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Rare Replay
Picture the nostalgia brought on by
revisiting your favourite childhood
movie. Amplify that 100-fold, convert
it to a video game, and you get Rare
Replay. Banjo, Kazooie, Conker, Cooper
and the rest are back and reinvigorated
for Xbox One. Conspicuously absent
from Rare’s collection are GoldenEye
007 and Donkey Kong Country, and
though they are missed, there’s plenty
to keep you busy – grabbing ghoulies,
battling toads, and attacking atics.
We’ve been dedicating our valuable
time to Banjo Kazooie and Grabbed by
the Ghoulies in an attempt to really
fire up the old memory banks and
get the trophies we missed out on all
those years ago. Really, for less than
$50, there are few excuses not to
grab this. You’re getting 30 complete
games; that’s 700 hours of gameplay
and an extra 10,000 Gamerscore. The
achievements fall like candy from a
(Viva) Piñata. Rare Replay features more
than just games; over an hour of behind-
the-scenes clips give you an insight into
the studio and what it is (and was) like
to work at Rare. Jump in. Paul Jones
Mad Max: Fury Road
Done fooling around with dancing penguins,
director George Miller is finally back behind
the wheel of the Mad Max franchise after 30
years, and boy, has he pushed the pedal to the
metal with Fury Road. Just as 1981’s Mad Max
2 created a new model for the action movie,
Mad Max: Fury Road raises the benchmark
again. With today’s blockbusters overly reliant
on digital wizardry, the Mad Max reboot is
refreshingly old school. CGI sandstorm aside,
Miller keeps it mostly real with the stunts,
the Frankenstein-like vehicles, and the bone-
crunching mayhem. Everything that made the
original Mad Max movies so good (yes, even
Beyond Thunderdome) is taken to the, er, max
in this relentless thrill machine. Armed with the
mega-budget he lacked for the first three films,
Miller’s vision is magnificent, and every cent is
up there on the screen. Fury Road is also one of
the most visually ravishing films you’ll ever see,
beautifully shot by DOP John Seale. It’s a comic
book movie that isn’t based on one; every
frame resembles a panel from a glossy graphic
novel with a colour scheme to match: rich
ochre for the desert scenes and a silver sheen
for the night shots. It’s a world that’s instantly
familiar and yet unlike anything seen before on
the screen. The characters that populate the
post-apocalypse world are also fully realised,
from the villainous Immortan Joe and his citadel
to the matriarchal desert clan encountered in
the final act. Mad Max: Fury Road has already
driven a whole new generation of viewers into
raptures, and a legion of Hollywood filmmakers
will now be desperately attempting to imitate
the Miller magic. Scott Hocking
Dr Dre Compton
Given that it’s 16 years since his last
studio album, to a lot of people Dr Dre
is probably better known these days
for his entrepreneurial skills than his
music. However the hip hop maestro has
triumphantly proved his doubters wrong
with Compton, which coincides with the
release of Straight Outta Compton, a
biopic about his old crew N.W.A. Instead of
playing safe and rehashing the sound of his
The Chronic or 2001, his third album finds
him reveling in inventive new sonic textures
and grooves, ably assisted by an eclectic
mega-star line-up of old pals, protégés and
new stars. It’s actually the young ‘uns and
lesser known performers who fare the best:
Genocide, which features Brit artist Marsha
Ambrosius and Candice Pillay, crackles with
menace and is an early highlight, while King
Mez, Justus, Anderson .Paak and Kendrick
Lamar shine on their multiple contributions
to Compton . However, they don’t have it
all their own way: Jon Connor and Snoop
Dogg make for a nicely nasty double act on
the abrasive One Shot Kill in Years, while
The Game sounds similarly fired up on Just
Another Day; only Eminem lets the side
down with his verbose and mean ramblings
on Medicine Man. Dre has hinted that this
will be his final album; if that turns out to be
the case, he is going out on a high.
John Ferguson
36 SEPTEMBER 2015