And so we come to the sequel A Game of Shadows, which sticks to the same formula. Nods towards the source material while telling its own story. It’s flashy and brash in it’s form, unabashedly so, and fun for it. The fight scenes slowed down and plotted out remain from the first, giving it a seemingly more intellectual air to its fight scenes, with Sherlock using his trademark intuition and intelligence to plot out move and counter-move ahead of time so when you see the fight in real time the moves that would otherwise go by in a blur have emphasis to them. There’s a lot of whizz bang for those of us with short attention spans and plenty of humour and a few laughs, too.

As for the plot, well that’s twisty, as you’d expect. John Watson is still trying to get married, while Sherlock is still pursuing the trails and plots of Professor Moriarty. Along the way Irene Adler and Mycroft show up to help move the plot along. We also have Sim, a gypsy card reader who gets drawn in to the plot. So we have bombings, politics and business and in the middle of it all James Moriarty some how pulling all the strings and Sherlock obsessively pulling on the threads to see what leads where. And at the centre of it all the relationship of Watson and Holmes which the whole thing hangs on. Which may be where it succeeds or fails for you, if you enjoy the central relationship, then for all the humour, warmth and arsekicking between them you will enjoy this film. If you don’t like that then that will probably be the downfall of the film and it will be worth nothing.

For me it was fun and enjoyable, the action was well done, if overblown at times. The humour was mostly on the mark but some fell flat. The story, well as I said, when hung over the characters it was enough, but if you don’t like the characters then it will fail you. Judging from the reaction of the audience around me, for the most part, it hit the mark and it seemed like people were enjoying it. I can understand some of the criticisms it’s getting though I don’t share them at all. I really did enjoy the two hours sat there in the dark with this film. If you didn’t like the first you won’t like this one either as it’s more of the same, but if you enjoyed it then this is worth the price of admission.

After a short introduction sequence in Budapest, with an agent being assassinated after a daring escape, we’re taken to an Eastern European prison where Simon Pegg and a new female agent are busting out Ethan Hunt, but rather then cooperate he decides to go and rescue someone else before being busted out. Then we’re treated to an intro credit sequence which is basically a stylised pre-cap of the rest of the film. From here I’m already getting a bit fuzzy on the plot, because it’s your basic mad man wants to blow up the world for his own reasons plot. To stop him they’re dispatched off to Russia to infiltrate the Kremlin and get information on this new terrorist plotting to blow up the world. This mission of course goes wrong when the terrorist blows up the Kremlin and frames Hunt and his team. Which of course leads to another escape and then being disavowed by the US Government, so a lone team, under equipped, though still having gadgets that would make James Bond envious, head off round the world to stop the world from ‘sploding all over the place.

Now I’ll say this, I didn’t hate it, it was sort of fun, in a brain switched off sense, but there was very little substance in the film. There was some Simon Pegg being “funny” and the usual Tom Cruise doing the “action”. But mostly it’s just fluff that will be blown from your mind in the breeze when you leave the cinema. The thought struck me in the cinema it was like watching a hybrid of 24 and Alias. Lots of doing what needed to be done to stop the plot, crossed with a level of silliness and gadgetry. But if you’ve seen the previous films and saw the trailer and thought it was for you, all I can say is that it’s pretty much what you’d expect. But at the minute I would say that Sherlock Holmes 2 is the better of the action fluff films on at the cinema.

But if you are a Mac user then you might want to take a look at EaseUS CleanGenius. It is an all-in-one and easy-to-use Mac maintenance utility to make your Mac OS run faster and perform better. It offers multiple ways to free up the disk space overall along with other useful features to maintain your Mac.

Useful features of EaseUS CleanGenius

Mac Cleaner: Clean up your Mac hard drive to free up disk space and optimize the Mac performance in no time. System caches, user caches, system logs, user logs, user downloads, trash, safari internet cache, etc. are all detected and cleaned.

Duplicates Finder: Duplicate files have the identical contents and waste the precious disk space, CleanGenius can easily find and remove duplicate files to reclaim the wasted disk space.

Disk Usage: Visualise the size of your files & folders and remove the unwanted big files to free up more disk space.

App Uninstaller: When you drag an application to trash, its cashes, logs and preferences can not be deleted. CleanGenius completely removes the unwanted applications and files associated with them.

Free Memory: When the free memory of your Mac is insufficient, you can easily use CleanGenius to free memory and speed up your Mac for better performance.

Disk Space Monitor: Show free space of external, network, local drives, discs and disk images. The free space information of system drive will be indicated in the menu bar. It will alarm you if the disk runs out of space and the warning value can be set in Preferences.

So is CleanGenius worth the $30? Well the short answer is yes. EaseUS CleanGenius fills a space in application market allowing easy maintainance of a the operating system for anyone and not just the tech savvy.

Standard Version: Amazon MP3 • Amazon • Play • Play MP3 • iTunes • HMV • Zavvi • Tesco
Deluxe Version: Amazon MP3 • Amazon • Play • Play MP3 • iTunes • HMV • Zavvi • Tesco

For those who don’t know who Nicki Minaj is she is a female rapper/singer of the incredibly successful YMCMB (Young Money Cash Money Billionaires) clique. You will either know her as a credible female MC from her first album, or you saw the truly terrible performance at the Grammy Awards.

The album was highly anticipated in many circles but does it live up to her first breakthrough album Pink Friday? I would normally break down each track and give details of each track, but this album really isn’t worth the time and effort. She has gone from in my opinion a real contender for Lil’ Kim‘s crown of greatest female MC to sreeching alot and songs containing “wooooo dick in your face, put my dick in your face, put my dick in your face” REALLY?.

Main Album

I came incredibly close to just turning the album off after the first 2 tracks. ‘Roman Holiday’ been the first track; the shambles that was unfortunately displayed at the Grammy Awards and sounds just as bad in the studio version as it does live. Highly annoying, terrible rhymes, singing is weak and the beat is rubbish. It’s all round a bad song, the same can be said for the second track on the album ‘Come On A Cone’. It is all just so generic bullshit that Young Money pump out to the masses and people usually eat it up like a McDonald’s burger.

The 3rd track ‘I Am Your Leader’ is far from brilliant but it has Cam’Ron and Rick Ross who I do respect as artists in their respectively styles. Nicki isn’t on form on this album so far at all shes really lost her way and everything sounds the same. Rick Ross barely saves the track with his effortless flow, nice lyrics and his all round charisma on the beat. Cam’Ron does his thing and holds up against rick ross, both guests are far ahead of Nicki, another skippable track (Well half of it atleast).

‘Beez In The Trap’ it kicks off with another generic beat and Nicki again blurts out nonsense, this is the exact bullshit I was expecting the first time around on Pink Friday which I actually loved. “A 100 mother fuckers can’t tell me nothing” Nicki spouts on the hook and it seems like she has to start listening to people more, like her FANS! As if this is the best she now has to offer she won’t get a 3rd album. The feature machine that is 2 Chainz gives a nice verse and hits the beat nicely but if this was on any other track and not this crap i would of probably skipped him too, all in all a rubbish song again.

The next track is ‘Hov’ Lane’ now this is a nice change of pace, it is the first track I liked on the album, she is being cocky and spitting out punchlines, this is the first track that shows any progression, the flow is really good too, she really seems to snap on this 1 and hits the beat with an aggressive delivery, the beat is slightly better then the previous 4 but not by much, but Nicki’s delivery gets your attention.

‘Roman Reloaded’ is the title track of the album and no surprise it features Lil Wayne, Nicki comes straight for the jugular with the track hitting with a gun shot and Nicki delivering “bang, my shit bang” she actually has some nice lines in this track but the beat is so poor it seems like no effort whatsoever has gone into production on this album, a kid with a drum machine is the level of skill on this. Nicki overall is just lacking in every department, Wayne actually isn’t too bad on this track, don’t get me wrong he isn’t good, ever. Name drops himself as always when he has nothing to say on a song, which is why you hear his name so damn much.

‘Champion’ is the first attempt at a great song. I have seen lots of hate for this track as it features Nas, Drake and Young Jeezy. The general consensus seems to be Drake & Nas “killed it!” but there isn’t much between the 4 artists in terms of delivery, they all put out the same verse with a different voice. Each has some nice lines, Drake and Nas I would say have the better ones, Young Jeezy just sounds like he got a throat infection (no I don’t mean his normal voice). Really don’t like Jeezy on this his voice is irritating, and im a huge fan of his albums, Nas steals the track as expected, but there isn’t really any stand out lines.

‘Right By My Side’ features Chris Brown and is the first track I really enjoyed, but as a massive Chris Brown fan that is to be expected. Nicki sings on this 1 too which is strangely what I think the album has missed, this is a definite hit for the future if released. The beat is nice, it has melody to follow and it is complimented with Nicki’s singing. Chris Brown lays down great vocals as always and really gives the album a much needed lift. Nicki gives a nice rap with a more trademark delivery switching things up with speed, the track ends with Chris and Nicki harmonising, overall a good track.

‘Starships’ kicks off with a beat which I would describe as a Maroon 5/Lady Gaga mash up with a clear David Guetta influence on the hook. This is far from a typical rap track, but it is 1 of the best tracks on the album, cheesy and straight pop but so catchy, and Nicki is just having some fun finally. This is the Nicki I have been missed listening to the album, sure it’s a typical club track and not much in terms of rapping, but this is a positive, she knows how to simply make a commercial track and do it well.

The next 4 tracks are produced by RedOne and follow the Guetta/Black Eyes Peas trend of 10% lyrics 90% club beats. While I like dance music and actually enjoy these tracks beatwise, I couldn’t help wondering why Nicki Minaj decided to go in this direction as I don’t think she fits into this genre as well as she seems to think she does.  The lyrics are extremely repetitive and she has really put artistry aside for some commercial club success. As a Female rapper, this is a strange choice of direction and it works if you take the tracks on their own basis, but the album is just all over the place it has no structure at all and these tracks are a good example of this.

‘Marilyn Monroe’ starts with a melodic piano lead and again gives Nicki another high point, which are few and far between, it has a nice hook. It seems to me the pattern of the album is if Nicki sings rather then raps it’s a good track, I found myself enjoying her as a singer and giving her no credibility as a rapper.

‘Young Forever’ is another track I would recommend as it again has Nicki taking a more melodic singer direction and has a hard hitting drum kick similar to an early Eminem track. ‘Fire Burns’ continues where the previous track left off and sees Nicki singing again, but she tries to hit notes that aren’t there so she is a bit pitchy in parts which is pretty crazy in the world of Auto tune.

‘Gun Shot’ is a nice change as it features Beenie Man and see Nicki bring a slight reggae flavour to her vocals, this track is definitely 1 of the stand out tracks and has a very melodic piano running through the heart of it, and a nice drumline and nice vocals delivered from Nicki, Beenie Man puts in a verse in the vein of Shaggy, a really nice collaboration and I might even say is better then the Chris Brown collaboration too, I really enjoyed this track.

The album finishes with the track most people will of heard previously ‘Stupid Hoe’ it ends the album as it began, simply awful. It has some really cheesy lines, the beat is just annoying! it is a really bad effort.

Bonus Tracks

Surprisingly the bonus tracks are some of the best tracks on the album, the smash hit collaboration with David Guetta ”Turn me on’ is the best of the 3. As ‘Va Va Voom’ and ‘Masquerade’ continues in the same vein with a slightly more Daft Punk sound it sees Nicki switching up her flow to match the speed of the beats

Conclusion

No doubting the album has some great highs in the few stand out tracks, but the album is a complete mess, far too many low points. Low points would be fine 1 song here and there, the problem this suffers with its groups of 4 at a time, their is alot of filler here and that is something I didn’t expect from her as previously I found her very versatile. While this album shows her versatility with the number of dance tracks, pop tracks and attempts at a great rap collaboration, the problem is it fails on almost every level.

If you found her first album a breathe of fresh air and a brilliant rap album, you will be extremely disappointed with this album, as it jumps on every band wagon there is out there right now and puts no artistry into play, I would avoid and just get the tracks I pointed out.

The film started out with Isabella looking to investigate the world of exorcism this instantly drew me in as I love things of this nature. Isabella is followed all the way through the film by Michael, who is documenting the whole experience and we see the film from his viewpoint for alot of the film. We quickly see that Isabella’s mother Maria is a very dangerous woman who had previously killed 3 people. We later discover Maria killed these people while they were performing an exorcism on her. This is where the basis of the film is gained, Isabella sets out to find out everything in regards to exorcism  as she doesn’t fully believe in this practise or supernatural practises and hopes to clear her mothers name.

Isabella flys out to Rome and quickly finds an exorcism class provided by priests, you know because they’re everywhere and it’s very easy to turn up and join. As the class ends we see a tape of an exorcism and we get the first jumping moment, which did scare me a little, so the cheap scares do work here.

Upon leaving the class she makes friends with 2 priests who attend the class, David and Ben. David is very Religious where as  Ben is glad to put the church aside in order to help people, my kind of priest. Here the 2 priests invite Isabella to join them in an exorcism as that’s the best way to gain experience and understand fully, nothing too dangerous huh.

We then get to see our first exorcism been performed, and I must say I found the whole scene very uncomfortable and extremely creepy, as she starts out all twisted and you see the bones twist and pop back into position, within this scene there is also bleeding from the vagina area and thrusting and filthy language, it is a very well done scene and at this point I honestly couldn’t understand all the negative feedback the film received.

The obvious next step is the priests visit Isabella’s mother in her institution and they start the process of analysing if she is in fact possessed, at first it seemed she isn’t, but the inevitable happens and the devil comes out and throws people across the room and generally attacks everyone in the room, this was a much more typical approach of showing an exorcism.

Upon leaving the hospital David begins to act different and appears to be getting taken over by something (yep the devil), he is then called to do a baptism and this is where the film delivers 1 of the most uncomfortable and no doubt a scene meant to shock everybody, we see David drowning the baby and looking directly towards Michael who is filming the baptism. David then goes back home and it quickly develops into a stand off between the 2 priests, as David has gone insane. In the commotion of this Isabella is shot and David comits suicide right into camera, again another hard to watch scene. Upon admittance to the hospital Isabella begins to go crazy herself and it has become clear the devil has passed to her from david and Ben does all he can to restrain her and Ben and Michael eventually get Isabella into the car and they proceed to drive to the head of Ben’s priesthood Father Gallow, however they do not reach their destination Isabella comes to her senses and begins to attack Ben and Michael, they eventually crash.

Credits role, thats it. TOTAL DISSAPOINTMENT RIGHT? I wrote this review in this fashion so you would get the feel of “IS THAT IT?” I have never seen an audience upon a film ENDING, stand up and collectively boo. Until the ending I was really enjoying the film so I would Suggest renting or borrowing from a friend as it is not worth anybodies money, but worth watching for the scare/creepy scenes.

In the coming months we expect to be posting more reviews then ever before and with the very talented developers at Oope Group we plan to roll out new features making the users, you, an even bigger part of the site. Combining the best editorial and user generated content into one place.

No game like GTA III really exists anywhere on the Android ecosystem. The economy of creating something on a scale this ginormous and then charging less than £3 for it just isn’t there. So despite its age, Rockstar’s multi-million selling title is actually a little more original than you’d expect, considering it was first released in the month Britain invaded Afghanistan.
If there’s an aspect of GTA III that hasn’t made it over to Android then I either haven’t noticed it or it isn’t that important. At first, the idea of a complete port of the original struck me as unrealistic, especially given how ropey touch controls can be in Android adventure titles. Through the use of auto-targetting when you’re caught in a firefight and simple left and right buttons when you’re driving however, any fatal problems are solved. I’m not saying things are perfect but they couldn’t be any better unless you plug in a USB controller with which this title is also compatible.

So you’re free to roam the streets of Liberty City with little regard for the boundaries of the tablet platform or the constraints of the law. In the several hours I spent reacquainting myself with GTA III, I’d assassinated a unruly mobster with a car bomb, won a drag race and transported several prostitutes between their places of work. Yes, it’s completely immoral and in no way suitable for kids but surely you knew that by now?

If I’ve got one complaint about GTA III for Android, it’s that nothing new has been added into the game. I can’t imagine it would have been that hard to stick in an extra side quest or two but, in all fairness, you already get plenty of value for money from this app. So much so, it is by far and away the best I have played all year.