But Castlevania didn’t invent the Metroidvania genre alone. In fact, the biggest contributions to the genre came from the first half of the term: Metroid. Released on August 6th, 1986 for the Nintendo NES, Metroid introduced an open-world action-sidescrolling adventure heavily inspired by the Alien film series. Taking on the role of Samus Aran, the game tasked players with advancing through the otherworldly Zebes in the hopes of defeating the Space Pirates, who want to turn the Metroids into weapons of mass destruction....

As such. I think that Morgan’s character hasn’t been well served this year, and for a long list of stories Anna hasn’t appeared. It’s time for Buy More payback, and Chuck Vs. The Best Friend goes some way to address those deficits. Anna’s disappearance is partially explained when Morgan admits that he and she are no longer a couple, and that he’s going to spy on her to find out what she’s doing now....

4.16 Chuck Versus The Masquerade There’s a distinct end-of-term air in this story, where Morgan and Chuck finally confront the difficult choices to be made, in regard to classic Star Wars memorabilia. I just wish the writers of No Ordinary Family would take note here, because these are exactly the sorts of conversations that geeks have, not the dribble that they make come out of Katie’s mouth in that show....

After having a few weeks off from the movie pastiches, Community once again returned to its tongue in cheek roots with Advanced Dungeons And Dragons, and it was everything you hoped it could be. Using the game to give fantasy movies and, more specifically, Lord Of The Rings the Harmon treatment, our favourite study group immerse themselves in a D&D spectacular, all in the hope of righting one of Jeff’s many, many wrongs....

5.7 App Development And Condiments Okay, it’s like Dan Harmon and his writing staff are just showing off now. While last week’s more sombre Bondage And Beta Male Sexuality was the kind of episode that no other sitcom could pull off in its stride, App Development And Condiments represents the series at the very peak of its power, doing many of the things it’s best at – high-concept escalations, character interactions, zeitgeist-y satire that never comes off as too arch or obvious – all at the same freaking time....

2.3 The Children of the Battlefield Elizabeth and Morehouse’s wedding day has arrived, and just like the rest of their lives in upper-class New York, the day is beautiful and glitzy but has a dark underbelly. During the party after the ceremony Elizabeth, who is in need of a serious intervention, goes upstairs to get doped up on opium. Morehouse is not at all concerned. He is livid, however, when she confesses to conspiring with Kennedy....

Seemingly flowing from the same vein of Euro-trash action films that Liam Neeson opened up with Taken, the film is driven by what CIA agent Bill Pope (Ryan Reynolds) knows, or rather what he knew, before a deal in London with a hacker known as the Dutchman (Michael Pitt) went awry and he was tortured to death by Spanish anarchist Xavier Heimdahl, (Jordi Mollà.) Wells is rooting for “a hero from SEAL Team Six”, but Franks insists that only sociopathic convict Jericho Stewart (Costner) is suitable, due to a childhood brain trauma that left him with something of a blank slate where a normal adult would have developed a frontal lobe....

It’s time to wrap things up for this season of Da Vinci’s Demons, a season that at times seemed a bit disjointed with juggling subplots. David Goyer and his team of writers ran the risk of having too many plates spinning at once, but boy, did the final episode tie everything together. As all the cards turned over, by episode’s end, viewers were left with a very different world with higher stakes than ever....

“When Laura Frizzo, the lone female police chief in the isolated, relentlessly cold world of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, began an investigation to find missing person Chris Regan, she never expected to uncover an alleged female serial killer as well,” reads Investigation Discovery’s press statement. Jason was found dead of a suspected overdose in February 2016. The Indiana Lake County Coroner discovered Jason didn’t overdose. He was murdered, cause of death: asphyxiation....

2.2 In My Secret Life My disenchantment with the opening episode of Defiance was soon forgotten by this significantly better story, In My Secret Life. The theme of all the shenanigans packed into these forty-two minutes, was that we all have lives we think are secret, but they rarely are completely. The return of Nolan and Irisa coincides with a terrorist incident, though oddly nobody points out any potential connection....

Or maybe there’s a simpler option, and we just like reading about famous people. If that’s the case, then Anjelica Huston’s memoir, A Story Lately Told, is a very good read. Her father, the film director John Huston, gave her an childhood filled with trips abroad, movie sets, actors and writers and singers that are names we all know, to the point where they become a bit faceless. By the final third of the book she describes meeting Marlon Brando and says he’s a “tanned, even-featured man in a maroon velour sweatshirt” which dissipates any magic we might have felt at the encounter, and suggests she certainly didn’t feel any either....

Having just finished watching Dex Takes A Holiday, it’s like the first three stories were a slow climb up a steep gradient, where here we crested the hill and start to make a rapid descent. Oh…hang on, its Dead Man’s Curve up a head. Get those body bags ready! There are a number of major spoilers in this piece, so if you haven’t seen it yet I’d hold off reading my review until you have, because this episode is pivotal for some characters....

8.1 A Beautiful Day A Beautiful Day doesn’t break that model, and given the panic that Dexter seems to be going through, the minor characters appear to be more of a hindrance than a help. The new serial killer, “The Brain Surgeon” is really a background element, though one that brings with it the intriguing character of Dr. Evelyn Vogel, played rather wonderfully by the infinitely watchable Charlotte Rampling. But initially at least, it’s Debs who has his full attention, having retreated to an undercover gig where she’s snorting cocaine and having sex with those she’s supposedly trying to arrest....

After watching the first three installments made available to the press, it’s easy to draw one simple conclusion: Dimension 404 is just simply fun. It’s the kind of show that seasoned geeks could share with their non-geek spouses, who, when the credits roll, will say, “That was really cute.” Even for the horror episodes! That may seem a strange way to praise the show, but honestly, its wide appeal and pure entertainment value is exactly why fans of all television, genre or otherwise, should give it a go....

Space zombies, near-death experiences and what we can only hope is a temporary change for the Doctor… In Oxygen, writer Jamie Mathieson has quite literally played a blinder. And for the more observant among us, there were a handful of pop culture references and callbacks to earlier stories. Here’s our weekly round-up of the ones we noticed, along with the odd bit of wild speculation and things we just found interesting....

But it also continued a trend to add depth to the ‘side’ characters in Doctor Who, that the show didn’t always manage to do. Originally there as much as a narrative device (or in the case of Bonnie Langford’s Mel, to scream to a point where you reached for the remote control), to help explain what was going on to the audience, the assistant gradually started to squeeze out some back story for themselves, too....

Thing is, I was at the launch too, though, and there’s something that Steven Moffat also said, that I don’t think has been talked about enough. In short, the pressure – while hardly off – is perhaps different on Steven Moffat this time around. I can’t imagine the BBC is being hands off, but I do bet that the drama department – and the various bits of the BBC that make hard cash from Doctor Who – has its eyes on the series beyond this one....

Dominion has a penchant for rewriting the script on angels, at least as we’re supposed to know or understand them in this universe. But what this show is selling to its viewers is really an alternate universe in which angels are capable of unspeakable horrors against mankind. At first we’re led to believe that mankind has brought this scourge down on itself for losing faith in their heavenly Father, that vengeance is the angels’ way of evening the score a bit....

DuckTales Episode 9 What have I done without DuckTales in my life these past few weeks? The whip smart humor, the unparalleled one liners, and now we can add adventuring through what may as well be a video game level. How can the world survive without this show on every week? The main plot featuring Scrooge, Huey, Dewey, and Webby was apparently ripped right out of my life because I’ve been Scrooge....

Dynasty: Season 1, Episode 8 Welcome to Product Placement, the latest episode of Dynasty. In case you wanted a Google Pixel ad with some drama throughout, the CW has you covered. This is also part one of Dynasty‘s Christmas episodes, which is a pretty rare thing to do. We’ll have to wait and see if this show pulls it off. Blake loses faith in Cristal You know, I was pulling for Blake....