Once Upon a Time: “Lady of the Lake” Review

Note: Full spoilers for the episode follow.

This week's episode of Once Upon a Time brought us Lancelot (played by Sinqua Walls), mean parents, and all the feelings. Cora is back and evil as ever, the knight of the Round Table turns against his king and saves Snow White from an infertility curse, and there was an ogre. In other words, it was sort of all over the place.

Even though it jumped around, the focus was on Snow and Emma bonding. Snow is the protector now, not a meek schoolteacher and it’s an interesting change in dynamic that Emma doesn’t know how to handle. At least she didn’t until Snow saved her from an ogre. Putting Emma in a place where her knowledge and skills aren’t helpful is a great way to make her appreciate her mom and all she’s done for her daughter.

Emma had better get used to it too because she had to destroy the last known portal back to Storybrooke to keep Cora from crossing over. If you weren’t positive that she’s evil, she killed Lancelot and has been pretending to be him for a while. Speaking of mean parents, Charming’s sort of father - King George (Alan Dale) - tried to make Snow sterile and has also showed back up in the real world. And you thought your holiday dinners were awkward.

One other note about fairytale world - It’s hard not to note that they’ve made Aurora completely unlikable. She’s mean and whiny and hasn’t learned a thing from Mulan so far. There’s room for her to grow, and hopefully Snow will be a good influence on her. Fingers crossed for an epic training montage in a future episode.

The episode unfortunately displayed a couple of the less awesome factors about Season 1. For one thing, a couple of moments were just lazy. Lancelot didn’t thoroughly search that lake bed; how did he know there was just one shell with water? Most people wouldn’t have been turning all the sand upside down. Back in Storybrooke, why didn’t Charming either dig through Regina’s vault to search for magic or destroy everything instead of just making sure no one else finds it?

It was also jam-packed. The death of Charming's mother should have hit harder, but the story was moving along so fast that the full impact didn't have time to develop. Sure, they fit a lot of significant plot points into 42 minutes, but every piece felt rushed. These might be little things to focus on, but they don’t make sense and therefore stick out.

Then there was the ogre. Monsters and big bads are scarier when they aren’t seen, and that is especially true when the CGI isn’t amazing. I was nervous about the ogre until it ran into the clearing; then I just laughed. On the upside, Snow White got to show off her ability to shoot a bow (nice form too – better than Hawkeye!) and impressed the hell out of Emma.

In happier news, Jefferson was back again. Henry nudged him to find his daughter Grace, and their reunion was the very definition of happiness. Sebastian Stan plays the heck out of the Mad Hatter and always leaves an impression regardless of the length of his scenes. Stan needs to show up more, before his Captain America: The Winter Soldier duties pull him away. There were also some great one-liners like Emma comparing a cooked chimera to a turducken. Order one for Thanksgiving now – they’ll be all the rage!

Amy Ratcliffe is a writer for IGN TV. You can follow her on on Twitter at @Amy_Geek and IGN at alratcliffe .

Source : ign[dot]com

Wild Blood Review

What is it?

Wild Blood is the latest visually splendorous hack & slash title from Gameloft. The game puts players in the armored boots of Sir Lancelot as he slices and dices his way through hundreds of demons on a mission to take out a mad King Arthur. The Arthurian storyline mostly just serves as an excuse for the 10 missions of demon-slaying, though.

Wild Blood’s combat at first seems very simple. Mashing the single attack button to swing Lancelot’s ridiculously gigantic sword can dispatch nearly all of the demonic enemies players encounter. But over time Gameloft spices the action up with a dodge-roll, multiple types of magic, dual-axes and even a bow and arrow. All movement and actions are handled via virtual on-screen buttons.

Coins earned by grabbing treasure chests, defeating foes, rescuing maidens and generally smashing everything in sight can be spent between rounds to power-up Lancelot’s offensive and defensive stats. Optional In-App Purchases let players prematurely power-up, but I never felt any unbalanced difficulty steering me towards paying.

Wild Blood does include a four-on-four online multiplayer with Capture the Flag and Team Deathmatch but most matches devolve into a team-on-team button-mashing pile-up. It works as a casual diversion but doesn’t offer up a serious competitive experience.

Did we like it?

Wild Blood’s combat system comes together nicely as the single player campaign progresses. By the game’s final stages I was rolling into enemies to stagger them, unleashing a fury of sword swings and finally mopping up with a huge lightning attack. Boss fights and mid-mission mini-bosses spice up the formula by forcing players to uncover specific enemy weak points to progress. A handful of first-person turret defense and block-sliding puzzle sections also help pace each stage.

Although the dodge-heavy combat feels frantic and fun, like many 3D action titles clunky camera issues sometimes crop up. I often found myself losing health due to attacks coming in from off-screen as I frantically tried to swing the camera around to get a better viewpoint.

Wild Blood’s clunky virtual buttons also cause problems. It simply doesn’t feel good to clutch your iPhone and iPad while moving a virtual thumbpad and hitting virtual attack buttons.

Should you buy it?

Problems aside, Wild Blood is a solid original effort from Gameloft. It isn’t perfect, but the core swordplay works well and offers up plenty of demon-slaying thrills. Hardcore players can extend the adventure by playing through the adventure a second time on Hard Mode to unlock the game’s true ending. For $6.99 gamers looking for a gorgeous iOS sword & sorcery action title will enjoy this adventure through Arthurian legend.

Source : ign[dot]com