Strike Back: Cinemax Season One Blu-ray Review

It would be easy to call Cinemax's original series, Strike Back, derivative entertainment. After all, the series is clearly borrowing more than a few pages from franchises like Rambo, The Expendables, 24, MacGyver, James Bond, Call of Duty and literally dozens of others. And usually this sort of obvious creative theft warrants more than a few rightfully deserved criticisms. But somehow Strike Back defies the odds.

The show is so well shot and executed, the flaws aren't nearly as distracting as one would expect. Instead, Strike Back is a balls-to-wall hardcore brainless action series that plays like Roger Corman, by way of big-budget popcorn entertainment. And while the results are often flimsy in the story department, the series serves up loads of intense, pulse-pounding mayhem.

Despite the “Season One” moniker, Strike Back: Cinemax Season One is actually the second series of a BBC show of the same name. As it turns out, the original series was so popular that it spawned this show, a joint venture between Cinemax and the British network, Sky1. This version of Strike Back is largely a reboot of the show, with only one major character returning, and only for a few brief moments. In the UK, this season of Strike Back is referred to as Strike Back: Project Dawn.

For those unaware, Strike Back follows an elite team of soldiers working for a super secret branch of MI6 called Section 20. The season is broken into five two-part episodes. Each episode traditionally deals with the usual Call of Duty-style action as our heroes hunt the bad guys, mostly terrorists. The beauty of the two-part system is that if you don't end up liking one particular arch, no worries. Another one pops up in just an episode or two.

The characters of the series are mostly flimsy one-dimensional cliches, from the womanizing super solider to his strict “by-the-book” partner – we've seen it all before. But instead of pretending the show has any real deep meaning or value to add to these tired archetypes, Strike Back focuses on eye candy of all varieties, be it extreme action set pieces, gratuitous nudity (just about every woman throws herself at the main character) or nasty war violence. The obvious tone adds a sort of comic book feel that lends itself to overall enjoyment of the series, despite the story and character limitations.

Whichever way you cut it, Strike Back makes no excuses for itself – it's a slam-bang James Bond action series, with soldiers instead of classy, well-dressed spies. And the show delivers just enough awesome to keep things fun. The show is dumb, but it seems very aware of that fact, and sometimes that's quite refreshing in its own way.

Strike Back: Cinemax Season One arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of HBO and Cinemax Home Entertainment. The series is presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, encoded in 1080p/AVC and mixed in 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. The season's 10 episodes are spread across four discs.

Shot in HD, Strike Back looks incredibly clean and sharp, with a nuanced theatrical appearance that adds an A-grade charm to the B-level entertainment. The encode is detailed and colorful, with not a hint of artifacting, banding or other annoying distractions. Image depth can get a little flat at times, and some minor motion blur was detected, but this is an otherwise terrific presentation right on par with other HBO releases.

Audio is even sharper, rich with lively atmosphere, perfect mixing and crystal clear dialogue. Action cues are aggressive and engaging, layered with awesome surround usage and intense bass. Rarely, if ever, does this track disappoint. So turn down the lights and crank up your receiver and let Strike Back knock you off your socks.

Extras for this release include five cast and crew commentary tracks spread throughout the season. The tracks are pretty solid, if a little repetitive. The set also includes a DVD and Digital Copy of the season -- a nice added bonus I wish were a standard on all TV releases.

Strike Back: Season One is a mindless action series, but it's just as enjoyable as B-movie thrillers like Taken or TV shows like 24. With a pretty heavy comic book/James Bond feel, the show delivers plenty of fun, plenty of action, and plenty of wild violence, sex and mayhem.

"Never recreate from your memory. Always imagine new places!" Follow R.L. Shaffer on Twitter, Facebook and MyIGN for quotes, rants, reviews, news and more!

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Steam Updates Groups, Enhances Content Management

Valve has announced more new updates to the Steam Community, making changes to group pages as well as how users manager their uploaded content. Valve says that over 2.5 million groups have been created, and their pages will now receive an entirely new layout, adding a group overview, friend showcase and new group discussions.

Discussions can be public or private and users will have “complete moderator control” over their own groups, including the ability to create sub-forums, add moderators and delete posts. Groups can also list their favorite games and a default language can be set.

Valve has also added a new way to keep track of screenshots, replays, videos linked from YouTube, workshop Items and Workshops on your profile page. All content will be available for users to display or manage, with an image wall that will offer multiple ways to view your uploaded screenshots. Players will also be able to favorite screenshots in order to find them later or share them with friends.

Today is the third day of a week’s worth of Community updates that Valve is rolling out this week. The first update came on Monday with the introduction of Game Hubs. For more details about all of the new features, check out the Steam Community’s official site.

Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s associate news editor. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following him on Twitter or IGN.

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Foul Play: All the Game’s a Stage

Baron Dashforth is a retired Victorian daemon hunter, looking back at an illustrious career spent vanquishing unearthly creatures. But instead of documenting this very unusual life in the pages of a dusty tome, he stages a vibrant production at a West End threatre. The result is Foul Play, a frenetic side-scrolling brawler masquerading as a theatrical autobiography, of sorts, with Dashforth taking on the lead role, naturally.

And what a career it has been. Dashforth has travelled the world, seen things few men have seen, and consequently the ambition of the production at times exceeds the resources to hand. Although no expense has been spared, there’s something purposefully ramshackle about the way Foul Play stages its action. The game has bright, cartoon visuals but since the levels – no matter how exotic or fantastical – take place on the same stage, there’s a lovely flimsiness to it all.

Take the bad guys, for instance. They’re not really bad guys at all; they’re put-upon extras and jobbing actors forced to dress up as flea-bitten werewolves and swashbuckling squid-men and take a beating. Part of the humour comes from espying their bushy ‘taches poking out from under their masks. It’s more than a little humiliating for such aspiring thesps. There’s warped background logic that’s quite endearing.

More visual humour is found in the visible stagecraft employed to bring Dashforth’s eventful past to life (think Méliès meets Munchausen). Huge creatures are fashioned from taut fabric and painted wood, and brought to rickety life using elaborately-rigged pulley systems.

Fittingly, Foul Play is about performing. You are rewarded not for the brutality of your punches but their theatricality. It’s all about entertaining the audience, who take up the lower fifth of the screen. Depending on how stylishly you’re playing the game, the bourgeois crowd will either whoop with joy or slowly drift into a catatonic stupor. When we saw the game, the audience was still be finalised, but there was talk of them showing their enthusiasm through a variety of wild animations, including ladies of leisure crowd surfing in the stalls.

But the audience is more than just a cute animation. Getting the audience right will be crucial to the success of Foul Play. Too loud, too intrusive, it could prove to be a distraction, but pitched perfectly it’s a really smart way of providing the player with onscreen feedback that also fits with the game’s unique setting.

Foul Play is, at its heart, about beating people up in fun and comical ways. And like the best examples of the genre, Foul Play supports co-op. Dashforth is joined by his friend and loyal companion Scampwick, a cheeky street urchin. Players will be able to link up and launch special team attacks, hurling enemies across the screen for the other player to despatch.

As a genre, the side-scrolling brawler has always flirted with repetition. To succeed, it must provide interesting settings and satisfying enemies, in addition to solid gameplay. Foul Play promises a range of interesting locations and it revels in the genre fiction that made the late-nineteenth century such a vibrant period in popular literature. There’s a Gothic sensibility to some levels, played out in the moonlight, with vampires and werewolves lurking in the dark. Other scenes draw on the colonial adventures of H. Rider Haggard and Rudyard Kipling, with blistering deserts, unravelling mummies, and tales of derring-do. And the influence of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells is also discernible in its aquatic beasties and futuristic contraptions held together by sturdy iron bolts.

It’s monsters and magic and everything Dashforth was trained for. Admittedly, without going hands-on, much of Foul Play’s eccentric charm stems from the way in which the game is staged; the painted pyramids which rise up in the background, telling you that you’re now in Egypt. Or it’s that beefy bloke with a mardy face forced to dress up as a reluctant lobster man. Hopefully, the gameplay will be surprisingly deep – takedowns, throws and reversals are all promised – and much more than just button bludgeoning.

Foul Play is Mediatonic’s first foray into the realm of Xbox LIVE Arcade, but it already displays the humour that has defined them as a developer of mobile games. (If you haven’t already, download Inappropriate Llama Disaster. Do it now.) But advanced previews suggest that Foul Play is endearingly barmy; so much so, we’re looking forward to opening night.

Daniel is IGN's UK Games Writer. You can be part of the world's worst cult by following him on IGN and Twitter.

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