The Raid 2 Blu Ray Review

The Raid 2 (A.K.A The Raid 2: Berandal in Indonesia) is a Indonesian action film released in 2014, which directed by Welsh director Gareth Evans, a same director did the first movie called The Raid was released in 2012. This movie is a sequel to the original 2012 movie, which I've already enjoyed the movie overall because it's has tons of ultra violence with blood splatted all over the place, crazy martial arts techniques, and it has action packed madness with insane weapons that makes the whole movie so epic to watch, so if you haven't seen the first movie yet, then go check it out because it is the most recommended movie to watch it on DVD or Blu Ray. 

If you haven't seen my movie review of the first ones, then here is my link down below to go check it out first before you're ready to read my review on this movie.

The Raid Blu Ray Review:

http://zeeshanmirzasblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/the-raid-blu-ray-review.html

Okay, here are my thoughts about this movie. I've enjoyed watching this movie because it's a fantastic sequel that offers more variety of having more story development giving more important plot of this movie, new casting choices with interesting characters, more graphical effects with even more gruesome gore and blood than was before, and well made action work with better stuntwork and extreme fight scenes makes the movie overall much intense and fun to watch. 

It may be not just good as the first movie, but it is still frigging awesome film that the fans of the first movie would love this action packed film.

Presentation

The movie follows the event after the first movie, the SWAT member Rama (Played by Iko Uwais) meets with the police officer Bunawar (Played by Cok Simbara), giving him the mission to investigating on Bangun and Goto gangs after he learning of his brother's death and imminent threat to his family.   

I say this movie are more heavily focused on story development to expand the character's interesting plot and giving the most important dialogue of the movie in which allowing to put more details on the storyplot to know what the characters are actually talked about during the scenes, which seems the director is doing very well for having the well written plot development, superb dialogue, and having the fantastic presentation overall.

I say the casting of the characters are doing awesome job in the movies, such as Iko Uwais has done a great job playing as the main character, while others like Cecep Arif Rahman, Julie Estelle, and Very Tri Yulisman are surprisingly played the best villains in movie history is due to badass looking concept of the group of villains are actually done really awesome job in the fight scenes. I'm glad that Yayan Ruhian, who previously played Mad Dog from the first movie, makes the appearance on this movie playing as Prakoso, which sounds like a great choice of the character in the movie. 

Overall, I love the presentation overall with outstanding story and fantastic characters with awesome casting choices makes this film another masterpiece.

Atmosphere

I love the action sequences because it brings even more hardcore than was before, so I like seeing the bad guys get showered by the bullets and getting head blowned up by the weapons with blood splatted all over the place, gets hit by the dangerous objects such as cars and truck, and beaten and sliced with the bats, hammer, stick, and knife makes the whole fight scenes look gruesomely brilliant, which I believe that the director wanted to make the special effects techniques and stuntwork look more realistic to make the movie atmosphere so entertaining. 

The martial arts techniques on the fight scenes are actually much fast paced and has very intense performance seems done very good job and the stunt work for chase scenes is just awesome to watch.

I say this movie has the best atmosphere overall ever made in film history.

Music and Sounds

I say the Joseph Trapanese and others artist did a good job using the darker industrial music and adding orchestrated soundtrack sounds pretty decent in the movie, but it wasn't sound exciting as the first movie, which I liked the soundtrack better from the first movie, but I say the music on this movie sounds pretty good so far. 

I like the sound work in the movie, which are perfect for higher quality speakers because it really has the ambient sound, more sound atmosphere, background noises, and the sound effects are cooler for gun shooting sequences, which they did a great job with sound development for this movie.

Special Features

This Blu Ray version comes with deleted scenes, commentary, behind the choreography, and exclusive Q&A with actors and directors, which is nice features on the blu ray version.

Advantages

Intense fight scenes

Well made presentation 

Great stuntwork

Excellent graphical violence

Decent soundtrack

Perfect sound effects

              

Disadvantages

None at all

Final Verdict

Presentation 9.8/10 - Well written plot development, superb dialogue, amazing casting choices for characters, and having the fantastic presentation overall.

Atmosphere 10/10 - Fantastic fight scenes, superb graphical violence, and well made special effects.

Music and Sounds 9.5/10 - Excellent soundtrack, ambient sound, more sound atmosphere, background noises, and higher quality sound effects.

Special Features 9/10 -  Deleted scenes, commentary, behind the choreography, and exclusive Q&A with actors and directors.

Overall 9.8/10 - The Raid 2 is definitely another best sequel to the best original 2012. This movie deserves higher praise for having superb story and characters, ultra violence madness, intense action scenes, awesome special effects, and the whole atmosphere of this movie is just amazing to watch, which the fans of the first movie should able to pick this film up is worth buying it.     

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SEGA Mega Drive Ultimate Collection PS3 Review

SEGA Mega Drive Ultimate Collection (A.K.A Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection in USA) is a compilation of 90's classic video games, developed by Backbone Entertainment, and published by SEGA for PS3 and X360.

This collection contains 40 Mega Drive games plus 8 unlockable games from previous Arcade and Master System. It has Sonic the Hedgehog, Street of Rage, Golden Axe, Shinobi 3, Vectorman, Ristar, Super Thunder Blade, Alien Storm and more of the classics games in the whole collection.

I'm glad I have this collection to play it on my PS3 because I love the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive back in 90's gaming childhood with excellent games title to play with, so it is worth price from the game store with 48 games are perfect for video game collectors, who grew up playing classics from the 90's.

So lets get the blast processing ready to go on my blog review, shall we.


Presentation

This game collection has really interesting presentation on museum menu because it's showing the history of the games and images of game case and cartridge. It has 40 games on the list, which you can rate the game out of 5 to see which ones are your favourites and which ones you did not like the game.

In extra options, you can watch all the interviews videos from the original game developers are quite useful to hear about their experience in developing games.

I say I like the whole presentation of this game showing the interesting history, cool images and watching interview videos about the development.


Gameplay

The gameplay plays fantastic because you have the options to change the control schemes in order to make the gameplay overall becoming playable, so you can turn on ABC mode for classic controls methods or you can customised the controls in different buttons placement to make the controls played right for you to enjoy your experience in each games.

You can save game by going to options and using the save state is quite helpful for players to save the game, so you can continue the game where you left off by loading the game from load state without having to start over again.

I did enjoy the games like Sonic 2, Shinobi 3, Street of Rage 2, Columns, and Golden Axe are quite playable with no problems at all, while the others like Alien Storm is a decent game for Mega Drive version, but on this version, sometimes I hate it when the game started to froze randomly on mission 5 or 6 and I had to quit the game from the options menu, but it does not freezes the game a lot because I'm managed to complete the game in time.

Overall, it's still plays good with the nice addition of customising controls and having the save features.


Graphics

The graphics are really fantastic for all original Mega Drive games because you can change the screen ratios to make the screen size bit bigger to fit well on your HDTV size, which doesn't make the whole game goes out of shape and colours.
The game graphics look very polished and detailed on HD screen because it cleans all the images and pixels to make the game look neat as possible without any flaws.

I say the graphics still has the classic remarks, even it's running on HD making it look perfect for all classics games.


Music and Sounds

I say the music from the intro and game list menu is somewhat pretty decent, but I also like the music from the game like Sonic 2, Street of Rage 2, Shinobi 3, Golden Axe, Comix Zone, Decap Attack, and others games still has the same sound engines as the original Mega Drive, which making the sounds emulation more original without any issues at all. The sound effects is sounds pretty good too for Mega Drive games, but I say the music and sounds from Space Harrier for this version is sounds little bit off compared with original arcade machines sounds better, but at least this version still sounds like from the original arcade game, but not accurately perfect.

I say this music and sounds are still in the good shape, which is quite promising enough, so I like it.


Special Feature

This collection offers unlockable interviews videos and 8 unlockable games on extra menus. It has the history of the game, and the gallery of the game cases and cartridge is still cool to check it out.
It has unlockable trophy achievements to gain more challenge for some of the classic games to collect the unlockable trophy, which is nice touch on this collection.


Advantages

Playable gameplay

Customisable controls

Save features

40 games in 1 collections

Very original graphics for HDTV

Unlockable stuff

Nice presentation


Disadvantages

Sometimes randomly freezes the game, but not a lot.

Music and sounds from Space Harrier not sound 100% accurate compared with original arcade machines.

There are some missing good games like Revenge of Shinobi, Gunstar Heroes, Outrun, and Super Hang On that didn't make it on the collection, which is quite shame, but it would have been nice to included on this collection, why not SEGA?


Final Verdict


Presentation 8/10 - Great history of the games, images of game cases and cartridge, and interesting interview video.

Gameplay 8/10 - Playable gameplay, customisable control, and save features.

Graphics 9/10 - Configuration video settings and very original graphics running on HDTV.

Music and Sounds 8/10 - Great soundtrack from the game, decent music from intro and game list menu, and some good sound effects from the game.

Special Features 8/10 - Unlockable 8 games, museums gallery and history, and unlockable interview videos.


Overall 8/10 - SEGA Mega Drive Ultimate Collection is the awesome gaming collection. It has really good games library to enjoy the classics are worth playing. I say the video game collector will love playing old school games from the past because you never get bored of playing these games, so this is highly recommended for everyone, those who don't have the Mega Drive/Genesis or haven't played these games for long time since 90's, should able to get this collection for cheaper prices because it is worth for buying this game.

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Under Defeat HD: Deluxe Edition PS3 Review

Under Defeat HD: Deluxe Edition is a 2D Arcade Scroll Shooter for PS3 and X360, developed by G.Rev and Published by Rising Star Games. It is the updated version of original 2006 game for SEGA Dreamcast, which is only released in Japan, before the HD version of this game got out in worldwide in 2012. This game offers the better gameplay features with dual stick controls, improved graphics running on HD with horizontal orientation screen and more detailed visuals, arranged soundtrack of original remixes, and new order mode.

Under Defeat HD: Deluxe Edition has the decent edition to this game because it comes with CD soundtrack, digital artbook, all current DLC and Patches, letter from developers, and new playable pilot exclusively on this edition, which is nice collection for console owners. 

I say that I did enjoy the game overall, even I did not own the original Dreamcast version, but it's a decent improvement from the original version that the game are still quite fun to play on modern consoles.

Presentation

The game takes place in alternative history based on World War II. The player take control of the characters, as part of the empire army, has the mission to battle against the Union army. I say there's not many plot in the game because it only has few plotlines on the text screen at the start of the game's intro that explains the war. 

There are sort of narrative at the end of the game as well and it shows some of the images of two female pilots at the end of the stages, which seems pretty decent to see characters images, but I say the story development is rather mediocre is due to not having enough overall presentation at the intro and outro of the game.

Gameplay

This game has arcade mode, new order mode, and practice mode on the select menu. You get to choose 4 different types of helicopter to play as and you have 2 options to choose between normal and reverse position at the beginning menu. 

The gameplay plays very good with having 45 degrees shooting controls, which works very well with dual analog stick feels much easier to control allowing the pilot to shoot in 45 degrees angle. You also have 3 sub weapons, such as Vulcan is just the simple machine gun, while Rockets and Cannon are the strongest sub weapons allowing to have higher damage on the enemies, which quite works pretty well in the game, but using the bomb attack is quite good for attacking all the enemies in the whole level, which slows down the game a bit doesn't mean the gameplay is bad because it's still playable during the gameplay.  

The enemies are quite challenging because it shoots so many bullets at you and there more variety of the different enemies like tanks, ships, planes, helicopter, turrets guns and bosses that makes the game so much fun to play with, but the game itself is quite too short, which takes half an hour to complete because it only have 5 stages to complete with, but I say it's still has a fun factor of the game making it look quite decent for classic arcade shooter.

Graphics

The graphics in the game are looking so far good with fantastic artwork on gallery and in the game, it has really nice animation on the levels with great backgrounds and textures, great overall environment on each stages, and has really superb visuals with steady lighting and nice shadowing.

Having the horizontal orientation screen and better details on the graphics overall makes look perfect on the HD version, which shows the improvement from the original version.

I say they did well on the HD version may look impressive for PS3 and X360 consoles.

Music and Sounds

This game has really great original soundtrack on the arcade version, especially the arranged soundtrack on the new order mode is far the best music in the game making it sounds catchy and epic fits well on each of the stages. 

The sound effects has really good background sounds for shooting noises, and the bomb has really nice loud vibrations and the atmosphere effects is just sounds superb in the game, which the sound effects are quite have impressive sound work for this game. 

Special Features

This game comes with unlockable levels and gallery, but when you get the deluxe edition, you will get CD soundtrack, DLC and Patches, letters from developers, digital artbook, and exclusive playable pilot are included on the game edition, which is sounds pretty awesome for gaming collectors.

Advantages

Decent gameplay

Impressive graphics

Great music and sound

Unlockable features

Collection edition bundle

Disadvantages

Short length of game

Some frame rate issues

Not enough overall presentations

Final Verdict

Presentation 5/10 - Shortages of plots on text screen and not having enough variety of presentation.

Gameplay 7/10 - Great controls, challenging enemies, decent power-ups, and very good modes.

Graphics 8/10 - Nice backgrounds and textures, smooth visuals, great animation, and fantastic artwork are looking perfect for HD version.

Music and Sounds 8.5/10 - Awesome soundtrack and superb sound effects.

Special Features 8/10 - Unlockable stuff and bundles. 

Overall 7/10 - Under Defeat HD: Delxue Edition is the decent edition to this game. It offers the better gameplay overall, impressive HD graphics, nicely made arranged soundtrack, and it comes with nice bundle that the deluxe edition has to offer for modern consoles.

I say I like this game and I've enjoyed the stages with variety of the enemies, especially with boss battles are quite have the fun factor of the game makes the good arcade scroll shooter on PS3 and X360. 

I highly recommended for PS3 and X360 owners, who have never tried the original Dreamcast version, should able to get this game for cheaper price.

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