Cultural Zest

Deponia: Review Many adventure gamers over the years have expressed concerns that we have not gotten enough solid puzzlers over the years, and while recently the Telltale Games mechanics of the past have been taking a back seat in favor of a more narrative-driven experience, it has not left us void of any fulfilling reminders of LucasArts’ glory days; enter Daedalic Entertainment,… Continue »

De Verboden Vrucht Cultural Zest has risen from the dead, and what better way to celebrate than by having a nice beer? Well, technically there could be a number of better ways that don’t include running the risk of addiction, liver damage and what have you, but on the other hand one good beer now and then hasn’t killed anyone. So with that… Continue »

Film Review: Skyfall During my visit to the cinema to see the latest James Bond film, I had three goosebump moments. The first two weren’t even during the actual film, which is quite telling. The very first one was during one of the trailers, and yes, it lasted pretty much throughout the entire trailer. It was a trailer for The Hobbit. But this review… Continue »

Caped Crusader Reviews: Batman Begins (2005) After the nightmare that was Batman and Robin, the future for the caped crusader in film looked pretty grim. At one point, Warner Bros. even considered having Joel Schumacher make another one called “Batman Triumphant”. Thankfully, Christopher Nolan stepped in and decided that he wanted to make a more serious depiction of the character which focused on his origin. What… Continue »

Caped Crusader Reviews: Batman and Robin (1997) Oh dear, the film dreaded by Batman fans everywhere. This is the big one, the top of the pile filled with rubbish movies. This is Batman and Robin. How could this series sink any lower after Batman Forever? Well, my review will go into that, so I’ll stop procrastinating and get it over with. First of all, Batman and Robin… Continue »

Caped Crusader Reviews: Batman Forever (1995) Batman Forever is a very different movie to the first two. Almost everything about it has changed; new director, new cast (for the most part) and a Gotham City that looks like someone turned on too many neon lights. So, with these new changes, how does it fare? Well, keep reading my review and you’ll find out. As usual, I’ll… Continue »

Caped Crusader Reviews: Batman Returns (1992) After the success of Tim Burton’s first Batman film, it was a no-brainer to continue the adventures of the dark knight with a sequel. This time, Batman is pitted against the feisty feline Catwoman and the fish-mutant known as the Penguin. Without further ado, here’s my review of Batman Returns. The film begins 33 years in the past, as the Penguin is… Continue »

Caped Crusader Reviews: Batman (1989) To celebrate the July 20th release of the final film in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, entitled “The Dark Knight Rises” I thought it was about time to take a look back at the evolution of the batman film franchise, starting with Tim Burton’s first entry in 1989, “Batman”. I’ll be releasing a review weekly, going all the way up to… Continue »

Film Review: State of Play It’s been ages since this site has seen an update, but today it’s finally time for a new review. Yesterday I saw the movie State of Play, and apparently I cared just enough to sit down and type up a brief review. Now, keep in mind I haven’t seen the BBC series this film was based on, so I’m reviewing… Continue »

Review: Puzzle Agent 2 Since the pilot episode of Puzzle Agent, we’ve had to wait quite a while for the sequel. The first part was promising enough though, so it’s a good thing we finally got a part two! Does it live up to its expectations? Is it an improvement over its predecessor, or is it a step back? Read on to see the… Continue »

Film Review: Pirates of the Caribbean – On Stranger Tides What I’m going to take away from this movie is not the action-packed scenes. In the trailers preceding it, I was bombarded with enough explosions accompanied by grandiose orchestral music as it is. Not the best way to be eased into a film, and once again a reminder that Hollywood has become rather an empty shell, where film makers think… Continue »

Nintendo 3DS 3D? That’s just a fad. Stupid glasses – what? 3D without glasses? Hmmmm… Wow. Wow. Wow. I’ve had my DS Lite for about 5 years now, and when the DSi and DSi LL were announced I barely batted an eyelash. But this, the Nintendo 3DS… I knew I had to get this from the moment I heard about it. So… Continue »

Pilotwings Resort Review Since the Nintendo 3DS came out about a month ago, there have been some games already available, and I decided to go with this one. Pilotwings Resort is one of the few Nintendo 3DS games that gamers can get their hands on at the moment, and until The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time or MarioKart 3DS are out it… Continue »

Hector: Badge of Carnage for PC Last year’s well received iPhone adventure game was recently acquired to be published by Telltale Games. So how is it? Well, the game is brilliant, let me just say that. Congratulations, Straandlooper for making a crude and hilarious adventure game. I’m not even going to bother reviewing the gameplay elements, because as a game Hector: Badge of Carnage – We Negotiate With… Continue »

Portal 2 The long awaited sequel to Valve’s breakthrough 2007 hit Portal hit Steam and store shelves 2 days ago, and having frantically watched the clock until I was able to install the game (because I was definitely not going to download 10GB), I began to play it. I still haven’t finished it, but from what I can tell, here’s my review… Portal 2… Continue »

Gulden Draak Since we have this food & drink section on the site, I figured I might as well make use of it some more. I have no idea how to review food though – I’d rather leave that to the experts. I would consider reviewing wine, but I haven’t taken a course on that. So that leaves beer. The cool thing… Continue »

xk3d Hello there, everybody! I hope you all had an eventful April Fool’s! I was going to prank you, but I was away… However, I did manage to do SOMETHING online for April Fool’s, that being assisting xkcd in converting some of the comics into 3D. I first of all converted comic 46, A.K.A “Secrets”, and that’s up at http://3d.xkcd.com/46/ for all… Continue »

Citizen Brown Review The latest episode of Telltale’s current episodic series, Back to the Future: The Game released today, and of course I played it straight away. And here’s what I decided… This is definitely the best episode of the Back to the Future Game so far. But in no way does that make it an “excellent game”. But, that’s not being mean,… Continue »

Art on demand If you’re a regular reader of Cultural Zest, you’ll know we are fans of Graham Annable. Our very first feature was an interview with him, and we enjoyed playing Puzzle Agent and look forward to the next part. And you know what’s really cool? You can tell Mr. Annable to draw something, and he’ll do it! Well, if he has… Continue »

The peanut butter floor: On the responsibility of artists While visiting the museum yesterday, one particular exhibit caught my eye, or rather, my nose: the peanut butter floor. It was devised in the 1960s by Wim T. Schippers, a Dutch artist who is probably best-known for voicing Ernie in the Dutch version of Sesame Street. In fact, he, together with Paul Haenen as Bert, does this so well that… Continue »

What I Think About Telltale’s New Licenses… So, a few days ago Telltale unleashed onto everybody a massive lineup of new games that will be coming from them in the future. Do I think that they’re any good?… Continue »

Review: The Last Express I’ve heard a lot of great things about The Last Express, and since it’s now available for purchase through several channels (it’s $ 5.99 at Good Old Games right now), I decided to give it a go. If you’re still on the fence, read on to find out if you should hop on that train or let it pass. One… Continue »

Back to the Future: Get Tannen! REVIEW Well, I can safely say that when I turned on my computer a few hours ago I was surprised to see that all of a sudden episode 2 of Telltale’s Back to the Future Game had been released, with no fanfare, anything! To be honest, I’d sort of almost forgotten about it! There wasn’t even an email, or a blog… Continue »

Back to the Future: It’s About Time Review It’s been 25 years since the delorean first landed on our screens in Back to the Future. Marty Mcfly and Doc Brown became instant household names and the trilogy has become somewhat of a cult following. Now Telltale Games is working with Universal Studios to bring us Back to the Future: The Game, a five part epic saga similar to… Continue »

Review: DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue With a title like that, this game must be funny. And it is. Like the first game, the tone is immediately set with a funny intro, and the comedy continues throughout the (beautiful) cutscenes and the story that follows. The story is partly a parody on The Lord of the Rings. Instead of corrupting rings however, six corrupting (and colourful)… Continue »

Super Mario All-Stars: 25th Anniversary Edition To celebrate Mario’s 25th year of adventuring in the Super Mario Bros. universe, Nintendo have released an all-new game, Super Mario All-Stars: 25th Anniversary Edition. Or… well… it’s not exactly brand new. It’s just a re-release of Super Mario All-Stars, a compilation of early Super Mario Bros. games for the Super Nintendo. But they have thrown in some bonus goodies…. Continue »

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 Review

Film Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 Well, we finally have a review for the new Potter flick, 2 reviews actually, the first one by Matthew West. Harry Potter has always been a very nostalgic series in both the books and films; with its magical atmosphere, brilliantly quirky characters and an epic story to boot, it stands to reason that the stories of the boy wizard have… Continue »

Launch of the Personal Daylight Savings Experiment Well, it’s December 1st (for me, anyway), and that means it’s time for me to switch into daylight savings time. This will be a very brief message, so I’ll give you just the facts, short and sweet; I will be running on daylight savings time from December 1st until the end of February. I will be documenting each day in… Continue »

The Personal Daylight Savings Experiment As you may or may not be aware, I live in Australia, and we are currently in our Summer season. As you may or may not also be aware, most states in Australia initiate Daylight Savings Time, thereby artificially lengthening each day by an hour. However, Western Australia, the part of the country that I live in, does not support… Continue »

Interview: AJ Locascio- The Voice of Marty McFly! Telltale’s new Back to the Future game is making its way to the PC, Mac and Playstation Network next month, and of course, we have an interview with AJ Locascio, the new voice of Marty Mcfly, and I tell you, his impression is wicked, um, I mean, heavy. MW: So, tell us a little bit about yourself? How did you… Continue »

Film Review: Resident Evil Afterlife Being new to the Resident Evil film franchise and not having played any of the games in the series, I felt like a real novice going in to the cinemas to see this film with a group of friends. Luckily, Resident Evil: Afterlife explains the main plot for people who haven’t been following the series from the get-go. A quick… Continue »

Reality and popular culture in Watchmen The Watchmen movie was made in 2009, after the comic book novel from 1986, written by Alan Moore. Alan Moore is considered to be one of the most influential comic book writers, thanks to his propensity to add references, certain real-life details and serious social issues and problems into his work, thus segregating it from the so-called mainstream in the… Continue »

Film Review: Dinner For Schmucks The new comedy starring Steve Carrell just came out today in Australia, and I thought I’d go and see it for a good chuckle. My mind set was that anything with Steve Carrel is good, and after seeing this movie, believe my mind set was right. This is a great comedy and is guaranteed to make you laugh all the… Continue »

Snakes of Avalon interview When a big publisher releases a blockbuster game, it’s accompanied by a lot of fanfare. Conversely, indie games usually enjoy a release that’s a bit quieter, but that doesn’t mean they’re not deserving of our attention. So, to celebrate the release of indie adventure game Snakes of Avalon, I’ve interviewed the people behind it, Igor Hardy and Alex van der… Continue »

Monkey Island: A Nostalgic Reflection Arr! It be the week leadin up ta “Talk Like A Pirate Day” ,and what better way to start than to fondly be lookin back at one o’ the greatest pirate stories ever bein told in a video game, Monkey Island. So, let’s walk the plank and hold our breaths for ten minutes as we have a nostalgic reflection of… Continue »

Talk-Like-A-Pirate Week! Yar Har Har! How be ye all? We be seizing control of Cultural Zest for this week to bring ye our own style of journalism! Ye can expect to see less seriousness around the site for the next few days! Yar! Because we be keelhauling the scallawags who run this magazine so uptightly right up until Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day! So, what… Continue »

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Film Review: Tomorrow When The War Began There aren’t many Australian-made films out there, and there certainly aren’t a lot of action movies set in Australia. Tomorrow When The War Began is one of those rare films, and now I am going to tell you why it is not only the best Aussie film ever made, but why it is one of the best films of the… Continue »

A visit to Boijmans Boijmans, for the uninitiated, is short for Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, which is, according to Wikipedia, ‘the main art museum in Rotterdam’, my hometown. In this case, I agree with Wikipedia. The museum has a huge collection of artworks from across the ages, and yesterday I was among those for the duration of my visit. That is, I went to… Continue »

The Review That Dares Not Sleep Well, it’s that time of the month again. And its also time to share our review of The City That Dares Not Sleep! So, let’s get this trainwreck a-rolling, starting with yours truly! After 5 long months, The City That Dares Not Sleep is the final chapter in Telltale Games’ epic 5 part episodic adventure, Sam & Max: The Devil’s… Continue »

Classic Literature: Torrents of Spring Here at Cultural Zest, we’re all about culture. And to prove that we’re not just pop culture loving simpletons, here’s a feature on classic literature, which may be the first of many, depending on what books we feel like reading. To kick things off, we’ll take a look at one of the gems that Russian literature produced during the nineteenth… Continue »

Jared Emerson-Johnson: Video Game Music Composer & All-Round Cool Guy June 4… Midnight… and a half… I was half delusional from sleep deprivation, and after a marathon of spending the whole of the previous day listening to the two Sam & Max Soundtracks, I got a crazy idea: “Why don’t I interview Jared Emerson-Johnson?” As a player of the keys myself, Jared had always been one of the people who… Continue »

Interview: Halldór Orri Björnsson When you see that name, chances are it might not immediately ring a bell. But maybe you will recognize this video: Halldór Orri Björnsson is the football player who came up with that interesting celebration, and Cultural Zest got the chance to ask him some questions! I imagine most people aren’t very familiar with the Icelandic football competition, so could… Continue »

Review: Killers Earlier today I went to see the new Ashton Kutcher movie, Killers. I can tell you now that if you liked Date Night and Knight and Day, then you’ll love this movie. So without further ado, let’s get on with the review. The story opens with Jen, (Played by Katherine Heigl) a single woman in France with her over-protective (and… Continue »

Interview with NigaHiga: The YouTube Legend Here at Cultural Zest we like to embrace culture – in the very broadest sense. And few things are quite as broad as an online entertainer with an excess of two and a half million fans! Whether it is the hilarious “advertisements” or film spoofs, YouTube comedian Ryan Higa truly has made a place in many people’s lives. And here… Continue »

Knight and Day Review There really hasn’t been much on at the cinemas lately, and I wanted to see something light-hearted. Knight and Day seemed to fit the bill. Oh boy did it ever. I really enjoyed this film, so here’s my review of Knight and Day, starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. The story follows an average everyday young woman (Cameron Diaz) who… Continue »

Review: Inception In the darkness of the matinee, I had a dream. I was watching a film, and this film was about dreams, so it was essentially a dream inside a dream. Except I was not actually dreaming, so it was reality, but inside the film there were several layers of dreams, and it really did feel like I was dreaming while… Continue »

Guest Review: DeathSpank Here at Cultural Zest we currently have a very small employment. And two of us are working for free! And Jan Jacob Mekes still needs to put fresh newspaper in our cages! Nevertheless, it’s always a great help when someone else reviews something for us! One member from the Telltale Games Forums, tabstis, has kindly sent us a review for… Continue »

Review: Beyond the Alley of the Dolls The third season of Telltale’s successful Sam & Max series is slowly coming to a close. What did we here at Cultural Zest think of it? Well, read on to find out, starting with my own opinion! Me being Jan Jacob Mekes, that is. Just so you know. In my review for the previous Sam & Max episode, I wrote… Continue »

Behind the Legends of Sam & Max Fanart – Part 3: Silly Stell If you’ve been checking, you would have noticed my last 2 articles on art centered around the artists on the Telltale Games Forums, and this one is no different! Stell has contributed her… brain thoughts about art for me to share with you in this exclusive interview! So hold on, because her art certainly is, er… different? CZ: What tools… Continue »

The birth of a web site Our own Cultural Zest has not long ago left its zestation… pardon… gestation period behind it, having only seen the light of day in May (hey, that rhymes). I just realized we didn’t even send out birth cards to celebrate the event, much less detail the process of its birth. And I’m not going to either, because that would be… Continue »

Monkey Island 2 Special Edition Review First of all, I’ve already made a whole video review that you can see below, so I’m going to keep this short, but it’ll be a bit different to my review in the video. [pro-player width=’530′ height=’253′ type=’video’]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsd4K7lw9gM[/pro-player] Now I was first introduced to the Monkey Island series when I was about 8 years old with The Curse of Monkey… Continue »

The art of South Africa The eye of the world is currently on South Africa because of the World Cup, but the country has of course many other things to offer besides football. One of those things is beautiful art, as you can see on this site. I’ve asked some talented South African artists a few questions about their country and their art, so you… Continue »

Behind the Legends of Sam & Max Fanart, Part 2: light_rises A few weeks ago, I presented to the readers of Cultural Zest an interview with one amazing Sam & Max Fanartist, Ginny N. Today, it is my pleasure to bring to you another interview with an equally talented artist, known only to us as light_rises… CZ: What tools do you use to create your masterpieces? LR: I’m going to get… Continue »

REVIEW – Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent As a team, all of us here at Cultural Zest (well, not actually HERE because we’re all over the world; but I digress) have played and reviewed the new Telltale Game, Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent. Here are our thoughts, starting with the ringleader, Jan Jacob Mekes! Don’t you just love a good puzzle? Well, I sure do, and so I… Continue »

Shrek Forever After Review Shrek has always been one of my favourite animated films to date, next to the Toy Story films. With its unique, quirky twist on classic fairy tale characters it was made an instant family favourite. Now we are at the final chapter (really? Film companies always say that) of the Shrek saga. Now I didn’t really enjoy Shrek the Third… Continue »

Behind the Legends of Sam & Max Fanart – Part One, Ginny N On the Telltale Games Forums, there is a wonderful little thread called the Legendary Sam & Max Fanart Thread, where one whose mind has gone unsatisfied throughout the day can alight and take in the joys of the truly magnificent works of many of the forum community. I recently decided to interview several of the people from around the globe… Continue »

iOS 4 Review Attention, readers! This review is now dated, as I recently obtained a fourth-generation iPod Touch, which has EVERYTHING, literally, except calling capability (apart from Skype, which is very handy). Thank you for reading this. We now return you to your regularly scheduled review, already in progress… The new update for iPhone and iPod Touch users came out recently, and owning… Continue »

Review: They Stole Max’s Brain! Telltale Games’ third Sam & Max series, The Devil’s Playhouse, has reached its third episode, and we got to play it. Find out what Cultural Zest writers think of the game, starting with Jack Butler. They Stole Max’s Brain! is the third episode of Telltale Games’ latest episodic project, “The Devil’s Playhouse”, the third season of the popular Sam &… Continue »

A tasty interview with Dominic Armato Here at Cultural Zest, we’re all about culture – in the broadest sense of the word. And that sense also happens to include one of the most basic elements of any culture: food. Today, we’re featuring an interview that’s all about food, with Dominic Armato. Apart from being an established voice actor, he also maintains his own food blog, Skillet… Continue »

A Cappella: The Voice as Musical Instrument Since we can speak, we have been singing. The human voice is truly a magnificent instrument (if properly trained) when combined with other instruments, but on its own it can also work wonders. When one uses only the human voice to produce music, this is known as a cappella. ‘Cappella’ is the Italian word for ‘church’, so it should be… Continue »

Robin Hood Review Now, I wasn’t greatly familiar with Robin Hood when I went to see the new movie for my birthday with my friends, but I knew that it was very different to the old fashioned ‘guy in tights’ that I had vaguely heard about. When I saw the trailer for the movie I thought “Yeah, maybe I’ll see that, to see… Continue »

Interview with Mark Darin, Video Game Designer Mark Darin, one of the many designers at Telltale Games, started designing video games at his site Pinhead Games while at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, and later joined the team at Telltale Games after learning that many of his aspiration figures from the golden days of LucasArts adventure games had decided to form a new company, and he has… Continue »

Graham Annable: storyboard/comic/animation artist Welcome to Cultural Zest, the new online magazine that’s all about culture! We’re getting things started with an interview, with Graham Annable. Graham is probably best known for his Grickle comics and short films on YouTube, but he has also worked on video games and animated feature film ‘Coraline’. Now, Telltale Games are making a pilot episode based on his… Continue »