Winter Retreat: by Ann Mcgonnell, Caldercruix

Aliens: Fireteam Release date: Summer

When I was wee I loved to retreat With Enid Blyton to my favourite seat The Famous Five or Malory Towers Would entertain me for hours and hours

As a teenager I’d rush home at four Switch the Christmas lights on, look out at the snow

Toast, hot chocolate and my fave TV show

Just me by the fire, my face all aglow

Then married, our first home was a flat by some fields

When stormy we felt we were out in the wilds

If the power cut off, the candles came out

“Let’s cuddle under a duvet,”my daughter would shout

Now we have grandsons, a house with a garden

Room to throw snowballs and build a big snowman

My home is still my favourite winter retreat

To knit, read and write and put up my feet

* To submit a poem for publication in Poet’s Corner, email judith.tonner@ reachplc.com

Aliens: Fireteam looks a blast

The Aliens franchise has had a rocky relationship with video games.

Arguably the best outing to date was 2016’s Alien Isolation, which skewed more towards horror as a solitary monster stalked you across a derelict ship. But any game attempting to replicate the gun-toting energy of James Cameron’s Aliens movie has fallen flat on its face.

There is fresh hope, though.

This week, out of the blue, developer Cold Iron Studios announced Aliens: Fireteam, a co-operative third-person survival shooter channelling the same energy of the Left 4 Dead series. All we have seen so far is a brief 25-minute preview, watching a fireteam of three Colonial Marines fending off swarms of Xenomorphs with their standard-issue kick-ass M41A Pulse Rifle, but it fills us with hope.

It is unlikely to be a game of the year. But with a huge arsenal of weapons and loads of creatures — from Facehuggers to Praetorians — which you will be ableto blast into oblivion, it sure looks like it could be a heap of fun.

Aliens: Fireteam is set for release this summer on PS4, PS5, Xbox and PC.

Xenomorph mission