventurer-cum-naturalist Emmet Cole who, twenty years into a successful career, goes missing somewhere along the Amazon. He is presumed dead, but thrillers being what they are, clues remain to suggest that he is alive and well. Well, alive at least. His wife and adult son, Lincoln, take a boat upriver to find him and bring a TV crew along for the ride. In-universe, this is handwaved by establishing that the TV company is funding the expedition and interested in making a follow-up show on Emmet, and for the show we’re watching, it allows for a ‘found footage’ device to be used. 

The opening two episodes, shown as a double-bill and available via iTunes in the UK, are patchy, but not without promise. The exposition, which is necessary, is handled somewhat clumsily. While good use is made of fake news clips and footage from The Undiscovered Country, Emmet’s show-within-a-show, the characters are established rather amateurishly, with the dialogue feeling rather forced. We know, for example, that Emmet loves his wife because on looking at a fluorescent blue dragonfly he tells us that the only thing he “knows this blue in nature are my wife’s eyes first thing in the morning”. His son’s angsty demeanour all too often slips into ‘you weren’t there for me, mom’ rants. Yes, he and his mother have issues, yes the boat’s pilot is an angry man overprotective of his daughter, yes, the bodyguard is a badass, we get that. But they’ve got eight episodes on a small boat to let it show through; we don’t need to see it all in the first fifteen minutes. 

Sadly, on the strength of the first episode, fifteen minutes may be enough. These characters are rather shallow and it is difficult to invest much concern in them, a major problem for a horror piece. The central mother/son relationship falls flat, it is angst by numbers and the son acts far too much like a whiny teenager for us to accept him as the show’s lead. On a generous interpretation, this is a character flaw, not necessarily a writing one, and watching him develop will add a satisfying extra dimension to the show’s arc, as long as the writers have the confidence to let him grow. Unfortunately at this early stage, it creates more melodrama than horror. 

More work is also required for Jahel, the mystic daughter of the boat’s captain. Her role seems to be little more than walking spirit guide, muttering mysteriously in Spanish about ‘ghost friends’ and ‘soul traps’. Although she is given the show’s funniest line, this is a little throwaway, and she soon reverts to the mystical intonations. We’ll need to see something more from her before she is seen to be anything other than a stock ‘magical ethnic’ character.

Kurt Brynildson, the bodyguard is handled much better. He is given very little backstory, just right for this stage of the show. The bits we do see are perfect and we end up knowing enough not to trust him, but not so much that we know why we shouldn’t. Likewise Quitely the TV producer and AJ the lead cameraman. There are definitely a few surprises in store for and from these characters and they genuinely piqued my interest.

It’s not just the characters. The show’s key device of using found footage feels forced. It is a conceit with a purpose, providing a ‘third eye’ so that characters may be in jeopardy, but it is not sustained well enough. Some of the scenes require a colossal suspension of disbelief to convince you that they would have been filmed. Yes they are making a TV show, but would they really film Tess Cole walking into a bar to tell her son that his dad’s safety beacon had been found on the day of his funeral? At least the cameras are acknowledged in that scene, later ones, particularly between Lincoln and obvious love interest Tara, are conducted as though as though the characters don’t know they are being filmed. It is a nagging inconsistency that needs to be ironed out swiftly.

In addition, as the majority of it is presented as professionally filmed, it doesn’t feel like found footage –it’s too slick and well made. It even has some post-production features such as captions and subtitles that would have required the input of the characters who were actually there. Would some editor in a studio know that, for example, they were entering the boat at 10:37 without consulting a ‘survivor’? While there is some use of unmanned footage, such as from security cameras, this is not really enough to sustain the device. The authored nature of the footage also removes a layer of objectivity that would have added a greater sense of danger. The horror would be made more intense seen through the cold unblinking eye of a CCTV camera, while a more patchwork collection of footage would help to convince the viewer that something awful is going to happen to these people.

Watching it, I found it better to ignore the found footage and enjoy the storyline for its own merits. I wouldn’t be too surprised if subsequent seasons –and there is just enough to sustain multiple seasons- see this conceit jettisoned. 

However, once it gets going, The River manages its thrills well, using misdirection and darkness to their full advantage. It could do with more of them, however, and a better balance between the quiet reflective moments and the key horror set pieces. The show is establishing its characters, but we’re not seeing this done carefully enough to warrant all these scenes of Lincoln talking about how his dad was never around when he was a kid. I would rather see his character emerge through his response to his current situation than through heartfelt soliloquies and schmaltzy flashbacks.  

That said, the scariest moments are the subtle ones –the dolls in the second episode making a particular point of this. This episode is better overall, combining tension with some genuine creepiness and a great use of the natural dread of the darkling jungle. It also hints at a mixture of monster-of-the-week episodes and a longer story arc, a device that has served cult television very well and which will help to maintain a regular dosage of actual horror for the viewer without dragging too much of a central mythology behind it. 

So, despite some early niggles, The River has a lot going for it. Its central premise is strong and there are plenty of opportunities for thrills, both mystical and mundane. The characters have been forced upon us but they have room to grow, and stuck together on a tiny boat, there is plenty of dramatic scope for them to do so. There are clues and red herrings a plenty in the show’s central mystery and plenty of river to go. We are still a long way from Meestah Kurtz here. 

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here. And be our Facebook chum here.

In an Interview with GameInformer, Naughty Dog has revealed quite a bit of information regarding the story, or more specifically the back story, to its upcoming title, The Last of Us.

Taking place 20 years after an apocalyptic event that involves some sort of infection that drives people crazy, the game sees the world in ruin. The majority of the population is either insane or dead, and the survivors are secluded in Military-run quarantine zones.

In the game, protagonist, Joel, is one of the few survivors left from a time before the event occurred, and over time he's changed from a moral, normal citizen into someone who will do anything to survive, be it trading drugs or killing people.

At the start of the game, he accepts a job to smuggle a girl out of the city, one of the last safe zones, for unknown reasons. This girl is Ellie, a 14 year old girl who knows northing but the quarantine zone she was born in, and she's obviously very important in some way, something Naughty Dog aren't disclosing.

Leaving the martial law-enforced city, Joel and Ellie end up being hunted by the military that formerly protected them, and have no choice but to head into the wasteland on a mission or survival.

Coming from a team as talented as Naughty Dog, who have already given us the excellent Uncharted series (not to mention classics like Jak and Daxter), The Last of Us is quickly becoming one of our most anticipated titles, and we can't wait to see what's in store.

Visit the link below to see the full interview video with more details on the creation of the world and the game as a whole.

GameInformer

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here. And be our Facebook chum here.

The sequel to the stylish original, Shank 2 is now available on Xbox 360, PlayStaiton 3 and PC. Improving upon the original in almost every way, Shank 2 boasts a body count that would make Stallone blush, all delivered in ultra-styalised cartoon world.

Our review of the game is coming soon, but for now, have a look at the launch trailer.

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here. And be our Facebook chum here.

Yes, that's right, the strategic board game everyone played when they were kids is not just being made into a ridiculously OTT, Michael Bay wet dream of a movie, but also an action video game. Activision has announced that Battleship The Video Game is on its way, and it'll include some strategic naval command and, wait for it, FPS gameplay. Yep, X-Com, Syndicate and now Battleship have all gone first person shooter.

Developed by Double Helix, whose titles have included Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters, G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra and Silent Hill Homecoming, the game is set to be a standalone story, and not a direct movie tie-in.

"Inspired by the film's exciting action and stunning backdrop, the game is next-gen naval warfare that thrusts players into the middle of humanity's last stand against an unfamiliar menace," says David Oxford of Activision Publishing.

The game will let players switch seamlessly between the tactical and FPS elements of the game, fighting battles on multiple fronts on land and sea, featuring the various ship classes from the original game, alongside new ground units and an alien menace to contend with.

To turn a game as simple as Battleship into a strategy/FPS hybrid may sound rather odd, but, despite out initial concerns, we're willing to give Activision the benefit of the doubt for now, at least until the game arrives on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in Europe in April and in the 'States in May (with Wii, DS and 3DS to arrive later).

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here. And be our Facebook chum here.

It's been revealed in Time Warner's 2011 fiscal report that the superb Batman: Arkham City has shipped six million units worldwide since its October launch last year.

The parent company of Warner Bros Interactive, Time Warner, saw its total revenues rise by nine percent to $12.6 billion during the 2011 fiscal year. The company has stated that a portion of this rise in revenue is because of strong sales of Arkham City, along with impressive performances by such titles as the reboot of Mortal Kombat and a few Lego titles.

These figures are very promising, although, according to NPD group figures, even this performance wasn't enough to crack the top spot, and Batman: Arkham City came in seventh behind CoD Black Ops at six, Madden '12 at five, Battlefield 3 at four, Skyrim at three, Just Dance 3 at two and, surprise, surprise, CoD:MW3 at number one.

Still, although the overall sales charts may not show it, Batman's Arkham series is making its company very wealthy indeed, which bodes well for a continuation of the franchise. And that can only be a good thing.

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here. And be our Facebook chum here.

Anyone who was looking forward to the next instalment of the True Crime series was undoubtedly a little peeved when the project was canned last year. There was a little hope, as the IP was picked up by Square Enix in August, but then, it vanished from the gaming radar.

Well, now it looks like the title is back, only with a bit of re-branding. Called Sleeping Dogs, the game, by United Front, still involves an undercover cop in a seedy Hong Kong setting, and the story still revolves around infiltrating the criminal underworld with a mixture of guns, martial arts and crazy driving skills.

Details aren't plentiful right now, but the story sees you play as Wei Shen, the undercover cop in question, and your ultimate goal is to bring down the Triads within an open game world.

The announcement trailer doesn't give all that much away, aside from the plot itself, and although it's stylish and interesting enough, we can't help but be a little worried when a trailer is solely live action, without a hint of game footage. Hmmm.

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here. And be our Facebook chum here.

It’s not a massive surprise, this, given that the storylines were running out and there weren’t many interesting things left to do with the title character. However, Fox has decided to pull the plug on the hit TV show House, at the end of its currently-broadcasting eighth season.

The show, which stars Hugh Laurie, has been a cut above the usual medical dramas, with Laurie injecting it with a massive dose of sarcasm, and a mastery of an American accent. By April, 177 episodes of the show will have been made and broadcast.

It’s be wrong to say House is being cancelled, though. This is, surely, a case of a show coming to the end of its natural life, rather than one cut off in its prime. It will also most certainly live on in the world of DVD boxsets and TV repeats for many, many years to come...

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here. And be our Facebook chum here.

There’s been no shortage of rumours circulating in the past few days with regards the planned new Blade Runner film, and as he does a bit of publicity for his upcoming Prometheus, director Ridley Scott has addressed them with Entertainment Weekly.

With regards revisiting Blade Runner, Scott admitted that “we’re still in discussions about whether it should be a prequel or sequel”, revealing that “I’m meeting with writers and I’ve also gone back to Hampton Fancher, and he still speaks the speak”. Fancher wrote the original draft of the first Blade Runner film, but as of yet, the new Blade Runner has no screenplay.

Addressing the online chatter that suggested Harrison Ford was in talks to appear in the new film, Scott suggested this wasn’t the case, but wouldn’t rule it out happening in the future. “I’m not sure that that’s going to be a story point, so I don’t know”, he added. “But if it were, nothing would please me more. Honestly.”

And he ended the interview on a simple, effective tease. He declared that he’d had a great time doing Prometheus, and that “I’m also thinking about what the hell I might do for a Prometheus 2.”

Prometheus arrives in June.

EW

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here. And be our Facebook chum here.

There are still many months of physical production to go on Peter Jackson’s two films of The Hobbit and thus, that means there’s still time to add a name or two to the sizeable cast.

The latest addition? Billy Connolly, who is set to play Thorin’s cousin, Dain Ironfoot, in the movies. Described as “a great dwarf warrior”, Peter Jackson has said of Connolly’s casting that with it, “the cast of The Hobbit is now complete”. Best abandon our audition tape, then. Bah.

The first of The Hobbit movies, An Unexpected Journey, will be in cinemas from December 14th 2012.