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Wednesday 14 March 2012

On-Screen's Two Year Anniversary: The Best Releases

What have been the best releases of the past two years?
This is an exciting time for the entertainment industry to say the very least, but that's not to say that these past two years haven't held some great surprises within them. Here are my favourite releases that I have had the pleasure of watching, playing and rating inbetween March 14th, 2010 and today...
KICK-ASS (APRIL 2010)- A fantastically innovative superhero comedy which never became reliant on its celebrity cameos to go its own way.
RED DEAD REDEMPTION (MAY 2010)- Perhaps the best rendition of the Wild West ever in video gaming, Redemption is Rockstar's finest shooter and a fine homage to a classic genre.
SUPER MARIO GALAXY 2 (MAY 2010)- This turned out to be my Game of the Year 2010: the sequel to Galaxy took all the ideas from the original and expanded upon them to reach their full potential, to the point that this became a Wii platforming masterpiece!
GET HIM TO THE GREEK (JUNE 2010)- This spin-off to Forgetting Sarah Marshall turned out to be a neat surprise, featuring some hilarious setpieces and quite possibly Russell Brand's best performance yet.
TOY STORY 3 (JUNE 2010)- My Film of the Year in an absolutely packed twelve months, Toy Story 3 was the perfect conclusion to the animated series, packed with emotion and heart-breaking twists.
INCEPTION (JULY 2010)- Another movie that brinked upon Film of the Year. Inception managed to wow audiences with its divisive sci-fi dream storylines, while introducing us to some brilliant new rising stars along the way!
HARRY POTTER & THE DEATHLY HALLOWS (NOVEMBER 2010/JULY 2011)- The two final Harry Potter movies were great to say the very least, Part 1 the better half for its edgy pace and thrilling divisions from the norm while Part 2 was still a great epic to wrap the series up with.
PROFESSOR LAYTON & THE LOST FUTURE (DECEMBER 2010)- A welcome surprise in 2010's video game roster, Lost Future brought fans some of the most tear-jerking events in Layton's life while throwing in great innovative puzzles at the same time, creating a perfect blend of puzzle drama.
THE KING'S SPEECH (JANUARY 2011)- Undoubtedly Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush's finest hours, The King's Speech was a patriotic yet emotively compelling genre-definer that won the hearts and minds of a contemporary nation.
DOCTOR WHO: SERIES SIX (APRIL-JUNE, SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2011)- By opening the run with the Doctor's supposed death, Steven Moffat kicked off the most ambitious and the best season of Who by a long way with a bang, and things didn't ever quiet down!
THOR (APRIL 2011)- Although by no means perfect, Thor was one of the best superhero movies of 2011, and one of the two that restored my faith in the genre last year (more on the other one in a second).
PORTAL 2 (APRIL 2011)- This insanely innovative puzzler came within reaching distance of getting my Game of the Year 2011 award, but despite its defeat it was a wonderful piece of gaming art wrapped up in a great storyline and regularly surprising gameplay shake-ups!
X-MEN: FIRST CLASS (JUNE 2011)- And here's the other of those aforementioned faith redeemers. First Class was as much a lesson in filmic quality as its title suggested, its core emotional narrative showing the way towards a future for the previously dying X-Men franchise!
SUPER 8 (AUGUST 2011)- It's always great to see a 'sleeper hit' emerge amongst the Summer of Film and Super 8 was by far one of these, harkening back to the classic days of Spielberg with its sense of wonder and alien adventure.
RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (AUGUST 2011)- Another sleeper hit was this ressurected version of the Apes franchise, which now featured Andy Serkis as a fear-hardened ape who led an uprising against humanity that would eventually lead to the events of the original classics...
BATMAN: ARKHAM CITY (OCTOBER 2011)- Here's my Game of the Year 2011, if you recall. Arkham City is the perfect Dark Knight gaming experience, completely full of thrills and dangers for Batman to deal with in the ultimate masterclass of storytelling and character empathy.
THE ELDER SCROLLS V: SKYRIM (NOVEMBER 2011)- And here we come to what is now rightfully regarded as the quintessential RPG. Skyrim was/is so vast, so deep and so infinite that it has essentially set the bar for its entire genre!
WAR HORSE (JANUARY 2012)- A great way to start off 2012, War Horse was a hugely different piece to its West End and literary counterparts, occasionally cheesy at times but easily set to go down as one of my favourite movies of the year.
SHERLOCK: SERIES TWO (JANUARY 2012)- A superb run of groundbreaking adventures honed in Sherlock's skills to the point that the monumental cliffhanger had everyone talking...
THE MUPPETS (FEBRUARY 2012)- On the other hand, The Muppets was a daring comedy whose strength lay in its ability to mock itself and its genre with pride and nostalgia. Unless you hate puppets, there really isn't a funnier film you'll find in cinemas or on DVD for a long time to come.
MASS EFFECT 3 (MARCH 2012)- You'll be seeing my review of ME3 very soon, but sufficed to say that it's going to be one of the best games you'll play this year. By wrapping up each of the millions of stories and plot arcs fans have encountered in the past five years in this epic trilogy, ME3 cements itself as one of the most genre-defining titles of 2012, a truly groundbreaking piece of storytelling and action. I can't wait to see how it all ends...

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