Review: Home entertainment

CD
Girls Aloud: Out of Control
3/5

As a group spawned by the fickle masses that ring in to reality TV shows, Girls Aloud should really be selling frocks or hosting Quiz Call by now.

Yet the five-piece from Popstars are still huge. Literally huge: at The O2 arena, the girls’ image on an indoor billboard is so imposing you're half expecting it to announce them as the new overlords.

But even when you’re in the ruling classes of the pop world, your keepers will still make you tilt where the money is.

So the fifth studio album introduces chart-topping single The Promise, a ’60s-soaked effort designed to jump on the recent interest in retro.

Is it a good move? Well, pop is a fashion-crazy beast, so there's always an argument for it. But there's still a lingering doubt about the song, which doesn't so much charge down the highway as wander the supermarket aisles looking for a certain type of soup.

Girls Aloud do covers, but don't do too many unique things with the genre, though they're among the better girl groups largely due to their infectious musical swagger.

There are pretty decent pop tracks on here, but while this album is slicked up to the nines, it’s a bit more of a stretch to enjoy. John Hill

DVD
Shine a Light
4/5

Mick Jagger might now have a face resembling a crumpled paper bag and Keith Richards has features craggier than Mount Rushmore, but the Rolling Stones show no signs of bowing to their advancing years.

After close to 50 years in the business they still attract the attention younger imitators can only dream of, and this film of two shows at New York’s Beacon Theater in 2006 shows why.

As you’d expect, the music is top-notch, if a little predictable, with Satisfaction, Brown Sugar, Sympathy for the Devil and all the usual suspects rolled out for inspection and passing muster.

Proceedings are enlivened by guest turns from Jack White, Christina Aguilera and blues great Buddy Guy, while Jagger pouts about the stage in his own inimitable way.

Despite being directed by Martin Scorsese, this is pretty much a standard concert film, spliced with interview footage from the ’60s through to the ’90s.

It might only be rock 'n' roll, but nobody does it quite like the Stones. Simon Hayes

BOOK
Buffett: The Biography Roger Lowenstein
5/5

When once asked what he thought about bear markets Warren Buffett replied: “Like an oversexed guy in a whorehouse. This is the time to start investing.� It doesn’t bear thinking how horny the American icon must be feeling in today’s economic climate.

Buffett doesn’t “do� bull markets, making this timely re-release of Roger Lowenstein’s biography on the world’s richest man required reading for anyone interested in the stock market yet feeling paralysed by the financial meltdown.

Buffett is a wonderful subject and in the hands of Lowenstein a wonderful read.

He offers a unique portrait of the life and career of the eccentric self-made billionaire from his days when he would scour the sawdust floors of the Ak-Sar-Ben racetrack in the hope of finding a discarded winning ticket to his recent decision to give the bulk of his fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.

Even if you’re not interested in the stock market, you will be once you've finished this enlightening, engaging read. Lucia Blash

GAME
Far Cry 2
4/5

With 50sq km of African savannah to explore and no linear storyline to follow, Far Cry 2 is a technical tour de force with a pulse-pounding “kill or be killed� mentality you won’t find anywhere else.

Hired by a mysterious employer to take down a warlord named The Jackal, you’re soon choosing between two rival factions in this gorgeously-rendered war-torn paradise. How you approach them is up to you – scout around; snipe from a distance; even nab a vehicle and crash through the front gates of some dangerous enemy compound. There’s dozens of side missions, too, so there’s plenty of variety.

Intelligent enemies, realistic wildlife and stunning vistas make this world really come to life. Sadly, scarcity of save points means you may find yourself dying and repeating sections a fair few times.

But it’s a small price to pay for a game so ambitious, entertaining and long-lived – with online multiplayer modes proving the pixelated icing on an already astonishingly tasty piece of next-gen programming.
Mark Scott, GAME