Trailer Park: Toil and Trouble

You've probably noticed that there's been no new Hex Picks over the last few weeks. Sadly, it looks as though The Trailer Park may be going the same way. The Hex Dimension website is winding down for the time being, if hopefully not forever. It's been a great opportunity to be part of what went on there, and I wish everyone involved the best.

It's good, then, that our last collection of trailers can be quite a strong one. I like the look of almost everything we see here, and even the one that doesn't quite work for me looks pretty damn stunning.

So to read the final Trailer Park before it goes extinct, please click the unexpectedly appropriate dinosaurs below.

Trailer Park: Awakenings

It's been a very odd week for trailers. Not exactly quiet but... smaller? Usually you can count on there being one or two big blockbusters or big names, but this week there's only one on the list that I've ever even heard of - and then only because it's a remake!

Instead, the picks this week are maybe a bit more arty and more indie than usual. But there's nothing wrong with that, and it's nice to focus on the kind of trailers I'd probably have overlooked before I started this feature. Some of them look positively great, too - click below to check 'em out.

Trailer Park: Pixels and Piracy

I like weeks like this one, where there's a strange mix of all different types of film trailers. There's fantasy and sci-fi and horror and comedy and even a biopic, of all things. Some of it looks great - some of it looks bloody terrible. There's something for everyone!

Click on the giant glowing Pac-Man to take a look at our eclectic picks.

Trailer Park: The DC TV Puppetry Jamboree

After breaking one of my unspoken personal rules for The Trailer Park last week (no offensive content), I've gone and broken another one today. I had planned to restrict myself to only one TV trailer per week, and even then only if there weren't enough films. But there were so many good TV promos last week, and so few decent film ones, that I've gone back on that rule too.

Despite this, it's actually a really strong week overall. All five trailers are pretty great, and I absolutely love more than half of them. This feature may have morphed slightly away from how I originally envisiged it, but maybe that's a good thing! You can decide for yourself by hitting the link below.

Hex Picks: Apocalyptic Films

At the end of last week, we in the UK learned that we now have a Conservative majority government.

On a completely unrelated note, our theme this month is the end of the world. Click below to check out our movie choices!

Trailer Park: NSFW

One of my self-imposed unspoken rules when I started The Trailer Park was that it would only include trailers with no age-rating or restrictions. Stuff that anyone could watch, and no-one could find offensive. And it lasted... exactly three weeks.

It's not my fault, I swear! It's just that almost every damn trailer this week was redband or, at the very least, a little bit racy. Even the trailers I left out this week were for a bunch of gore-filled horror films! So, backed into a corner, here's a collection of the week's mostly filthy, mostly naked trailers. Enjoy!

Hex Picks: Apocalyptic Books

May is here, and that means a new theme for Hex Dimension's weekly recommendations. This month we're going big, as we focus on books where the world gets destroyed!

That sounds like it could get pretty dark, for obvious reasons, but I think our picks this week actually show that there's another way, and that humour and joy can be found in anything - even annihilation. Or possibly it just shows that my brother and I are kinda sadistic. Either way, you can decide for yourself by clicking the pic below.

Trailer Park: What a Lovely Kray!

Ah well, there were always going to be weeks like this. It's not a bad week - I like the trailers that came out - there just weren't enough of them. There's only four of them here, and one of those is for a TV series rather than a film! Still, there's some good stuff in the list, and a very generous helping of Tom Hardy. It may not be the best of weeks, but it's a lovely day.

Click below for our collection of the week's best trailers.

Hex Picks: Comic Villains

It's the final week of our month of villain picks, and that means it's comics time! I've really been looking forward to this one, since comics are such fertile ground for cool costumed villains. And yet, somehow, we ended up with quite a short list with only one supervillain on it. Disappointing, perhaps, but in fairness it was the greatest comicbook villain of them all - when this guy's on the list, there's basically no need to continue listing!

But then, I would say that, since that's the one I wrote. Which supervillain was it that rose above all others to appear on our coveted list? Click below to find out.

Trailer Park: Jur4ssicland

Nothing was going to live up to last week's one-two punch of Star Wars and Bat Soup, but I'm actually surprised at what a nice collection of different-feeling trailers we managed to fit into the second episode of The Trailer Park. There's a horror, a traditional mystery, a not-so-traditional mystery, a fun blockbuster, and a sombre, deadly serious blockbuster - there's actually more variety here than last week, which is cool. Hopefully people like it.

There's some slightly different stuff going on - I've messed a little with the layout, and the Trailer of the Week feature is actually visible now - but mostly I feel like the format is working, and five trailers feels like the right amount. I'd love some feedback, though, so please let me know how you feel about all this.
 
As always, you can check out the second Trailer Park by clicking below!

Hex Picks: Game Villains

With Mondays on this blog now occupied by the new Trailer Park feature, I'm shunting our weekly Hex Picks back into the Tuesday slot they were in last year. They're still a Monday thing over on Hex Dimension, of course - they'll just be appearing here on NerdTech a day later.

This week's picks continue villain month, as we choose our favourite villains in gaming. David and I - as seems to have become our tradition - unknowingly wrote about the exact same game again. Because of course we did. Luckily we both managed to pick different characters so, to find out which single game has two equally great villains, click the pic below.

Trailer Park: Ant v Scream: Genisys of the Force

Today saw the launch of a new feature on Hex Dimension. It's a weekly spot that will collect all the week's best film trailers in one place, and give a quick analysis of each. It's a really great idea that I wish I could take credit for, but that honour falls to Emily King. It seems so obvious in retrospect - having one single place to look every week, instead of trawling through film sites - yet I'm not sure I've ever seen it done quite like this before. In the absence of Doctor Who, I've been looking for something I could write regularly (not to mention something I could overanalyse), so when Emily suggested this to the team it seemed like the perfect fit. I took it and ran with it and now it's here!

We call it... The Trailer Park.

There was no real reason why I decided to start it this week - things just worked out that way. Yet, somehow, I managed to choose the week that both the new Star Wars and Batman v Superman trailers broke. There won't be another week with two mega-trailers like that for a while! So, to find out what I thought of the two biggest trailers of the year (and a couple of the week's slightly-less-big trailers) click the pic below. And check back next week for more!

Hex Picks: Film Villains

This week the Hex Dimension team are picking our favourite villains from the movies. While the list is somewhat dominated by supervillains (because, well, supervillains are cool) there's still a couple of unexpected choices. One of the choices is almost entirely redacted, and another is probably the last supervillain you would ever think to include in a list like this (yet it's probably favourite choice on here).

It's a pretty interesting mix, in other words, and you should click the image to take a look!

Hex Picks: Book Villains

Normal service resumes this week, as we move on from our month of TV recommendations (where I sadly missed out on a few weeks) and return to our usual cycle. This month we're looking at our favourite villainous characters from various media, and first up, as always, is books.

Actually, while I said "favourite" villains, that's not actually true. The character I've written about is not one I like or enjoy on any level - this is a truly odious and dispicable individual - and, in the novel at least, they're not actually the villain either. But they absolutely deserve to be on this list, without question. Find out why by clicking the image below.

Hex Picks: TV Shows with Amnesia

Our month of TV picks continues. Like last week, we all chose shows that used a similar plot device - this week it was memory-loss.

This is something that always hits quite close to home for me, and I used this as a chance to write myself some therapy! The specific device I've written about is something that genuinely upsets and disturbs me whenever it appears, yet it's also one of my favourite things on TV. To find out what it is, and which programme it's from, click the... um... click... errrm...

...what was I saying?

Hex Picks: TV Shows with Parallel Universes

We're trying something a little different with Hex Picks this March. Instead of our usual cycle of books, films, games and comics, we're giving the spotlight to TV programmes. Specifically programmes that all feature a specific plot or device. I'm not sure exactly how much mileage there is in this approach but, hey, we're gonna give it our best shot.

This week's common thread (because I honestly hate the word "trope") is shows that cross over into a parallel universe. We've got examples where that's a central element of the series' plot, to examples where it's basically a gag. Click below to check 'em out!

Hex Dimension: Is Marvel teaming up with a Sony a wise move?

This week, a miracle happened. Marvel Studios finally struck a deal with Sony Pictures, allowing Spider-Man to at last appear onscreen with Marvel's other characters. But, perhaps more importantly, that deal establishes that this will be a new version of the character rather than the current puffy-haired, promise-breaking iteration. And, more important still, Marvel will be the ones with creative control, rather than the aimless executives at Sony. This is great news.

Following our reaction piece regarding the Star Wars trailer, Hex Dimension have written a similar piece about this Spidey news. Rather than just squee about how great the news is (like I did above), I tried to find a more interesting angle to look at this from. I think I found one - and you can find it too by following the link below.

Hex Dimension: Spoilers, Bodies, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I am, as you probably know, the kind of person who cries during films. A lot. I'm emotionally very vulnerable to swelling scores and good composition and whatever it is that Pixar always do. But thinking about it, with one single Donna-Noble-shaped exception, I don't think I've ever felt the same level of emotion about televison.

Last week that changed, drastically and painfully. We're currently binge-watching Buffy for the first time, and something happened that completely flattened me. It was just one episode - just one - but I felt numb and drained for days afterwards. Chances are you know exactly the episode I'm talking about - it's the one that stabs you in the heart and twists the knife.

It is, quite honestly, one of the best episodes of television that I've ever seen. And because it is so good, and because I'm still reeling from the power of it, I just had to write down my feelings about it. The team at Hex Dimension have very kindly let me post my thoughts over there, and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. It ended up being quite a personal piece, I think, but in this case that feels like a positive. In fact, I don't think there was any other way to write it.

So, whether you know what I'm talking about or not, I hope you'll click this image and join me in celebrating this amazing show.

Hex Picks: British Films

A lot of the stuff that we consume - whether it's written or visual or interactive - comes from America. They make more stuff than us, so that's just the way it is. But this February sees Hex Dimension trying to shed a little light on media from our own home shores. All our Hex Picks will be - to some extent - British, and it feels good to be giving them some recognition.

This week is movies (or "films", as we call them over here). There's everything from ultraviolent drama to gonzo comedy, and it's a pretty spectacular list of great films. I chose probably exactly what you'd expect me to choose - but it's one of my absolute favourites and I totally stand by it. So, for the good of the Commonwealth, click below.

Hex Dimension Review: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

I've been shocked and surprised at the general response to Peter Jackson's final Hobbit film. I liked the first two more than most (but less than some), but I can definitely understand the issues that a lot of people had with them, even if I don't entirely agree.

But this one? This one I loved. From start to finish, there and back again, I loved every single second of it. To see Five Armies facing the same kind of backlash as the first two feels like absolute madness.

To find out what's different this time, and why it worked so well for me, click below for my full review!