Reviews

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion. Stellar Phenomena Review

Nathan Dack

I’ll be honest when I picked up Sins of a Solar Empire in August in a Steam sale my expectations were low for a game from 2008, damn was I wrong.


A beautiful solar RTS which has its focus well split between empire building and maintaining a fleet to darken the skies of planets.
This latest DLC comes five years after the release of the initial Sins of a Solar Empire and adds a nice amount of new features to the galaxy in Sins.
Stellar Phenomena adds more mystery to the realms of deep space, adding in 11 new random events and nine anomalies which can ravage your worlds or boost them.
Stars are now deadlier than they were before, launching storms of gases to shut down orbital defences at random
Stars have also received new bonuses with certain types of star being able to damage your ships which fly within its gravity well and slow down their ability to phase jump away from the deadly ball of gas.
In terms of new content the DLC adds plenty of extra phenomena to spice up the already exciting task of exploring into deep space, of course this is not without its dangers.
You can’t know fear until you hear from your scientists that a coronal mass injection is about to slam into your planet and you have no defence against it. The galaxy is truly terrifying piece.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Review

Rachel Louise Sloper

FOLLOWING THE box office smash-hit that was The Hunger Games back in 2012, it was clear that new director Francis Lawrence had a lot to live up to in the hotly-anticipated sequel, Catching Fire.

Based on The Hunger Games novels, there is also a die-hard following of readers to please too. No pressure, eh?
The sequel sees Jennifer Lawrence reprise her role of leading lady, Katniss Everdeen. Since the worldwide success of the first film, she has been coveted for many big-screen roles ranging from horror in The House At The End Of The Street, to uplifting rom-coms like Silver Linings Playbook.
The film catches up with the victors of the 74th Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson).
It is clear that Katniss is struggling in adapting to life back home in district twelve.
She negotiates her semi-romantic friendship with Gale (Liam Hemsworth) with caution, as the world now has one eye on her faked-relationship with Peeta.
As Katniss and Peeta are called upon to embark on the victors’ tour of the districts, they begin to see the true horrors of the state, and it’s when they begin to question it that the cracks begin to appear. Their victory in the previous games serves as an inspiration for an uprising.
In the words of Haymitch, “Remember who the real enemy is”…