LATEST ADDITIONS

Released in late 2008, the original Dead Space was a chilling reminder of how terrifying the survival horror genre could be in the right hands. Easily on a par with the most spooky entries in the Resident Evil and Silent Hill series, Dead Space gave gamers something to be frightened of. But, like any good horror film, sequels were inevitable, and over the course of two more games and two animated movies, the Dead Space franchise has transformed like one of its monstrous Necromorphs to the point where it only occasionally resembles its original form.

Outside of the ubiquitous Final Fantasy series, there are very few Japanese role-playing games that have ever managed to find mainstream success in the West. But Namco Bandai's latest has done just that – thanks largely to the game's connections to the legendary Japanese animation powerhouse Studio Ghibli, who co-developed Ni No Kuni… with RPG specialist Level-5 (creators of the phenomenally popular Professor Layton handheld games).

When Taken blew up the box office in 2008, a sequel was inevitable. Thankfully, writing duo Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen have at least attempted to rework the hard-man-rescuing-his-daughter theme by giving a bigger role to sprog Kim (Maggie Grace) and having black ops master Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) himself the victim of a kidnapping. The result is an enjoyable throwaway slice of popcorn fisticuffs, held together by Neeson's performance and some well-crafted set-pieces.

This sequel to the prequel to Paul Anderson's 2008 remake takes the Death Race concept on the road in order to unleash the heavy metal carnage in Africa. The result is both stupid and misogynistic (as you can see, leading lady Tanit Phoenix essentially plays a pair of breasts squeezed into a tight leather costume) – and yet it still manages to entertain more than this played-out franchise has any right to. The Blu-ray itself makes quite an impression with its sun-bleached AVC 1.78:1 1080p visuals and impactful DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio (since when did DTV sequels sound this good?), not to mention a reasonable set of bonus features.