NightJim: Geek and Proud

The Darkness: From page to polygon

2012-02-03T19:10:00.002Z

Over at BeefJack my latest feature has gone up, The Darkness: From page to polygon. This one was a lot of fun, not often you get to combine two of my favourite things and get it published. I even got to drag out my old Darkness comics out and read of some good 90's comics. My collection was a lot fuller than I remember, I always thought my Darkness collection was patchy at best, apparently not.

Stuff that didn't belong in that article was how much of Ennis is in the first few issues, a writer I'd never really sampled until after my Top Cow phase. And the art, wow I'd forgotten how exploitative the 90s was with women, practically every female present looked like they're about to go do a shift at the local gentlemans club.

Chuck vs. The End

2012-01-29T11:32:00.000Z

So that's it. Chuck hasfinally finished. In some ways I'm sad, in others not so much. Thefirst two seasons were tremendous telly, and this last season hasbeen pretty damn special too. At least it got to end properly. Partof the problem has been the writers treating each half season astheir last, only to receive a last minute reprieve from the networks.This wasn't more obvious than the first half of Season 3, which endedbeautifully, only for them to get a further six episodes and thestaff seemed to scramble for a suitable storyline.

Its probably why season5 has been so good, for once they actually knew this was the end andit was time to draw a line under it all.

I originally came toChuck due to one of my invalid periods. My flatmate recommended itand he had seasons 1 and 2 and since I couldn't move off the sofa Ifigured what the hell. I was 100% caught up before my ability to walkwas returned to me. The show's concept of a nerd who becomes a spy issome serious wish fulfilment for me right there. Throw in Jayne Cobbas your back up and the ridiculously hot Yvonne Strahovski in too andit's TV gold.

Unfortunately theratings never supported that and every year after it's second Chuckstruggled to stay on the air. Through the hard work of the fans withsuch campaigns as Chuck vs. the Finale Footlong which saw fansbuying a footlong sandwich at Subway in thanks to their productplacement during the show. It was enough to get half a third season.Then a full third season. That ball just kept rolling till last year.

Itseems that the ever present spectre of Death hanging over themaffected the stories a little. As I mentioned before quality didslide after the half season 3 cliffhanger, and during season 4 Inearly gave up on Chuck. Probably would have done if my flatmatewasn't still watching. The Chuck/Sarah relationship startedstretching a little bit as the Will they? Won't they? was answeredbut then had to back track. Finally realising that they couldn't dragit out any more and seeing how it worked with them as a couple was abrave move, plenty of shows have fallen down at that point, but itsucceeded and the show started to claw back some of it's formerglory.

Then NBC finally said“OK 13 more episodes and you're done.” I figured I might as welltoo, only 13 episodes then I'd have seen it all. Bloody Hell am Iglad I did. The writing team certainly stepped up to it. Instead ofworrying that it might betheir last, they embraced it. The quality went through the roof,easily matching season 1 and 2 at their best, maybe even exceedingit.

Thenthere was the finale. It could have been all too easy for Chuck to goout in a saccharine sweet ending. Some characters did get that, butthere was a shade of tragedy over the whole thing. One thing it diddo was wrap up nearly every single character and move them on. Wellexcept two people, but lets be honest, it's clear they did too. Rightnow I'm thinking it's one of the best endings to a TV series I'veever seen. Admittedly I'm just over 12 hours from watching it and thetears may still be ruining my vision but honestly it was donebrilliantly.

Sowhen's the reunion movie?

Mass Effect 3 Unlocks AKA Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning demo

2012-01-26T12:45:00.000Z

The Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning demo, yes I only played it because of the Mass Effect 3 items, but that's what forms the majority of this story.

First time I played it I was vaguely impressed. It was sort of a more serious Fable, the world seemed interesting for a rather standard fantasy fare, but then as I was speaking to the first Fateweaver conversations just disappeared with a lovely bug. However, there was a prize at the end of the road so I pushed on, ran across the play area to see as much of the main quest as I could to see if it grabbed me. It sort of did. But then it happened. It crashed. One of those big ones that freezes the entire Xbox and the only way around it is the power button.

Any other game would have gotten a “Well that's buggy as week old shit” and forgotten, but there was a Mass Effect unlock waiting at the other side. A few days later I had another pop. I had a few hours before I had to head out and figured I had plenty of time to fit in the 45 minutes needed. This was when I realised just how amazing a demo the game was. First I didn't have to redo the tutorial the game just went “Shall I skip that part since you've done it already”, which I thought was going to be the most painful of the replay. That done I set off handling the quests I'd blatantly ignored previously and I was in for another shock. The disappearing conversations were nowhere to be found, and I'd never see them again.

Then the other surprise, the 45 minutes passed and I needed to start getting ready. I shoved it on pause and ran around. With half an hour to go I hoped I had enough time, the clock said less than 20 minutes, I should be fine. When the taxi turned up I still had just under 10 minutes to go. Arse.

The next day, a little hung over and incredibly tired, I was determined to finally get it out the way. I did the four or five quests I'd not got round to and still had over ten minutes to go. I wasted them exploring more of the playable region. Finally I had my Mass Effect 3 unlock. But that wasn't all.

First of all, this is how you make a demo for an open-world RPG. They say 45 minutes of free-roaming. But that's 45 minutes of running and stabbing. Go to the map or inventory, or have a conversation and the clock stops. I reckon barring bugs and that, the first attempt would have easily lasted three hours. Sure you'd eventually hit points in a quest line where it said “You've gone as far as we're letting you” but it was a good taste of things to come and there was always plenty more to see.

The second and third playthroughs totally eclipsed the buggy, less involving first. They immersed me in the world and Kingdoms of Amalur has gone from not even being on my radar to a game I'm trying to figure out a way to afford.

SOPA and PIPA

2012-01-20T16:59:00.000Z

It's funny. If this had happened a year ago I pretty much would have been on the outskirts of this debate saying something like "I hope the Americans realise" and being nicely surprised at the blackouts conducted around the internet on Wednesday and the consquences of that action.

However, here I am now and I was part of one of those blackouts over at BeefJack. For a day we didn't post any news at all, because if SOPA went through in it's current state it is entirely possible we would get shut down for using images from games that we're trying to tell people about.

Still, the net shouted in protest and we were heard. News programs across the Western world were finally commenting (mostly about Wikipedia and Google's blacked out header but still). Since then Senators have dropped their support for both bills by the busload. PIPA seems to have totally withdrawn for now. However, Lamar Smith, SOPA's biggest champion, has said it isn't over!

None of us expected it to be over. Out of all those that went on the blackout I don't think you'd find one who would say copyright doesn't need to be protected. Pirates do need to be stopped, but not like this. What was being protested was the way SOPA and PIPA intended to deal with the problem. Effectively taking a sledgehammer to even the slightest whiff of piracy. Remember the old saying "don't shoot the messenger?" They weren't just shooting the messenger but anyone within fifty feet of him.

Both bills are simply far too vague to do anything other than end the internet as it is. Go away, rewrite them, remove any reference to no due process and we may start to have something that isn't just pandering to big business.

Book Title Story

2012-01-16T16:43:00.000Z

Another writing group segment. This was we were given the task of creating a piece of writing using a number of book titles. I cheated a little, it was meant to be a pile with no manipulation but I skipped over a couple I didn't think I could do anything with.

The books were:

WITHOUT REMORSE by TomClancy

DEBT OF HONOUR by TomClancy

RAINBOW SIX by TomClancy

TEETH OF THE TIGER byTom Clancy

INCOMPETENCE by RobGrant

BLACK HOUSE by StephenKing and Peter Straub

DEAD EVEN by BradMeltzer

FIRST COUNSEL by BradMeltzer

MILLIONAIRES by BradMeltzer

ZERO GAME by BradMeltzer

BROKEN ANGELS byRichard Morgan

GOOD OMENS by NeilGaiman and Terry Pratchett

ICURAS HUNT by TimothyZahn

BETTER THAN LIFE byGrant Naylor

BACKWARDS by GrantNaylor

It was Icarus Hunt that finally gave me an angle on what to do. This is what I came up with:

We call it the ZEROGAME. We cater for MILLIONAIRES and billionaires that are looking forsomething a bit different, something that offers more than just theTEETH OF THE TIGER, something BETTER THAN LIFE.

This one felt differentthough. the vision of BROKEN ANGELS I'd had the night before wasn'texactly what I'd call GOOD OMENS for our upcoming ICARUS HUNT. But asFIRST COUNSEL I had a DEBT OF HONOUR to the organisers to see itthrough.

Genetically engineeredprey. Scientists cook up mythical creatures in a lab. Rich peoplehunt them for a kill that they will be the only person in history toever claim. Many called it genius. They had it BACKWARDS, it wasINCOMPETENCE. You can't go messing with nature and expect nothing togo wrong.

I knew it wouldn't belong till until someone was hurt or DEAD, EVEN. But here at the BLACKHOUSE we gathered and as I looked across at a the artificiallygenerated RAINBOW, SIX of them declared they were ready. We set off.I just prayed it wouldn't be me.

The Annual Games Cycle

2012-01-05T11:39:00.000Z

With the release ofAssassin's Creed: Revelations a lot of people are once again talkingabout how it shouldn't be an annual release. How Ubisoft are killingthe franchise releasing games so close together. How only two gamesago, Assassin's Creed 2 was hailed as a masterpiece and look how muchit's fallen already.

What this has us askingis why is everyone in the industry so desperate to have annualreleases? There's so many examples of it not working.

There is however onerather obvious example of it working, and it working so well thatyear on year it's the biggest release the industry has ever had. Callof Duty.

Now Activision aresimultaneously the best and worst at the practice. With Guitar Heroand it's six billion iterations doing a good job of nearly killingoff the entire music genre, the series became not just a cash cow,but one that had a super powered milking machine attached and draineduntil there was nothing but a husk left behind.

On the flip side of thecoin, Activision are showing everyone how to do it properly with theCall of Duty series, alternating between two studios, giving each atwo year development schedule that doesn't result in a substandardgame.

EA have taken a similartact with both their Need for Speed series and their own militaryshooters. The military shooter option is a little different as theydon't just alternate studios but entire franchises, Battlefield andMedal of Honour, but there will always be one there to make sure CoDdoesn't get a clear run. Now while I feel the difference betweenBattlefield and CoD is obvious (more squad based and vehicles vsHollywood-esque indulgence) the difference between CoD and MOH is alot less clear cut.

Meanwhile with Need forSpeed, it's almost approaching Guitar Hero proportions with thenumber being released in a year, but at least EA are making thedifferences clear. Shift is trying to make in roads into theForza/Gran Turismo arena while the other entries stick to Need forSpeed's more traditional arcade racing. Black Box have finally had atwo year production cycle again, moving away from the doldrums of ProStreet and Undercover with The Run. Unfortunately for Black Box, thereason they got that year off was because Criterion of Burnout famehad a go behind the wheel last year and blew everyone away.

But What About TheAnimus?

This all brings us tothe reason this conversation has once again reared it's head.Assassin's Creed Revelations. The first hint the story of AberstgoIndustries was going annual was last year's Brotherhood. It can beargued that a lot of Brotherhood felt like a game that should havebeen DLC in the vein of something Rockstar or a majority of RPGdevelopers would release. It's a stance I can agree with, to a point.Ubisoft's inclusion of a rather unique multiplayer feature puts thatargument to rest for me. I did, however, see the cracks starting toform from the rushed release and hoped it wasn't going to be thenorm. Then, of course, Revelations was announced, and we already knowthat there will be another Assassin's Creed next year.

But Revelations provesthat Assassin's Creed cannot sustain this yearly release schedule.Five studios worked on Revelations. Five. You see five names on awriting credit for a film and you know you're likely about to sitthrough a stinker.

One will be behind thetower defence missions, which I can forgive. To a point. We may beused to Ezio jumping into crowds and dealing with it himself, butthis is an older, wiser Auditore, one who brought the ItalianBrotherhood back from the ashes. Thinking of him like that, it isn'thard to imagine him as a commander as well. Only one of these isforced upon you though, and to get more is a punishment for notplaying the game properly seems a very odd decision. Not only thatbut keep playing it properly and you can cut them out of the gameentirely.

However, the otherobvious offender is the 'Desmond Memories'. Now these are atrocious.They feel like some mid-90s first person engine tech demo, the onlytie to the game they are meant to be a part of the game they areincluded with is the ever present Nolan North's voice over as Desmondremembers his past.

Of course themultiplayer will be a third studio, and I'm gonna take a stab in thedark and say Altair's sections are the other. All of which take placein the exact same place. Worked well story-wise but was a bit cheap.

What can be learnt fromActivision?

(Did I really just type that)

So why does Assassin'sCreed fail where Call of Duty thrives? Well, first of all is the factthat CoD switches developers on a yearly basis, giving plenty of timeto make a proper game. And a cohesive one as the majority is done byone studio and not cutting the development up and hoping it all fitstogether.

Second, and I thinkthis is one that Ubisoft really need to realise, is that Call of Dutyis a first person shooter while Assassin's is an open world game. AnFPS is a lot tighter development, so much more focused and able tocontrol what and when the players sees and does. An open world gameallows the player to go and do as they please, and to make sure thatworks well takes time.

Please Ubisoft, letAssassin's Creed 3 (or whatever you end up calling it) be the end ofthe yearly releases. Take some time, give the designers the chance tohave a good think about what they want to refine, change or tweakinstead of giving us minor changes like the hook blade that don'treally equate to much change. It didn't work for Lara Croft, it's notgoing to work for Desmond and his ancestors.

My First Proper BeefJack Article

2012-01-03T10:18:00.004Z

2012 is off to a great start as my first article over at BeefJack "Why I stopped playing so many games in 2011" appears. Quite a moment for me.

Random piece of information, I nearly spent a whole afternoon relearning Photoshop to do that first image, doing little tweaks here and there. I had to step away from it to stop myself going crazy.

And A Happy New Year

2012-01-02T13:19:00.002Z

Hello Twenty Twelve. Not Two Thousand and Twelve. Embrace the future people!

So what's the plan from here on out. Well, the last few weeks of 2011 didn't really contain any major writing, in fact it was pretty atrocious. But it was the holiday season, so that's my excuse.

But, it's the new year and it's time to press on. In fact, I'm just back from lunch and I already have over a thousand words clocked up today so not a bad start. I intend to have the first draft of the novel finished by the end of January. Of course the fact I've been offered that deadline by a friend with promise of a rewards helps (though I'm ashamed to admit I need it).

After that I'm not sure. Ideally this novel should be done in the first half of the year. I've got a few ideas where I want to go, and the website needs that overhaul finishing so I can put it back up. But first draft first!

Merry Halo Christmas Everyone

2011-12-26T19:08:00.000Z

I hope you all had a good Christmas. It was a relatively quiet one here in the Haresign household, what with me barely having any cash to speak of.

However, aside from the hideous amounts of chocolate everyone gets, I also received Halo: Anniversary. Being the die-hard Halo fan I have of course played it way back when but the lure of new graphics, achievements and the new maps for Reach was just too much.

The first step back into the Mjolnir mark V armour was fantastic, I'd forgotten just how satisfying the original assault rifle is compared to it's less powerful modern day equivalent. The graphics are splendid, not amazing by any judge, closer to how you remember the game rather than how it really is, though they exceed those expectations on a regular basis. I've hit the back button a few times and been shocked just how plain the environments were. Saber Interactive have really done an impressive job here.

Once you get into the meat of the game (and for me it was post "Silent Cartographer") that you start to realise the things that are missing. Not because of any bad conversion, but because the very first Halo just didn't have them, like the speed boost on Ghosts, lock-ons with rocket launchers and hi-jacking vehicles. When I first checked the achievements and saw "No-Fly Zone" I thought that's a rather easy achievement. Only to attempt to grab one as it flew too close to the ground and find holding X did nothing. Then I remembered the old tactic of having to snipe the pilot from behind. I haven't managed that one yet.

The oft-maligned repeating architecture doesn't really show it's head until "Assault on the Control Room" and it's bugging me more now than it did when the game was new. It even got me to shift from hardcore play to picking it up and having a pop. Jesus, the levels are huge though. I really need to steal that banshee to cut some of it out.

However, the game is still tremendous despite the ten years. The first time I circled a Hunter and took it down with one pistol shot to the spine was heart-warming. That said, I do miss the DMR.

Wait! That wasn't there before was it?

2011-12-20T17:52:00.001Z

You noticed some posts appearing from when this place was on hiatus? Don't worry you're not going insane, I'm moving some select pieces from GeekGasms.org here too. I'm doing it mainly because at some point I'll be pointing people to my work and I'd rather send them to a place with everything rather than two places with gaps.

Snow began to fall, huge flakes of it

2011-12-11T12:50:00.001Z

One of the things I intend to do is to start throwing up some of the writing I do in the writing group I've joined. Well, at least the ones I'm happy with. This bit was written in there, we were given five minutes to write a Christmas piece beginning with "Snow began to fall, huge flakes of it". So here ya go:

Snow began to fall, huge flakes of it... Dave's head smacked against the steering wheel.This better not lie hethought as he could see it doing exactly that at the side of theroad.

It was 9pm on Christmas Eve and he had two hundred miles to go before hegot home. And home was exactly where he was going to get to, notmatter the weather, Tim was three this year and Dave knew that thiswas when Christmas mattered and he was going to be there when his sonwoke up to see what Santa had brought.

It.. It's changed?!?

2011-12-05T16:23:00.001Z

What? There's been a change and now an update?
Yes, strange person checking a site that's been dead for nearly two years, there has.

So the GeekGasms.org experiment was pretty much a failure. Poor communication, changing priorities and more can be blamed. However, there were a number of successes. We had a podcast for over a year and a half and I blogged nearly every week, but as we started to lose people I stopped, then the only other regular blogger did too. Nevermind, it was damn fun while it lasted. There's a couple of ideas Danny and I batted around that may keep some life in it though. We'll see.

However, this year I decided to make a rather drastic change. Quit my day job and give writing a try properly. So I need a web presence all of my own, originally I was tempted to do it with GeekGasms, but there's too much on NightJim.com to just abandon that too.

So I've decided to update the latter, because that's where Justice League of Abertay is and it's more within my own abilities. Right now it's still the old site, but I'm in the process offline of ripping it apart, discarding a lot of crap and going from there. This page is going to be my main update portal, with the site being more of an archive of stories etc.

Also we have my first success as a writer. I'm now a contributor on BeefJack.com, keep an eye out for news stories from me, as well as the odd blog/feature such as this Halo one I've already done.

I'm also going to keep updating GeekGasms.org with my blogs, but I'm going to be putting them here too. Hopefully an all new NightJim.com will spring up soon, and I already have some material for it.

Halo article on BeefJack

2011-11-10T13:38:00.000Z

Here's a feature I contributed to over at BeefJack for Halo's 10 year anniversary. My first proper article printed by someone that isn't myself :D

Halo: Combat Evolved - Happy anniversary

Pricing the Digital Ink

2011-10-06T09:42:00.000+01:00

To keep a theme running I'm once again going to go on about comics. Yes OK I'm missing my weekly trip to the store to pick them up, and then get home and devour them over a coffee.

Moving at the end of August means that I've not been in a brick and mortar store since DC's whole new 52 kicked off. Just in case you have no idea what I'm talking about, DC has rebooted their entire universe and every single issue was a new number 1 from the very beginning. Sort of. OK it's not that simple but I'm not interested in that right now. What I'm here to get at is Digital Comics and pricing.

This a subject that's up for a lot of debate at the moment as DC went same day and date for digital as physical release. Lets not get started on how stupid a term Day and Date is either. Marvel have responded with some titles but as yet not every book is same day. But the prices? That needs addressing. And I'm going to have to speak in US money, because getting the conversion for comics is proving too difficult in press releases.

A lot of the problem is that the companies are looking after the stores rather than just focusing on what makes sense. I understand this thinking to a degree. Comics have sunk in popularity over the years, the new stands don't exist any more, everything has revolved around the direct market to sell the monthly magazines. If it wasn't for the direct market the comics industry would probably have collapsed in the 90s speculation crash. But that model is slowly failing with big name stores such as Atomic Comics closing its doors among plenty of local names.

However, one of the aims of digital comics is to attract new readers, because we're a dying breed and if we can get people who would never set foot into a comic store to check them out on the app store we're onto a winner. But to offer them at 3 or 4 dollars a pop is ridiculous when your average joe can just head over to games and pick up Angry Birds or Hard Lines for $1. Hell, you can pick up an animated show for that price.

There's going to be a huge amount of money being saved from printing with digital sales, but you want them to pay the same? Ridiculous. Except when it comes to protecting that other business that kept you alive for so long.

So that's Marvel's stance of put both version out at the same price and keeping it that way ridiculed. DC and Image have it slightly more sane, price it the same for the first four weeks then dropping a dollar. Anyone hardcore to get it day of release pays the same no matter where they go so brick and mortar isn't being undercut, but those random people who go skimming find decent prices after a little bit of time has passed. Honestly, how many people go into a brick and mortar store to pick up a two month old copy of Captain America on a whim?

Matt Fraction's creator owned Casanova series doesn't get it's digital release till two weeks after the physical, but 3 dollars cheaper at $1.99. Once again, protecting the brick and mortar stores, but with sensible pricing for digital.

Dark Horse offer comics at $1.49, which seems like perfect pricing, though I can't seem to find if its same day or not. If it is they're seriously undercutting the direct market, but on the flip side the creators get more money from digital sales and really I'd say that's the more important aspect. The people making these stories are in a better position to keep making them. Dark Horse doesn't just stop there though and a number of first issues are free.

Free first issues just make sense, it's the reason I read Umbrella Academy and Morning Glories. I want to say Atomic Robo too, but that might have been an FCBD release. I get that on initial release they wouldn't be, but six months after the fact, why not? Those going to buy it already have, why not try and tempt some people into it giving it a try and they might just pick up the rest of it. How many games have you picked up cos you've played the trial/lite version and figured why not? Same principle.

I could keep going on about the different approaches, the implications of piracy and the loss of advertising. But if you want to garner new readers and not just entertain the existing, and dwindling, fan base you can't charge the same as in stores. Even most hardcore fans feel that prices are too high anyway.

On the Fringe of Fringe

2011-09-22T09:52:00.000+01:00

As a self-proclaimed geek and having often been regarded as someone holding a high office within that establishment I'm ashamed to say I've never watched Fringe. I remember a lot of noise being made at the end of one season (see how little I know) when there was a bunch of comics seen from an alternate reality that were slightly different to the ones we know and love. At the time I thought “Huh, that's pretty cool. I should probably watch that.” Yet I still didn't get off my arse and bother.

To be fair I've done my 24 and Chuck marathons, plus Supernatural while I was on break from here. When Smith started moaning at me for not watching it I thought it was about time I pulled my finger out and with the big move I've got a lot more time on my hands so I decided to see what the fuss was all about. Boy, I should have gotten round to this sooner.

Now I'm only nearly done with season 1, and Mr Smith is lending me seasons 2 and 3 when he visits next month so you'll have to pardon my ignorance, but this is bloody good stuff. I immediately loved Walter, because who doesn't love a mad scientist who's loosing his mind. The random comments he just comes out with from nowhere never cease to get a giggle from me. Though the “I've realised two things” joke did get old pretty fast.

Peter is also an instant like for me. Partly because his know-it-all smart ass schtick without being overly cocky have always been favourites of mine. The other is that it's Joshua Jackson, who I've liked ever since *cough*Dawon's Creek*cough* (shut up! I was young!). The hints about his history, not just his dodgy criminal one but also the truth about him and Walter are laid early and left to run in the viewer's mind work great. I have my own theory, but since it's probably already been answered I'll keep quiet rather than embarrassing myself.

Olivia on the other hand, didn't seem that intriguing. It was extremely cool that she could handle herself, probably the best in the entire series, and on the rare occasion she was captured she'd be the one to get herself out of it rather than just be another damsel in distress. However, it didn't seem like the character had much depth to her except to be the straight man (sorry, woman) in the relationship and drive the investigation for the FBI. Then in the second half of the season things really start to change and suddenly she's as interesting, if not more so, than the other two leads.

The whole multiverse angle is still in its early stages at this point so apart from waiting to see some comic book covers I'm not really sure what to make of it all, but I'm having a lot of damn fun finding out.

And when the hell do I get to meet William Bell?

No More Through The Gate

2011-05-12T18:06:00.000+01:00

This week is rather a big one sci-fi, and myself, and not in a happy “Here’s the finale of Battlestar where we get all the answers” way… OK, bad example. Anyway, Monday saw the last ever episode of Stargate aired. Not just Universe but everything Stargate related. The producers have said MGM currently aren’t interested in continuing the saga of the SGC in any form having knocked back all four proposals for movies.

Stargate is an odd one for me. Over the last six or so years I’ve become a die hard fan, but before that I really wasn’t bothered. I’d watched the first three seasons of SG-1 on and off as Sky had shown it as came out. But then there was university and the adventures of Jack O’Neil and the rest of SG-1 wasn’t quite so much of a priority as drink and girls, probably should have been some education in there too but never mind. I still caught the occasional episode hung over on a Sunday with T4 but was easily lost with Daniel dying and being replaced and coming back to life then Jack stepping down.

However, news came down that Ben Browder was joining the cast as Richard Dean Anderson’s replacement along with Claudia Black playing a role I decided it was time to step back through the gate for a Farscape reunion. I watched season eight to see Anderson’s leaving and carried on through to ten. I think I’m one of the few major fans who will defend Browder’s Mitchell as a valid character instead of just being a poor man’s Jack O’Neill.

Still, with SG-1 proving itself to me, which had me going back and catching up on some of the seasons I missed, I resisted Atlantis. When it was announced Samantha Tapping as Carter and Firefly alumni and all-round cutey Jewel Staite were both joining the cast I mentioned it to a mate I was tempted. He promptly lent me the first two seasons, and promised I’d enjoy it, but I still just never got round to it. Then I was struck down with a major food poisoning which left me bed bound for three days. With my body not capable of much more than just laying and shaking except when stuff tried to evacuate it induced me with super-human speed to the bathroom, I figured I might as well as watch the two seasons that were just sitting there.

My first impression was that my initial decision to not bother was the right one. The first half of Atlantis season 1 was pretty weak, the show was quite obviously SG-1’s little sister with the episodes just copying their format. However, mid-season comes along and the crew of Atlantis found its footing and its own identity and the quality soared. Atlantis contains some of my all time favourite Stargate moments, Mackay loosing his mind in ‘The Shrine’ and Carson’s death and the resulting fallout particularly stand out. The interplay between Mackay and Shepherd surpassed that of O’Neill and Jackson for me, and Rodney Mackay is easily my favourite character within the whole franchise.

When Atlantis was cancelled I was quite angry, in fact I still am to some degree. Atlantis had the wool pulled out from underneath it as the producers had a ‘brilliant’ idea for a new show. Not wanting to run two shows alongside each other, a problem they claimed during its first three years with SG-1, Sy-Fy offered the chance to carry the series on in movies much like its older brother and commission the new show. I was convinced the correct action would have been to give the still successful show the warning that season 6 will be their last, allowing them to wrap things up properly, rather than jamming things together like Ark of Truth tried. I betting with Universe’s ratings the producers are wishing something like that too.

However with Atlantis ending with news of a movie follow up, a third SG-1 movie and Universe on the cards I started to think Stargate was unstoppable and would continue to grow and become the size of something like Star Trek. Unfortunately, Universe proved me wrong here.

It's first season was seen by many, and I’m certainly one of them, to be quite weak. It concentrated on characters to make the later story-arcs mean more to the audience, but it did it at the cost of the current goings on. It was haemorrhaging viewers week on week. The fact it was so different to any Stargate that came before certainly didn’t help either, especially as some Atlantis fans held it in such low-regard for costing them their show.

The second season was a definite improvement. There were times it even felt like Stargate. But the second season is too late to repair the damage. Viewers were at an all time low and Sy-Fy took the decision to end it. Brad Wright campaigned for another season, then another the aforementioned movies, sacrificing the Atlantis follow up in the aftermath of continuing Universe, then seemingly resurrecting it in hope of carrying on Stargate in some way.

Of course it’s not all MGM’s fault, they’re simply reacting to the market place. DVD movies simply don’t make the sort of money that they did when they first experimented a few years ago with Ark of Truth and Continuum. And they don’t exactly have a lot of money to be throwing round at the minute either. Sy-Fy seems to be forgetting its foundation as a sci-fi network and shedding shows in favour of wrestling and reality programming. I was shocked when it was pointed out they didn’t have a single space based show in production any more.

I don’t think this is the end for Stargate though. Like most franchises these days it’ll be brought back when someone has an idea. Hopefully someone comes along that breathes life into the existing storyline like Star Trek seems to be so lucky to get rather than a total reboot like practically everything else. In the meantime there’s always the DVD’s of SG-1 and Atlantis, and of course the more that are bought the more MGM are going to look at continuing the story.

GeekGasms.org

2010-02-04T17:14:00.002Z

My mates and myself have decided to step this whole internet malarky up a notch. To do that we've opened GeekGasms.org up. This week's blog, as well as all future posts, will be found over there.

As well as being the new home for my weekly blog its also features our podcast, The Pubcast, cleverly named by myself. Other bloggers are Andrew Smith and Jon Keatley with more to follow. As well as flash games and an insight into the gaming industry from a wide variety of sources through out the UK.

The Two C's of Television

2010-01-28T12:40:00.000Z

I'm pretty rubbish these days at keeping up with TV. What tends to happen is I'll accidentally leave a a show alone for awhile then end up ploughing through 4 or 5 episodes in one sitting. However two shows that I do my best to stay on top of are Castle and Chuck. Quick warning, one or two minor spoilers are placed within.

For those that don't know Castle is Nathan Fillion's current show where he stars as Richard Castle a author based in New York who works with NYPD Homicide Detective Kate Beckett on 'interesting' murders, and its doing quite well for a change with a full second season. Chuck is Zachary Levi as Chuck Bartowski, slacker turned spy by accidentally absorbing a super computer into his head. Chuck, beyond all expectations, managed to get a third season thanks to fan outcry and one hell of a push by Levi and Subway.

Now these two shows don't have a great deal in common. Sure both are comedies, but one is a murder mystery while the other is James Bond hijinks with an unlikely main star. However, the one thing they do have in common that I'm going to discuss is their romantic angles.

Both shows try that long held TV tradition of the male and female leads being perfect for each other but never actually getting together. A process that Moonlighting famously worked so well with, until they made the mistake of finally getting Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd together and ruined all of the chemistry. X-Files did it well and apparently Bones is doing a great job of it too. Chuck, however, is not.

I'm getting infuriated with how the romance is progressing between Chuck and Agent Walker as they've keep getting together then something happens that means they can't be and both mope around moaning that they can't be with the person that they love. Then one of them will make the mistake of trying to move on and the circle begins a new. Season 2 ended with the two finally together, only for Chuck to cock it all up between seasons and Walker being pissed off with him for a couple of episodes till she realises that he does still love her.

On the other hand, the relationship between Castle and Becket is one of the best done I've ever seen. Two people blatantly meant to be together but both are totally oblivious to it, while everyone else around them can see it plain as day. Even to the extent of an interviewer assuming they were because of how Castle acted. The latest episode contained had them both go on dates, and in that wacky way of TV end up in the same restaurant and spending the entire time running off to talk to each other about the case.

Now I just can't believe I've written an entire post about relationships. I'm going to go do something manly like play Darksiders and spill gallons of demon blood to make myself feel better.

Pocahontas in Spaaace

2010-01-21T10:37:00.001Z

I finally saw Avatar this weekend. Not at the Imax as Smith and I originally intended but we still saw it in Real3D. It’s a shame we didn’t get to live our Imax dream but it would have been another two weeks and I’ve come so close to people nearly ruining it for me that I just couldn’t wait any longer.

The story is good. Nothing amazing, and as many people before have pointed out, highly derivative of other works. It is enjoyable and a thoroughly fun movie though.

The thought and detail that’s gone into the world is incredible. Good sci-fi and fantasy have a good grasp of the cultures of their races. Avatar goes so much further. Not just with the Na’vi where the story dictates that they’re culture is worked out, but the biology of the world.

However, where Avatar really shines is the special effects and the 3D. Not once during the movie did I find myself thinking the CGI was ropey. In fact I didn’t even think about it all and just accepted it. That’s one hell of an achievement. Watching a film that’s something stupid like 90% CGI I accepted Pandora and its creatures just as much as any human character on screen. The 3D was wonderful too, spending the majority of the time just adding depth to the shots and making the world just feel that bit more real and immersive. Only once or twice did they pull “WOW SOMETHING FLYING AT YOU” that the other 3D films ram down your throat, and those were the times that I caught myself rolling my eyes.

That said I loved the film. Not sure how it’s going to stand up on the small screen, even with new fangled Blu-rays. News of 3D TVs may help it but they’re going to be ridiculous prices for a while. I still say that outside of the cinema 3Ds not going to take off in any major way until some genius invents a way of it working without glasses. Then we’ll have holograms and that’s a whole different story.

A Look Back At Brain Munching

2010-01-14T12:11:00.001Z

Another week of broken PC and its been a bloody busy one too. So busy I've been struggling a bit for a topic. Since its been mentioned elsewhere, at a secret location hopefully to be revealed soon , I've been playing Resident Evil: The Dark Side Chronicles with Smith on the Wii. A console that's apparently starting to turn into something I bought just to play on rails shooters.

Dark Side Chronicles is alright, I can't help think Umbrella Chronicles did it better though. Most of the improvements to the game don't really seem to do a great deal except for the new camera. A system that feels like it was stolen Mission: Impossible III. The camera jerks around like a demented kangaroo, at points not allowing us to get shots off at the enemies starting to surround us or completely throwing off our aim as Leon, Claire or Jack Krauser face off against some of the bosses in the game.

One of the main things that the Chronicle games make me do is look back at the series of Resident Evil as a whole. For someone who came late to the games I'm way too much of a nut. I only played the original Playstation when I was visiting friends houses and as a result it always seemed like a franchise that I was going to miss out on. When I got to uni I nearly played it, and the few people who had, made me think I should even more. But still I didn't. Finally, Capcom released a remake of the first Resi on the Gamecube and announced more were to follow. It was then that I decided to play catch up. And I did it chronologically.

RESIDENT EVIL 0
I really liked this game, maybe it was because I didn't have any prior knowledge ruining my experience but it was good and I really liked the two characters on screen at the same time. I've always wanted Capcom to go go back and tell what happened to Billy after he left Rebecca on that mountain top. It would have been nice to have co-op though and some of the monsters were a bit crappy. Giant frogs I'm looking at you.

RESIDENT EVIL 1
I may have played an updated version but I can see why this started a massive franchise. The game is brilliant. I really liked the fact that depending on who you played as changed elements of the game. Sometimes I wish I could have played the original so I got to experience some of the terribly translated dialogue and the B-Movie intro but seeing it serious really helps the game, especially as they tweaked the story to fit into the mythology a lot better.

RESIDENT EVIL 2
I remember switching this on for the very first time having just finished Zero and the remake of One and being disgusted at the graphics. Then the controls. The version on the Gamecube was a re-release of the original Playstation version. Not even the Dreamcast version which had a couple of updates. I convinced myself to at least make it through a playthrough as Claire so I'd know the story. Before I was even halfway through the Police Station I was looking past the dog shit graphics and the nearly decade old controls as I was enthralled. Soon as I finished Claire's story I started Leon's within minutes. I was hooked. Then the game really blew me away. Unlike Resi 1's two stories that were the same game but with a couple of minor changes and different subplots Resident Evil 2 was a totally separate game. You barely did anything as Leon that you had as Claire. Despite 4's revolution of the series and 5's co-op, Resident Evil 2 rates as one of my all time favourite games. Not just of the series but of every game I've ever played.

RESIDENT EVIL 3
I've never played.

RESIDENT EVIL: CODE VERONICA
I liked it, it had a lot to live up to as I went straight from 2 to this. It wasn't amazingly strong. It does have the unfortunate position of being the only game in the series that I've never completed (that I've started anyway). I got up to the Tyrant in the airplane, had the wrong ammo and the fight was just unbeatable.

RESIDENT EVIL 4
I covered already.

RESIDENT EVIL 5
The co-op was cool but My God they fucked up the inventory system. Still, can't wait for the DLC.

With the news that the series is getting another overhaul I'm really interested in where it goes next. I also predict that we're going to see at least one more Chronicles game that covers 4 and 5.

The Deline of Microtransactions?

2010-01-07T12:11:00.002Z

Not the original post I had planned for today where I spoke about how I nearly bought Left 4 Dead 2 but changed my mind when I found out Darksiders was out this week and just how FUCKING BUSY this year is in gaming. Unfortunately, my PC went up shit creek without a paddle and I can't get at anything on there. I'm now writing this from my flatmate decrepit old laptop that needs 10 minutes whenever you tell it to do something. Which is a right pain in the arse when I'd planned on actually doing quite a bit of work today.

So instead I'm going to concentrate on a topic I was going to lightly touch on in the original post. That of DLC. Last year saw one of the biggest moments in Downloadable Content when Rockstar released its first Grand Theft Auto episode, The Lost and The Damned. And bloody hell was it good. I loved it, possibly more then the game it was an expansion for. Now up until that point DLC had nearly always been rather small, offering the odd new level or some equipment. It was the dawn of mirco-transactions in console gaming and we had premonitions of minor add-ons coming out for all major games and it'd be a mind field to work out whether something was worth the money and bandwidth. Notable exception including Oblivion's Shivering Isles expansion, but since Oblivion is also the very first highway robber of DLC with its woeful Horse Armour it manages to represent some of the best and worst qualities of what DLC can be.

The Lost and the Damned changed all that. With that, you got practically a second game. Suddenly Force Unleashed's extra level of 40 minutes play for nearly 8 quid was even more obvious as a total rip off. 2010 brings numerous DLC's to many games, some have even been out for awhile. Resident Evil 5 is receiving two packs, length hasn't really been disclosed but you also receive extra characters for Mercenary mode. However, Capcom are also giving us some 'costume packs' for Resi, which if anything like Force Unleashed's will be a huge waste of money. Assassin's Creed 2 is also getting two packs, both are full blown chapters that had to be cut from the game due to development time, one is even based in a new area.

However, they all pale in comparison when it comes to Bioware and Dragon Age. I realise that this game has become something of a promised land to me but screw you all. To start with Dragon Age seemed to be following the same tried and true method of DLC, small chunks. Return to Ostagar, the third of these chunks has just been delayed, much to my dismay as I've been powering through my second play through to be ready for it. However, Bioware announced earlier this week “Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening” a full blown expansion like we used to get back when you had to buy them from shops, and like Rockstar gave us last year, twice. From the sound of things it IS going to be out in shops too, something Rockstar did as well when they released Ballad of Gay Tony, and having spoken to some insiders this was mainly due to the fact that sales for The Lost and The Damned online didn't match up to what was expected.

The one thing about this that annoys me is that its expected in March. As I said at the start of this, this year is one of the busiest years of gaming yet. March is one of the busiest months for good games too. Bioware are starting to sound like they're going to be treating Mass Effect 2 the same. Then again they said the same of the first game and we only got two packs, over a year apart and the second was atrociously bad.

The Previous Generation

2009-12-31T10:50:00.002Z

Over the Christmas period I’ve revisited one of my earliest geekisms. Star Trek. “Ah”, I hear you say, “So you got the new film on DVD from Santa then.” Well yes I did thank you, but that’s not what I’m talking about. No, I revisited The Next Generation, or as the dedicated call it, TNG.

Over the last year I’ve become reacquainted with Wil Wheaton, the child star who brought Wesley Crusher to annoying life. First through the Penny Arcade/PvP DnD podcasts, which are as funny as they are geeky. After laughing so much at the amusing way he handled PvP’s Scott Kurtz’s reaction to Wil’s character dying I thought it only right I check out his own stuff. There I found that Mr. Wheaton was doing a podcast series, Memories of the Futurecast, that reflects on his time on TNG. One of the funnier parts of the 'cast was Wheaton coming to realise why the majority of the viewing public had hated his character.

All this listening to recaps of the old series got me in the mood to watch some TNG, something I’d not looked at since it had ended years ago. Especially with the last part being the dreadful Nemesis. So on visiting my parents’ abode for the Holiday Season I managed to dig out a boxset of the Borg episodes from the series and the film Generations. First of all, Generations wasn’t as bad as I remembered, being older allowed me to appreciate the meeting of Picard and Kirk a lot more then I did aged 12. But it was the Borg episodes that really got me. First I was reminded how good TNG could be when it tried as all six episodes are brilliant. In the six, you get the brilliance of John de Lancie’s Q, and also the amazement of how good an actor Brent Spiner is, playing both the non-emotional but kind hearted Data and his emotional and evil brother Lore, and the two appear as totally separate characters.

What really struck me was how much of shame it was that Star Trek at this point was still episodic and didn’t venture into serial territory, something that would only rear its head with Deep Space Nine. Watching Best of Both Worlds I couldn’t help but think of the possibilities that could have been followed after this if the show just carried on story-lines for more than two episodes. As well as being the quintessential Borg story, Best of Both Worlds is also an examination of Commander William Riker. Revealed here to have turned down three separate commissions for his own command and with the arrival of Lieutenant Commander Shelby gunning to be his replacement as Picard’s first officer we get a wonderful introspective of Riker. When Picard gets kidnapped by the Borg and transformed into one of them we get to see Riker as a Captain, and he does a brilliant job. I just thought the possibilities were fantastic. When Picard gets rescued and disconnected from Borg it would have been great to have a few episodes of him rehabilitating back to normal while Riker’s left in command of the Enterprise instead of the reversion to status quo Star Trek is known for.

First thing I’m going to do when I get back home is go out and get First Contact on DVD and finish off the TNG’s Borg Saga. Despite a few friends arguing it, I’m not going as far as watching Voyager though.

Ben is BACK!

2009-12-17T15:44:00.001Z

My very first proper American Comic was an issue of Spider-Man. I was on my first holiday to the US with my parents and I managed to badger them into buying me quite a few that trip. But the first was part 1 of ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ - a storyline that featured a certain clone as the main star. Yes, my first proper comic had Scarlet Spider as the main star during what is widely considered one of the worst stories in Marvel's history, the Clone Saga. From that moment on I always liked Ben Reilly. I followed him through most of the saga, his stint as Spidey and his eventual death.

His was one comic death that never seemed like it was ever going to be reversed no matter how much it was wanted. This is comic books though and only Uncle Ben stays dead, so it was only a matter of time before the guy who took his name from him rose from the grave. While we may not have that yet, 15 years is long enough for Marvel to finally start admitting that Peter Parker's test tube brother existed. While a storyline in Amazing addressed the character in-continuity, we were also given an out-of-continuity story covering the Clone Saga that was to cover how it should have been told, instead of the mess it turned out to be.

Well that's what Marvel claimed anyway. The six issue mini series isn't really taking that stance. It's odd what the writers have done. They seem to have taken beats from the whole saga and are half retelling and half re-imagining. For instance, in the original saga Ben had a very 90s mullet and looked a lot scruffier to Parker's usual look. It was only after he took over the real Spider mantel that he decided to dye his hair blonde and tidy it back up. To distance themselves, in this clone saga Ben is blonde and working at the coffee shop while still running around as the Scarlet Spider.

Also Peter is the usual jokey Spider-Man, but part of the reason for the original story was that Parker had gone through so much he'd become dark and brooding. Editorial wanted the single, fun loving Spidey back, a problem they'd pursue another 10 years before getting to grips with, and that's a whole other rant. Having both Ben and Peter working in the same way does spoil some of the magic of the original series. Well, at least before it got out of hand.

That its now looking like Norman Osborne's behind it all again just goes to show that this is just them telling certain parts better than how it was originally. Osborne was originally only revealed to be back from the grave and the mastermind behind the saga when editorial sat down and tried to figure how to reverse the 'Ben is the real Parker' problem. The former Green Goblin was not even in the original plans.

The fact issues two and three cover about 4 different story-arcs within the original Saga just proves my point. One of those arcs was one of the Saga's lowest points. The God-awful Maximum Clonage, a SIX issue story, now part and parcel of a two issue story covering far more ground.

However, I'm loving having Ben Reilly back in comics. Especially in the Scarlet Spider costume. One of my all time favourite comics will be the issue where Ben first puts the costume together and fights Venom, all the way through saying he's worthless while proving the very opposite. It was Spider-Man through and through and I hope I don't have to wait another 15 years to see him again.

Bioware's Return to Sword and Sorcery

2009-12-10T10:12:00.000Z

I had originally intended to leave Dragon Age: Origins until after Christmas. One thing was niggling in the back of my mind though. Dragon Age is meant to be huge, and next year we also have Mass Effect 2, Fallout: New Vegas and Alpha Protocol all arriving on the RPG scene and that's going to take up a lot of my playing time. When would I get to fit it in?

However, I ended up getting it as an early present and after some minor surgery left me off my feet for nearly two weeks I thought it would be the perfect time to get started with it. Thank God I did, over a week of playing and I'm not sure I'm even half way through. Got a month or two before Mass Effect 2 so should be plenty of time for me to enjoy the game, although the announcement of even more DLC for Dragon Age doesn't fill me with hope.

I'm playing this on the 360 and I know Bioware said it (every reviewer going has) but Dragon Age really is made for the PC. However, since my PC isn't up to scratch for gaming these days, and I still have an uncompleted Neverwinter Nights 2 on there, as soon as it was announced for 360 I knew that's how I'd be getting it. I told myself it'd be fine as normally Bioware's good at porting They held Mass Effect back at least 6 months to make appropriate changes so it worked better on the PC. It looks like EA doesn't care about this though and sped Bioware up so they could have a multi-platform release. The game is set up for pause-and-plan-style fighting, which is a bit difficult to pull off with a console but thanks to a Mass Effect-style menu on the left trigger it more or less works. What's slightly annoying is you have to change some options to get it working properly.

Also the game needs a quick save key. Maybe I've gotten lazy with all my console playing but I expect autosaves when you switch areas or finish an important battle. Not in Dragon Age. I lost an hour of game play because I died in a fight. I am now used to it, but I'm stopping every 5 minutes just to save so I don't lose any progress, breaking the flow of the game.

This game is extremely addictive though. During my recuperation I'd start playing pretty early on in the morning thinking I'd just do a little bit of a quest but I happened to start a questline that beautifully fed into itself to keep you going and I kept telling myself 'just this next bit' and before I realised, the majority of a day had passed.

What's really worrying me is how likely I am to replay this game. Apart from the numerous different starting adventures you can have, there's also the fact that I'm currently playing as my usual good guy and there's certain side quests I can't touch, especially with the party I've assembled. I want to see this game from a total git's perspective.

The party is one of the best I've seen in a long time and I think Bioware have finally pulled off the like/dislike function they've been trying for since Knights of the Old Republic. It’s another reason I think I'm likely to replay this game as an absolute bastard. I want to do the side quests I've missed out on and experience life with the other party members who are a bit less pious then the group I'm wandering around with now.

The problem remains that this is going to take ages, and with the news that Mass Effect 2 is coming on 2 disks I'm starting to wonder when I'm going to get round to all of this.

Nothing Is True, Everything is Permitted

2009-11-30T14:44:00.002Z

I was one of those people that loved the original Assassins Creed. I could understand why some people found it repetitive but I thoroughly enjoyed every minute running around as Altair. When the news broke of Ezio I was a bit disappointed in the new setting, Renaissance Italy doesn't really have the same back drop as the Third Crusade. But the closer we got to launch the more thrilled I got to be slipping back into the role of an Assassin, especially with some of the new developments that the game was meant to introduce, such as the fact Ezio doesn't carry around his own weapons apart from what's on the wrist blade and the throwing knives.

This didn't turn out quite the way I thought it would, much to my disappointment as I was really looking forward to walking in somewhere looking more or less normal, ripping a sword from a guard's hand and having at them. However, Ezio walks around tooled up just as much as Altair does. He also can pick up weapons from the enemy, even the ones he can't carry around himself such as spears and double handed axes if he's had the right training but I ended up mostly using the standard stuff.

That's right, training. Unlike Altair who knew everything just wasn't permitted to carry certain items Ezio needs to be trained as this is the story of how Ezio became an Assassin. Obviously the majority of the training is story related, however some of the finer details are optional, and quite hidden. I totally missed the training for spears, double handed and a special ranged move until quite late in the game and I still managed to miss another as the trainer didn't want to charge me for it and I only know about it because my flatmate mentioned it.

Still the development team have improved upon the original in every way. Loads of new additions to the series have been introduced such as what there is to do at the villa in Monteriggioni and upgradeable armour and weaponry. The repetition has totally gone and everything towards an assassination is done as part of the story and are all very different. You no longer have to travel at 2mph outside of cities on your horse. Instead of guards being a bit jumpy as they were in the first game they now react to your notoriety which you can control at your own leisure.

Not that it's all sugar and spice, the side missions take the form of some of the better assignments from the first game. However, by taking them away from the story I couldn't help but think that they seemed a little pointless for a man on a mission of vengeance for the death of his family. This revenge fueled assassin takes time out to beat up cheating husbands and delivering letters. It just seems beneath what Ezio has become, at least for Altair it was all part of setting up the assassination.

They also seem quite tacked on, the models for the characters you're working for can be very random. The first time I had to deliver letters it was to a man's two mistresses, the second of which was a very old woman. Then later an old woman in another city asked me to go beat up her cheating husband, so off I free-run and find the dirty cheat, only for it to be a city guard, whose first reaction to Ezio was the fact he was a wanted man. Luckily once I cracked him in the chops he reverted to cheating husband mode and after a few more licks he went running on his way.

However, I thoroughly enjoyed this game and the ending totally took me by surprise and I had as just as much of a “What the Fuck” moment as the main characters. I can't wait for Assassin's Creed 3. I wonder when we're going this time.

A Shadowy Flight into the Dangerous World of a Man Who Does Not Exist

2009-11-28T10:09:00.003Z

OK so its a bit rubbish and its a bit old now but I'm laid up and finishing off a few shows that I left behind and one of those is the new Knightrider. I had a lot of problems with the show, one of the main ones being how it wasn't about one man and his car, but an entire government agency. There's one woman whose main job is to be an interpreter, what's the point of her. The show seems to forget the main star should be the super computer and it should be mostly that that does the clever stuff.

Half way through the first season they seem to realise their mistake and start correcting it, within 3 episodes they kill off and maim half the cast, leaving a core group of 4, 5 if you include the car, which you really should. It does seem as if Kitt is getting a better deal with more cool sequences involving him. But then they introduce an evil robot, which has the voice of Optimus Prime. Way to sell that one, an evil robot with the voice of one of the most well known heroic robots of the last 20 years. This show really is quite bad, but I can't help see the potential

All Hallow's Eve

2009-10-29T15:47:00.002Z

Halloween this weekend, not something I usually get overly worked up about. Much to Alex's disappointment I don't put much effort into my costume either. Something I've not done again this year. However, I am really looking forward to the party on Saturday night, even if I can't drink cos of the tablets I'm on.

However, this year I'm more hyped about it then usual. To fit with the event I've even taken to playing through a few of my horror games. It started last Sunday morning with Smith and myself giving Resi 5 another quick session getting a little further on our second play through, this time on Veteran difficulty. I quite like Resi 5, wasn't as special as 4 but the progression of the over arcing story was great, as was the co-op. The inventory system took a turn for the worst. I understand why Capcom did this to facilitate co-op, but God-damn its worse then the original Resident Evil's

Sunday evening saw a return to Left 4 Dead, and I gave Crash Course DLC a bash. Left 4 Dead was a game we played far too little. We all loved it but due to its co-operative nature we either had too few people or too many and people moved onto other games pretty quickly. The release of Survival Mode didn't even help matters. Crash Course finally got us to play it again. While it was great to go back to the game I did feel that Crash Course paled in comparison to the original four campaigns.

Monday brought Dead Space. I treated Dead Space woefully on my first play. I'd been told to only play the game at night but this was leaving me with barely any time to play and ended up playing most of it during the day, in extremely sporadic sessions. It took me nearly two months to complete and I'm usually done in a week or two with most games. That said Dead Space did managed to freak me out at points. Still does, despite the fact I know when most of the scares are coming. I really want to keep playing this once my little Halloween fun is over, so I can experience the game a bit better this time through.

Tuesday, as always, is old school RPG night, and this week was a special Vampire the Requiem which the GM had some really horrible stuff for us to work through. So congrats to him.

Duncan came round on Wednesday and I thought it'd be the night I'd miss out. However, we ended up playing House of the Dead: Overkill. Funny on-rails shooter. Good for a laugh with a mate and its always fun to shoot zombies in the face.

Tonight is movie night and my choice, so appropriately I've picked horror films. I might play some Dead Space later on as well. Have a good Halloween!

And Again A New Gate

2009-10-23T11:51:00.000+01:00

We are now four episodes into Stargate Universe and so far I'm quite impressed.

First of all a warning as this is a bit spoilery.

After the first extended episode (or two episodes, however you want to class it) I wasn't so sure. It struck me as just trying to tap into the Battlestar vibe and channel Star Trek: Voyager at the same time. Personally I felt that Voyager never lived up to its original premise of a crew being stuck in the middle of nowhere as much as it could have done, and was worried Stargate is a franchise that would probably end up doing the same.

However, SGU - as it’s apparently being called - seems to be going the same route Battlestar went in its first series rather than the usual Stargate way of a big bad alien race looking to enslave them. With the first story concentrating on the lack of air on the Ancient ship, then the second about them losing power it looks like this is very much going to be about them struggling to survive rather than usual Stargate fare. The closest we've come to aliens so far is the strange dust clouds that may have guided the Lieutenant to the lime so they could repair the air filters and the mysterious shuttle seen leaving the ship at the end of the Air story.

One touch I really liked was a lot of the staff have been cranky. Dr Rush, Robert Carlisle, was even suffering from headaches. Why was this? Alien signals messing with their brains? Something wrong with the ship making them ill? No, they were suffering from caffeine and nicotine withdrawal. It was totally unneeded yet really grounds the fact that they've jumped onto a ship and lost access to everyday amenities.

Despite being stranded in a galaxy far far away, the makeshift crew of the Destiny do have a way to communicate with Earth thanks to the Ancient communication devices first seen in the Ori storyline of SG-1. This works by swapping the minds of people at either end and allows the other person to walk around on Earth, just in someone else's body. This has given the show some great scenes of characters delivering the news that they are trapped in another galaxy to their family members, who are in great discomfort as the person speaking looks and sounds nothing like their loved one.

This is a fantastic addition to the Stargate franchise. I'm still annoyed Atlantis was cut down in its prime so this could reach our screens earlier but Universe has certainly found its feet a lot faster than Atlantis did during its first season. I'm hoping that this high quality is maintained and it doesn't fall into the usual Stargate plots any time soon, as it would be a waste of the concept.

Shapeshifting Superheroics

2009-07-16T14:50:00.000+01:00

Prototype and inFamous, two games strangely familiar, released weeks apart. As a 360 owner inFamous is unfortunately not available to me, but having played the demo at Lachlan's it seemed awesome and was nearly the game to finally get me to buy the dreaded machine. But Prototype came along shortly afterwards and I was hoping it would fulfil those same needs.

Those needs were indeed fulfilled. Prototype is fantastic. One of the things that popped into my head during the first time I played it was, "finally another good free roaming superhero game, it’s about bloody time". Which isn't that surprising when you think this is the same studio that created the Hulk: Ultimate Destruction game. I couldn’t think of another I’d enjoyed so much since Spider-Man 2, a game that Prototype certainly invokes memories of. I’m not sure why exactly, maybe it’s New York, or the art style but there is certainly something there that makes you think of the Wall Crawler’s last brilliant game.

Its shame we have to refer to Spider-Man 2 as the best, a game that’s 5 years old and had 3 sequels since. But then the license has certainly been totally screwed over by Activision of late. After the fantastic Spider-Man 2 each following game seems to be missing something. I had such high hopes for Web of Shadows but the combat system in the game is reportedly so broken that I never even gave it a proper whirl and Ultimate tried to mess with the swinging method, something that was perfect in 2.

It wasn't until my third session on it that I suddenly realised that Prototype wasn't the first time on the 360 we've had the ability to leap small buildings in a single bound and run around a city with outrageous powers. That would be Crackdown. It says something about Realtime's game that it took me so long to remember it when playing Prototype and that it apparently only just broke even. I enjoyed Crackdown but it wasn't without its faults, the lack of mission variation being on the biggest. The Realtime rebels, Ruffian, certainly have their work cut out if they want Crackdown to regain its crown.

Gaming's Big News Week

2009-06-04T10:16:00.001+01:00

Or the one I really struggled to think up a witty title for. E3 this week and like nearly every other gaming geek on the planet I'd thought I'd weigh in with my thoughts. Not Halo though, I'm too much of a fanboy to do Halo here and will cover that in its own blog another week.

So the second biggest franchise announcement was the new Metal Gear Solid. Two of 'em in fact. The multi platform Rising, starring Raiden and apparently not directed by Kojima as he's busy with Peace Walker on the PSP. I'm happy we're getting a MGS on the 360 because I missed 4 and I never had a problem with Raiden in MGS2. Loosing Kojima at the moment I'm not sure about yet.

Also on the espionage front is Splinter Cell, now spies have always been one of my geek spots so the first Splinter Cell was a given. It was also the last one I played. I gave Chaos Theory's co-op a quick go and the demo of Double Agent but none of them seemed to fix what I felt was wrong with the franchise. Taking Sam Fisher down the Bourne route may go a long way to fixing it and the gameplay footage did look awesome.

Finishing off the espionage is Alpha Protocol, a game that was pretty well covered before E3 but I've only just started paying attention to it as I'd failed to notice it was Obsidian making it. Because of the subject I can't wait but the combat looks pretty standard fare, I'm waiting to see how they pull off some of the other aspects of the RPG genre. What has been shown is the speech mechanic and Obsidian are taking a leaf out of Bioware's book with the conversation wheel but look to be doing it slightly better.

Speaking of Bioware, they've been showing off Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins. Mass Effect 2's trailer was suitably dark, which suits a game Bioware are saying is their Empire Strikes Back and there's some very cool new looking weaponary. I'm also please that they're still bigging up the continued save function as I was worried that little ability was going to disappear as we got closer. Really reminds me to finish Mass Effect again as an arsehole so I've got two versions of 2 to play. Dragon Age just gets a new trailer and more Marilyn Manson music.

Assassin's Creed 2 was one of my most looked forward to games of the year, and still is its just got a lot more company now. What has been shown looks great the fact Ezio doesn't carry round an armoury with him like Altair I love because I always found it slightly comical that the guards never clicked that Altair was up to no good with swords and throwing knives strapped to him. Other than that the game looks like more of the same with some really good improvements to the formula.

Left 4 Dead 2 came as a surprise. Not that I'm really complaining, I was hoping for more campaigns for the first game but five new ones plus new variations of super and normal zombies as well melee weapons has made me happy this is the right decision. What I really love about this announcement is that the new zombies and level features are all designed to mess with tactics that everyone's using in the first game. Well done Valve.

Raven's Singularity looks pretty cool, jumping on the band wagon of first person shooters taking Half Life's 2 gravity gun to new heights. Lets hope it manages it and doesn't go the way of Fracture.

Darksiders by Joe Madureira's Vigil looks fantastic but you'd expect nothing less from MAD and joining in on the ranks of games jumping aboard the God of War train.

Overall, I've been quite excited about the news that's come out of this year's E3. I'm slightly surprised that most of the news seemed to come out on the same day and things have been pretty quiet since then, more clarifying details then anything.

X-Men -1: The Game

2009-05-28T15:30:00.002+01:00

Another Marvel Movie, another tie-in game. Marvel's track record for these things is pretty standard for movie tie in games, with the majority of them sucking and the occasional one, Spider-Man 2 for instance, being absolutely awesome. Luckily it seems that X-Men Origins: Wolverine – Uncaged Edition is leaning towards the better half of that equation.

For starters Raven have got the healing factor right. In the past games have tried to shy away from this and come up with excuses why it doesn't work or underplay it. Not so with Origins, this embraces it. Wolverine will be taking on 10 guys all stabbing and shooting the crap out of him and Logan soldiers on knowing that once dealt with he'll heal up. From a geek perspective I think they may have gone too far. In the comics when Wolverine takes one hell of a kicking he's incapacitated, has to lie there until his body nits itself back together till a point when it functions again. Not so here, Logan can be missing all his skin, layers of muscle with skeleton exposed and he's still going. He's not so much Wolverine but the God damn Terminator. Still, the look of it all healing up in real time is awesome.

Also Wolverine's shirt seems to have some sort of weird healing factor as well. While his body slowly nits itself back together his shirt keeps any damage it has sustained. That is until there's a cutscene and the vest reappears in its undamaged glory, leaving you the task of destroying it once again by throwing Wolverine into the nearest barrage of bullets.

Once you've played the first two levels you've practically played the whole game as the few extra unit types that get introduced after that are few and far between, or if they do they still act exactly the same as what you've already sliced and diced. The bizarre part of it is the lack of boss fights, or even major bad guys, and I think it might just be laziness on the developers part. After the first level you fight Victor which is great, but his move set is very similar to Logan's. The next boss fight four levels later against Agent Zero starts brilliantly but comes down to stuff you've already done before.

Also the level design is strikes of laziness. The first six levels all take place in the same two locations, then the second of those is swapped out for another but we keep the first. The story works to that advantage and makes it work. Although taking its name from the film the story only takes a few beats from it, and tells its own version of Logan falling out with Stryker and getting his adamantium skeleton. This makes more of an issue of the mission to Africa that takes about 10 minutes in the film and flashes back through out the game.

I realise that this review seems quite bad but that's because it's far easier to write the negative than the positive. This game is like a good action movie, shit blows up and the bad guys get their asses kicked, it may not be the pinnacle of cinema but it is bloody enjoyable.

Sulu, Take Us to Maximum Reboot

2009-05-07T21:22:00.002+01:00

Hollywood over the last few years seems to have totally lost any confidence in original thought so is turning to every other media type for tried and tested ones. When that doesn't work they go back and try one of their old ideas. Not that they aren't doing a pretty good job of it most of the time.

So the latest in the reboots has now landed in the shape of Star Trek, and once again its a successful one. I'm tempted to say on of the most successful I've seen to date. What's really interesting is that Abrams has taken the usual course of just ignoring everything that has gone before and instead did it in universe, which admittedly Star Trek is one of the few franchises that's actually possible with. Still its a reboot that manages to leave everything before it intact, makes sure you know that and sets course for a whole new heading.

The actors were fantastic as well. Although to start with some of them don't feel quite right, by the time the credits roll they are Kirk and his command crew, the film doing a great job showing how they grow into the roles they are famous for. When Kirk steps onto his bridge at the end of the movie Chris Pine IS Captain Kirk, even the character who plays Kirk's dad does an absolutely fantastic job of giving off that Kirk aura.

X-Men -1

2009-05-01T08:03:00.003+01:00

Also known as X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was way better than X-Men 3 though that's not exactly hard to do. Not quite as good as X2 but possibly on par with 1. It didn't even fall into the trap of too many plot lines running at once like Fox's recent Marvel films have done and they seem to have learned lessons from Marvel's Iron Man and Hulk.

Apparently the movie has different Easter Egg endings depending on the cinema, I got one in Japan. Now I'm all for the next Wolverine movie happening in Japan, its a genius idea, but this ending was shit. Apparently the other one is with Deadpool and I feel ripped off.

Speaking of which Ryan Reynolds wasn't in the movie enough. I was loving his Deadpool from his very first scene, if even one thing gets commisioned after this it better be Deadpool.

The random character apperances in this are brilliant, they're very careful to not let Cyclops ever see Wolverine and the little cameo at the end was brilliant and incredibly well kept. Although the CGI for it was rubbish.

Watched X2 straight after it and they did a really good job of making Wolverine a really good prequel to this movie, but then I got annoyed at how how much they fucked up X3 and ruined all the potential that was set up.

Back to the Wasteland with Some Old Friends

2009-04-23T01:00:00.003+01:00

Fallout. A franchise that's always intrigued me but I've never really devoted much time to it, mainly because I came to it so late. My first interaction was a demo of Fallout Tactics, which I enjoyed but have since learnt that it doesn't have much in common the rest of the series. Years alter I finally got round to Fallout 1, thoroughly enjoyed it but got to a point where I just couldn't complete it. It was either hit the mutant base and die or try and get into the church, which I managed once and cocked it up and never could do again. Fallout 2 fared even worse, I made my character really badly and wasn't quite charismatic enough to talk his way round things or hard enough to fight through them and haven't found the time to restart it yet.

All that changed with Fallout 3, after loving Oblivion so much I couldn't wait to give Fallout a shot now it was under Bethesda's wings. It was good, very good. Not only did I complete it but afterwards I reloaded my save before the end of the game and kept going until the level cap hit. I've not got round to either of the DLC's out so far due to the huge pile of games I've been working my way through but I can't wait for Broken Steel, especially as it ups the level cap to 30.

Seemed to be missing one or two things that make it properly Fallout but I could put my finger on. Now Bethesda have announced that Obsidian are making a none numbered sequel, Fallout: New Vegas. Fantastic news as Obsidian rose from the ashes of Black Isle, the original makers of the Fallout series. But not only that, it means that the series is back in the hands of Chris Avellone. Not just the Lead of Fallout 2 but also the guy behind Planescape: Torment my favourite RPG of all time and Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2. This is who Bioware goes to for sequels.

What's really interesting is that Bethesda went to Obsidian and asked what they wanted to do and let Obsidian pitch an idea. Personally I can't wait for this to come out next year.

Back with the Whole Truth

2009-02-19T12:27:00.002Z

I'm finally resurrecting this place, never actually meant to abandon it in the first place, just got busy and kept saying to myself that I'd do something as soon as something big came out. Then Iron Man and Dark Knight came along and it had been so long since I'd written for the place that I forgot. With Smith and me forcing each other back into writing, and Smith doing a better job I'm ressurrecting this place. So on with a review of David Baldacci's The Whole Truth.

Baldacci goes from playing in Grisham's backyard and steps up to a more Tom Clancy arena. I'm not sure for the better either. Normal Baldacci protagonists are ex-Government agents investigating murders or Washington conspiracies and its all quite low key. Sure near the end there'll be a chase scene with the CIA agents or the President nearly getting assassinated but it was always the slow build.

Here we've got a psychopath that some Shady Organisation has managed to tame by placing a tracking device in his head and threaten to kill if he steps out of line and a alcoholic reporter. The reporter works quite well, but the characterisation of Shaw, the aforementioned psycho, just never seems to quite work. He just comes across as a indestructible thug with a soft spot that's exploited for story purposes.

The plot seems disconnected as well, Shaw and Katie, the reporter, are running around totally ignoring the main plot until Shaw's soft spot is taken advantage of, even then they're on the back foot right until the last minute. The way they finally deal with the guy behind it all is good but it felt like they'd almost fluked the victory more than anything.

If you're a fan of Baldacci then its good, but if you're new to him I'd suggest going with Camel Club or Split Second.

Come With Me If You Want to Live an Alternate Life

2008-03-07T19:25:00.000Z

Third week in and I already fail on my Thursday deadline. Sorry, busy day yesterday. On the plus side I've finally watched the fourth episode of Terminator.

Watching the first episode of the Sarah Connor Chronicles I had a quiet telling thought. That 'this is a better Terminator than T3'. Now I'm not a hater of Rise of the Machines, but it easily the worst of the Terminators and the female 'Terminatrix' was terrible. When news of the series broke I did think it was a mistake to ignore T3 and base itself as an alternate timeline after T2 but this seems to be working pretty well so far.

Sarah Connor Chronicles seems to get a few things right as well, the evil Terminator is a standard skeleton the same as Arnie but with a different outer shell. In fact we starting to see many different shells and it can almost be explained that the reason we saw Arnie so much was just familiarity of older John. In fact John's done really well too, instead of the bit of a wimp we had in T3 this John is shaping up into being a possible leader of what remains of Humanity.

As already stated I thought the Pilot was quality, the second was what's been throwing me as it was a bit dead and not much happened, while the third was a lot better though bizarrely Sarah comes off as the weaker one of her and John, but this was reinforced with the fourth episode in that it seems John's ready to starting fighting back now and delay Judgement Day, though the sense its inevitable is growing. Meanwhile Sarah is more about running from anything that puts John in danger and possibly stopping him from becoming the leader of humanity in the war.

As for the cast, I have no problems with it what so ever. The new John is a much better follow up to Ed Furlong than Nick Stahl ever was. Lena Headey is a good replacement for Linda Hamilton, although she's visibly less built and while there are times she doesn't quite get it right, for the most part she really is Sarah Connor. Summer Glau is great as the new Terminator on the block as well. While I occasionally get annoyed that she wasn't kept more human as she was in the pilot I can accept that she was programmed for that interaction and did have some time to adapt before meeting John in the school.

It intrigues me that the newly announced Terminator film with Christian Bale as John is saying it'll tie into Sarah Connor yet will be a sequel to Rise of the Machines. I can only assume that with it being based after Judgement Day it can take the stance that either can apply as what happened before the war and it's up to the viewer to decide which they prefer.

Another Gate To Go Through

2008-02-28T10:28:00.009Z

This week was originally going to be the Terminator post but three episodes in and I've not yet made my mind up. So I've been forced to think of another topic and the only other geek one I've got at the moment is Stargate Atlantis.

When it first started I didn't bother as I wasn't really watching SG-1 and couldn't be bothered with another show. Eventually I got round to picking up SG-1 again, as previously mentioned way back when I started this blog. Hints about the Atlantis expedition were dropped here and there and I kept thinking I might pick it up but nothing major. SG-1 finished and I thought about watching Atlantis to get my Stargate fix from but once again never followed it up. The news of Amanda Tapping's character Carter was joining the crew along with Jewel Staite of Firefly fame finally got my arse into gear and I started watching it from the very beginning.

During first half of the first season I started to think I'd made a mistake. The show felt like a poor rip off of SG-1 and not trying to do its own thing at all. Then things started to work, apart from a couple of niggles which I'll get to in a minute, the cast really started to work well and the series started to set itself apart from SG-1. McKay especially has become one of my favourite characters, mostly due to David Hewlett's acting. The episodes where he has a woman sharing his mind and an alternate version of him turn up were fantastic acting in my opinion. One problem still remained and that was Aiden Ford. Throughout season 1 he was an incredibly weak character and just seemed to be there to make up the numbers in the team. The crew seemed to realise this themselves because as soon as Season 2 kicked off the character goes through a pretty big change and a lot more interesting.

My other niggle is Sheppard. I do like the character, but my problem lies more in how the Stargate universe has a plethora of similar characters. When O'Neill was replaced by Mitchell in SG-1 I commented how apart from one or two slight differences the two of them were pretty much the same character. The same can be said of Sheppard. Admittedly with nearly three season under his belt (for me) and a totally different cast of characters surrounding him he's a lot more distinct than Mitchell, but I can't help but help shake the familiarities. Though I guess it is one of those features that make it feel like a Stargate show.

One thing that really amazes me about Stargate is how much of a shared universe the shows have. I didn't really notice it watching SG-1 but then it was in isolation at the time but now with Atlantis the amount they reference each other and continue minor plot points is crazy. I'm used to shows like Star Trek that while they do share the same universe the two barely meet or are mentioned. Stargate seems to revel in this though, and I must admit I do love it. That's pretty much how I feel about Atlantis too, its so wonderfully tied into the existing Stargate universe while at the same time telling its own story. A story which could be quite dark but they keep light hearted and the moments that come from the characters interacting, especially Sheppard and McKay, make it all worth while.

TV Round Up

2008-02-21T19:45:00.005Z

Another month and one post. You know, it strikes me I'm my own worst enemy with these things. So starting this week I'm going to try and post once a week, on a Thursday no less. I'll even force myself to come up with topics. Now I'm pretty sure I've said something like that before but I'm determined to do it this time. That said, this week I'm going to do my old fall back of the quick round up, this time on two TV programs.

Torchwood season 2 is well under way and is pretty good so far. Things have certainly improved on the first season anyway. It seems to have a higher budget, better guest stars (James Marsters for instance) and the hits now out number the misses on the story side of things.

The new Knight Rider, you know, I wish I had enough to make a full post of this one as this is another one of the big childhood passions. Unfortunately the movie was OK and that was about it, I will be happy if it get turned into a series though. My problems are all little things that bug me like KITT should call Mike 'Michael' even if everyone else in the show calls him Mike, I mean he doesn't use connotations, why nick names? The woman was annoying but I get that she was a necessary evil for the movie and hopefully will have a greatly reduced role in the series. The theme song was atrocious, why mess with one of the all time great theme songs? The car was amazing though and Hoff's appearance was pretty cool.

I've yet to watch the Sarah Connor Chronicles but I've got a bunch just sitting there waiting so shouldn't be long now.

Lights equal Warranty

2008-01-22T10:28:00.000Z

Or "How Microsoft Did Me Over".

Just before Christmas my 360 started making funny noises when loading some games, Mass Effect being the most obvious. Then it started being a bit funny reading some discs, but give it a couple of tries and it would be fine. But everything really started going wrong just after I completed Assassin's Creed.

I was running around one of the cities trying to find some of the flags and Templars because I've got this nagging feeling that once all are found it's going to unlock something though I doubt I'll actually bother doing it. Anyway, as I was running around the graphics went majorly wrong the whole thing started cross hatching and bits of scenery flashing in and out of existence. So I went back to the dashboard but the system notifications were suddenly see through so I switched the whole lot off and asked Chris if he had anything go wrong while he'd been playing but he hadn't.

Over the next week I had quite a few similar glitches across different games when Chris came up with the idea of checking how a DVD displayed. Everything was fine so we decided to try reconnecting the cables and see if that made a difference. Boy did it. The damn thing wouldn't switch back on.

Instead of a lovely green shade my 'Ring of Light' was now displaying the long feared colour of red. Not in the oft talked about three display but one red light in the lower right quarter. I was gutted but took solace in the fact that although my console was 14 months old Microsoft had extended warranties to 3 years. So I ring technical support who seem to get the same lessons as I did when I started my wonderful job in a call centre but they don't seem to apply them intelligently. Microsoft, it is very annoying to have someone on the other end of the phone rabbit exactly what you said to make sure they understood. Then came the bombshell, "I can see that you're guarantee has run out." But hasn't the damn thing been extended to three years? "Sorry sir, that is only for the three light problem." So Microsoft have opened up and said Yes the 360 has a lot of faults and yes it is our fault so we'll extend the guarantee, but only for one specific problem. So now the bastards are charging me 60 quid. However, her computer bust so I had to call back in two hours to finish the call.

Two hours later I get through to a guy who says that one of the options I had chosen previously was quite slow and this other way was much quicker, I was inclined to believe the guy because he sounded much more switched on than the other one. A week goes by and the courier still hadn't turned up so I ring Microsoft again only to be told that the original operator was right the e-mail option was quicker and the 2nd guy was talking out of his arse. So now I wait up to two days for them to e-mail me the labels before I can contact the couriers. Why does it take two days to e-mail me? Surely it's just a case of marking that's the option I chose and clicking a button that sends me the bloody things, talking about time wasting bureaucracy. Then they take two to three sodding weeks to fix the machine.

Well at least I've been lent Wind Waker to distract me.

Game of the Year 2007

2008-01-07T11:28:00.000Z

We're now a week into 2008 and its the time of year that everyone's giving there Best of lists for the year previous. Not one to break tradition but not arsed enough to actually create a full list I'll just run through the candidates of my Game of the Year.

First a bit of background of my gaming habits. I'm an action gamer at heart, I occasionally dip into driving and Guitar Hero but most of the time I'm prefer to be shooting or slashing my way through games. Though I do have a penchant for RPGs too.

First a breakdown of the contenders, the list almost reads as what I can remember from the last few months but in my opinion they are the better games of 2007. From earlier in the year both Crackdown and The Darkness came close to being included here but neither really stood out, The Darkness wasn't overly outstanding and Crackdown's missions left a lot to be desired.

Everyone's probably expecting my final choice to be Halo 3, but to be honest not really. I thoroughly enjoyed the story but the single player was just more of Halo, nothing about it was amazing to play that I hadn't seen twice before. Multiplayer was amazing, and some of the features it included were revolutionary and I really miss when playing other games.

As I said in the review, Halo 3 was battling all year in my mind with Mass Effect as the one I was most looking forward to. Mass Effect wasn't without its problems though. My biggest problem being that the side missions were horribly under developed.

Bioshock was a fun game with fantastic design behind it, but the gameplay was pretty standard FPS fare. Assassin's Creed I've just finished, I loved the story and the game play was fun, I keep hearing how reviewers found the game repetitive, and while I never felt like that I can certainly see why they feel that way.

THE WINNER

My game of the year, which I'm sure people have worked out due to it's lack of appearance in the candidates list is Call of Duty 4. The single player was fantastic offering two great perspectives of the open fighting of a US Marine and the more sneaky version of Modern Combat in the role of a member of the SAS. It varied from little set pieces to massive pitched battles, running across Eastern European fields escaping following guards to searching a Middle East city for some Saddam wannabe. There's even one level where you control an AC-130 gunship.

The mulitplayer is fantastic and I've had more fun with Call of Duty 4 then I did with Halo 3. The only questionable point is that the further you get in multiplayer and complete the challenges the more guns you unlock, making the dedicated gamer automatically stronger due to the kit selection. There is also, in my opinion, the genius stroke of making all achievements single player, so you're not having the problem as you do in most games of people ignoring the actual objective of the game and just doing anything possible to get an achievement.

Shepherding the Galaxy

2007-12-16T15:12:00.000Z

Mass Effect has been battling with Halo 3 as my most anticipated game all year. I've been playing Bioware's offering right from Baldur's Gate, though I did come a few years late and I've still not completed Throne of Bhaal. Jade Empire was OK but Knights of the Old Republic rocked and is mentioned in the same breath as Jedi Knight, TIE Fighter and Republic Commando as the truly good Star Wars games. Since Mass Effect seemed to have a lot in common with KotOR I couldn't wait.

The KotOR comparison is quite apt as it is easily the true successor to the Star Wars game. Biotics fill in for the Force and Lightsabres have been abandoned for squad combat. The squad combat is a bit of a problem though. The intelligence of your squad can sometimes be questionable with them making odd decisions during a fire fight. Though that's nothing compared to the enemy AI, during a conflict with a lot of bad guys they are seem to make the decision that running at you then circle you at a distance of a few feet is a good tactic. Once you've thinned their numbers you finally get a decent fight from cover but it's tainted by the stupidity of their colleagues.

The vehicle combat can be a bit unwieldy to start with too. The first time I took the Mako out for a spin I came across a huge Dune-esque worm called a Thresher Maw which promptly destroyed my little Mars Rover. This was a problem for a lot of the early fights, you're thrown in the deep end with the Mako and expected to survive, as time goes on it does get easier with experience plus a couple of the skills you have improve a few stats on the vehicle.

The assignments, or side missions as they're more commonly called, leave a bit to be desired. Apart from each building being one of three layouts there's some missions that have no substance to them at all. Take for instance the group Cerberus who crop up through out the side missions. It would have been nice to to deal with all these little bits of their group and slowly find out more about the higher ups eventually leading to a fairly substantial quest where you take out the leaders. Unfortunately, the leaders are the second group you take out, not that they look or act any different to anyone else, you're just told they are in charge and the rest of the Cerberus quests are cleaning up the remaining mess.

But all this complaining is too much. I am enjoying the game a lot, but its one of those funny games that you can't tie down what exactly it is you're enjoying about it. That said Bioware's new conversation system is a work of genius and a fantastic step forward for the genre, though I have had a hiccup once or twice where Shepherd said something I wasn't really wanting him to. I'm looking forward to the sequel and the downloadable content, and I'm pretty tempted to go back through it and see how it plays when I'm a evil git.

Muted?

2007-12-03T22:39:00.000Z

I have to admit I'm getting really pissed of at myself for not posting more often, its not like I'm short of topics either. Plenty of major comic stories going on, and I'm even reading some. Sooo many good games coming out in the run up to Christmas its ridiculous. Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Guitar Hero 3 and Mass Effect are all subjects I can talk about. I think that's the main problem, I'm trying to complete so much that the bit of time I'm on my computer is spent trying to catch up on the sites I regularly visit. So a quick run down of recent events is in order I think.

Halo 3 rocked and I spent one Hell of a lot of time playing multiplayer. I was kinda disappointed that the campaign was so short but with the way the trilogy finished I feel quite happy with. But I left Halo 3 MP way before I was ready to and there was one reason for that.

Call of Duty 4, my God this game rocks. Right now I'm pretty tempted to label this one as my Game of the Year but we'll wait and see. Multiplayer is immense and the Baboons are one nasty team to come across. Is quite likely to take the thrown from Halo 3 and Rainbow 6: Vegas as my most played online.

Guitar Hero 3. Boss Battles are SHIT! At least in single player anyway, I've yet to play one in multiplayer. Overall I'm happy with it, but it's Guitar Hero so you can't really go wrong. I can't shake the feeling that Neversoft haven't quite got it and 4 will be the one that really shows that, 3 comes across as the "We need an engine that matches Harmonix's". Co-op career was very nice though.

Mass Effect I'm gonna leave a bit longer before I talk about it because I'm about halfway through and liking it so far. Assassins Creed I'm getting for Christmas so that can wait too.

On the comics front Messiah Complex is shaping to be a good X-Men crossover which I nearly didn't bother with due to too much other stuff going on. Sinestro Corps continues to impress but is starting to dwindle with the infrequency of the titles recently. Booster Gold's new title is great and another I nearly missed out on. Top Cow's First Born and Pilot Season are both something I really wished I hadn't bothered with.

Sony Bastards

2007-11-13T11:47:00.000Z

Five or six years ago I laughingly took part in the Sony vs. Microsoft Wars on the side of M$. Truth be told I didn't really care, the fact was I owned an X-Box and my friends and I knew how much shit Sony were spewing when it came to their own console and the pish they let be released on it. Also there was this little thing called a Dreamcast that just couldn't survive the fight.

However, Christmas two years ago I received a Sony Walkman MP3 player. Then my position changed. From the title of this post I bet you can guess which way I went. It may have looked cool but the software that came with it is a piece of shit. At least on every other player in the world you can tell it not to download Album information, SonicStage does it no questions asked. Sure they give you the option to tell it not to but does it actually stop the gathering, does it Hell. Oh yes, it only plays a format Sony invented that isn't compatible with anything else but don't worry SonicStage will convert your entire music collection to that format so we double the file size of your music folder. Also only Sony headphones will work with the thing, any other make is quiet as hell and practically useless.

Part of my job involves tech support for an online Music Provider that sells the songs as protected WMA's. In a meeting with some of the head guys we were talking about the fact we weren't compatible with Ipods and I brought up that we also had the same problem with Sony. One particular higher up said he had been promised by Sony that we were. I assured him we weren't, I own their player and have tested it myself. So Sony tell business what they want to hear even when it is total and utterly opposite from the truth.

Then of course we come to the PS3. Released in time for Christmas 2006, unless of course you happen to live in Europe then you had to wait until March 2007. The debacle of how they're releasing Gran Turismo. There's the different versions, ok Microsoft have been bad for it with the Core and Premium then adding Elite then rumour of replacing the Core with the Arcade version but Sony have been just as bad if not worse. At least it took Microsoft over a year to come out with a different, better version. In under a year Sony have announced they are no longer producing the original release version and only producing the crappy version with less features, once they've sold out of the original then they'll start selling the better model with a 80gb hard drive.

So what sparked this little rant. Well, since getting my new PC a few months ago I've been without the ability to add MP3s to the aforementioned player due to having lost the disk for the software. Today I finally got around to fixing that, only to find that the Sony website insists that you use Internet Explorer to view it. A minor incident I know but it was enough for me to finally have a rant about the bastards.

Doomsday

2007-10-01T10:35:00.000+01:00

There's plenty of topics I should talk about right about now. I've watched quite a few films that I've enjoyed and of course there's Halo 3. However, being English it’s far easy to moan than it is to heap praise. So today I'm talking about the first of DC's Direct to DVD animated movies Superman: Doomsday. Supposedly the last movie to appear in Bruce Timm's style but not connected to the DCAU that he shepherded for over ten years.

Now I've never read the original comics of the Death of Superman but this movie takes the direction of telling the whole death and return. The Return is something I have read and it felt odd that where we had four pretenders running around we now have just one and filling both the roles of the Eradicator and then later Cyborg Superman while having the origin of Superboy. It also had parts from all three storylines that make up the Death and Return and as such certain parts felt under developed. Thankfully that didn't try to shoehorn it all in with things like Mongul attacking Coast City which were just too big to cover if they were determined to fit it all in one movie.

Onto the actual movie and first of all the main characters. Once again Superman and Lex Luthor have both been redesigned. Lex has been made a lot thinner which seemed to suit this version and definitely suited James Marsters voice. Superman on the other hand has had some lines added to his face for some bizarre reason and just ends up making him look weird rather than add any gravity to his presence. Adam Baldwin does a great job as the Big Blue though and that certainly made up for the face lines. Lois looks exactly the same as the old version which makes hearing Ann Heche's voice all the more strange in her first scene, I'm not sure whether it's this shock or not but Ann Heche's voice work isn't up to the standard of her co-stars but as the film gets further along that is noticeable improvement. Doomsday also looked better in his brief JLU appearance than he did in the movie.

Then there's the fight scenes. Seeing these animated was great, they are a lot more brutal than anything we've seen before from DC. They were long, nasty and Superman certainly took the worst beating I've ever seen which is only right for the story telling the Death of Superman. However, compared to the final fight against Darkseid in JLU these just lacked any drama and considering the story that's just not right.

Shocking Bio

2007-09-06T23:17:00.000+01:00

Bioshock. What can I say about this game that's not been said before... Not much really, it is a damn fine game and you really should play it. It's easily one of the best shooters I've played in a good long while.

That said I have to own up to something, from the start I thought I was playing an pretty average shooter. As the game progresses you suddenly realise how involved with the whole thing is and you sink deeper (pun intended) into Rapture. By the time the twist comes up I was in love with it. The way the plot is slowly fed to you via voice recordings you have to find yourself is brilliant and while I felt at the start that it was really bad way to convey the story it turned into one of the more involving stories in a computer game in a while.

I've heard one or two people bitch about the ending. The end cinematic is not the end of Bioshock, it is the epilogue. From the twist to the last fight is the end of the story and it is brilliantly told. If you've not played it yet or given up due to a shaky start, you really do need to play this game.

Ghost Rider

2007-08-27T21:34:00.000+01:00

I finally got around to watching Ghost Rider tonight and I think I may be the last person to see it. I went in expecting Nic Cage to annoy the crap out of me because when I heard the news he was cast I couldn't believe how miscast the role of Johnny Blaze was. As it turns out his Johnny was the better half of the main character.

While the Ghost Rider may have looked cool, even in a fight, he acted all wrong. Whoever thought it was a good idea to have the Spirit of Vengeance chortling all the way and cracking one liners needs to be shot. I mean here we've got a demon with a flaming skull for a head and we feel the need for him to talk smack to other demons. How about he just smacks the shit out of them and leave it at that?

The whole Police side story was un-needed and unresolved. We could have spent those twenty minutes or more important matters like showing how bad ass the Rider was or even some character development.

The random attempts at humour such as the Gecko being burnt to death felt horribly out of place. The old cheesy western music was atrocious, its like someone put it there as a place holder and they forgot to replace it. Someone needs to take Mark Steven Johnson away from superhero films. That's two he's fucked up.

More Then Meets the Eye

2007-08-02T09:58:00.000+01:00

Last night I watched the Transformers, to date this is the biggest franchise of my childhood to be remade by Hollywood and it's unlikely to replaced except for the unlikely event Mask gets remade. The film was quite good, not amazing but certainly not a bad movie either.

It certainly had plenty of fanboy moments to keep me happy. The first meeting between an Autobot and a Decepticon certainly proved to me that Michael Bay got the subject matter and the Rangers were pretty cool, especially when I found out they were based on GI Joe.

However, there were some bad points in the film too, the scene in and around the Witwicky's house seemed very out of place for the movie, one friend described as Transformers meets American Pie which sums things up perfectly in my opinion. The guy from Sector 7 was just plain annoying and as Drew pointed out he seemed like he was from a bad 80s kids film.

I did enjoy the film, and I am looking forward to the sequel, but not too fussed about re-watching this one. Still, for the first time in Transformers, I actually liked Bumblebee.

Bossy Snake

2007-07-29T21:33:00.000+01:00

Today, I finally completed Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. I started it months ago and just never could be bothered with it really. As previously mentioned I got very put off during the sniper fight, but even after that I'd pick it up for a bit, get a bit further and put it back down again for a few weeks while I played something else.

Previously I put it down to the jungle setting rather than the more urban settings used for the first two games. However, now I'm not so sure. It definitely had something to do with it but that wasn't the only problem for me. Believe it or not, and I'm expecting to get lynched for this next sentence, some of my problem lies with the gameplay. The running about and sneaking hasn't really evolved that much since Metal Gear Solid except for the hanging that was introduced in Sons of Liberty. The camouflage was a nice addition and the fact Snake swapped clothes just like that I have no problem with because Metal Gear has always worn the fact its a computer game on it's sleeve.

We also got the introduction of food and that was very cool but the other introduction of healing I'm less happy about. I mean it was good to start with, but having to use it during boss fights sucked hard and really took me out of the moment. While most games are doing what they can to not take you out of the experience such as no loading times etc this menu based healing system seems like a step backwards in some ways. Thank God I was playing the Subsistence version of the game so I had a decent camera too.

However, I have not totally lost my marbles. The one thing that always is amazing in Metal Gear is the story and Snake Eater certainly doesn't disappoint. From start to finish the story intrigued me and is one of the main reasons I didn't abandon the game. Watching Naked Snake go through many of the changes that make him Big Boss was fantastic, and the phone conversation that happens at the end of the credits made my jaw drop.

There Can Be Only Four

2007-07-21T12:26:00.001+01:00

On Thursday I finally bought a Highlander DVD. This was quite an event because every time I saw one I kept thinking about it, I lost track of the amount of times I nearly bought Endgame which thankfully I didn't. Anyway, the one I bought was Highlander: The Search for Vengeance, the animated movie made in collaboration between the American company Imagi and the Japanese animation company Madhouse.

The story follows Colin MacLeod and his 2000 year quest for revenge. This now takes the number of the Macleod clan that have been immortals to four, following Connor, Duncan and the previous animated Highlander, Quentin. If you want to live forever, forget the Spring of Eternal Youth find a member of the Macleod clan and sign up. Colin's a bit more bloodthirsty than the other Macleod's before him especially Duncan and Connor both of whom enjoy life and have civilised through the centuries. Colin on the other hand has lived for the death of his enemy Marcus and as such found himself on whatever side is the opposite to Marcus on a battlefield.

Apart from the quick recap of the story I'm not sure what else to say apart from the fact that I really enjoyed this film and would class it as the second best Highlander film, after the original. The action is fantastic and just what you expect from the company that brought us Ninja Scroll and Blood: The Last Vampire while the American script kept out any of the more out there concepts that can crop into Japanese productions that I'm not very fond of.

Intergalactic Space Nazis

2007-06-30T09:30:00.000+01:00

This week starts yet another reality altering universe defining comic crossover. After Infinite Crisis and Civil War both hitting my wallet in a big way I said I was out for the foreseeable future. That didn't last though. Shortly after Crisis I started picking up Green Lantern just in time to see Batman fail recruitment and Amon Sur get inducted into the Sinestro Corps. In the past few years my interest in GL has been slowly growing and I've read most of the important points of the mythos but I wasn't that bothered about this crossover. However, the backup stories detailing some of the more important members of the Sinestro Corps was slowly getting me hooked and then I read the Ion maxi-series which not only was a great look at Kyle's new place in the universe but offered a hint of things to come so I signed up. From here on in expect major spoilers.

The first issue, a one-shot, landed this week and the story kicked off in a major way. Hal and Kyle have both been following up their own investigations into the Yellow Rings and they meet up on Oa, the Green Lantern base world, just in time for the first frontal attack by the Sinestro Corps. Kyle gets taken and many GL's bite the big one and things look bad. However, things look at lot worse when you find what happens to Kyle now that he's in Sinestro's clutches. Mentally tortured and stripped of his defences we're shown that his new expanded powers are thanks to benevolent entity, basically the new Parallax's opposite. This now gone and Kyle scared out of his mind leaves him open to possession by the fore-mentioned opposite and we have a new Parallax. The reveal of the rest of the higher ups of the Corps is more power than the bad guys in Infinite Crisis ever showed.

What really impresses me is that Johns seems to have been building towards this since his first Green Lantern script, the entity of Parallax was questionable but at least made Hal redeemable, making it not the only entity out there makes perfect sense. He's also tied in his own work from Infinite Crisis while also pulling from Crisis on Infinite Earth's and the entire history of the Green Lanterns. I'm glad I'm reading this crossover because it was easily my favourite of the week, and a week that included Iron Fist and X-Factor that is saying something. To be fair Sinestro Corp has always been billed as a Green Lantern story and so far I don't see this being untrue. After the last few pages I had to check the cover to check the name was "Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps" and due to the amount of power there has me worried for the characters which are fast becoming my favourites.

Less to Meet The Eye

2007-06-26T10:00:00.000+01:00

In a few weeks the world will be exposed to Michael Bay's vision of Transformers, which I'm not entirely sure about. Bay has a good eye for over the top action, something really needed for this film. However, things can go a bit wrong in his films just look at the Cuba sequence in Bad Boys 2 and most of Pearl Harbour.

That's not what we're here to talk about today. No, it seems Hasbro are moving away from Takara and giving Cartoon Network a shot at a animated show. On a very basic level I'm happy, I've never really given any time to the imported show made by Takara but the few I caught bugged me with their weird and long plotlines. Usually I'm a fan of such things but they just seemed to crawl along like Dragonball Z. All very Japanese, which of course does make sense. On the other hand, there were many things that I mentioned a long time ago that needed to be fixed with Transformers that Takara actually did.

The news that Cartoon Network have released is very worrying for any long term Transformers fans. No longer will the Autobots be fighting their long term enemies the Decepticons, instead they'll be fighting evil humans and "basically turning it into a superheroes story". This is totally against everything that has gone before where the Autobots are a peaceful race and are really bothered about getting back to Cybertron, but have to fight so humans doesn't get enslaved by Megatron and his cronies.

The art is, erm, different for Transformers as well. It's what I call Americanised anime so really its just following the trend the majority of the industry is going. The character design is where things really change. Prime's got a chin that would make Bruce Campbell jealous and the military bot (I want to say Hound but since no names have been released and its just a departure I'm not going to guess with any of the old names) looks like a metal version of The Thing.

The show also seems to be going for a Emergency services theme, Prime's once again a fire truck and there is also the military vehicle and a Ambulance. There's also a small yellow car and a motorbike which don't look to be anything emergency service related but look like they could have sirens as well and I'm willing to put money on the yellow car being Bumblebee since he somehow always manages to be popular. It's an interesting direction and one of two things that make me wonder if they can pull this off.

The other thing is some of the people involved have some good pedigree with shows like Teen Titans, The Batman, X-Men and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. At the end of the day we'll just have to wait and see if we finally get a good Transformers show. I'm not holding my breath though.

The Torch and Surfer Show

2007-06-19T22:09:00.000+01:00

4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Funny it's called that, because really the Fantastic Four really don't do that much in the film. There's one scene where they actually work as a team, and that falls apart miserably. Really it should have been called The Human Torch meets the Silver Surfer. Apart from those two Sue runs around worrying about her wedding and moaning about their lifestyle not being the right environment to bring up a family and The Thing plays well off of Johnny and is good for a few laughs but really doesn't do much. Admittedly Reed's genius is put to good use in this film and he was much better here than the first film.

As for the actors from the returning cast Ioan Gruffudd, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis seem a lot more comfortable in their roles. Jessica Alba on the other hand looked out of place the whole movie, and it was unsettling to see her with totally blonde hair and blue eyes. In the first movie it never bothered me but I'm now convinced she's been miscast in this movie, or at the very least they've tried too hard to make her the traditional Sue Storm instead of just letting her look like herself.

The worst part of the film was Galactus. You see a planet destroyed at the start of the film by something that isn't the Surfer, then he tells Sue that something else is coming with barely anytime left of the film. No real menace was put behind the big G, and for him to then turn up and be a massive cloud was pathetic. I'm entirely aware the regular Marvel Universe version wouldn't work on film, but Ultimate would or even some giant spaceship. Not something that looks like an update of the Planet Eater from Kirk-era Star Trek. The fight between Surfer and Galactus was rather boring to say the least as well.

At least it was better than the first film, and I'm sure with the money we're going to get a sequel and if the rumours are to believed it's going to follow a similar formula and launch the Black Panther. Hopefully there's a bit more teamwork and the end of the film doesn't revolve around the guest star saving the day.

No Solid, Liquid or Zombies?

2007-06-09T12:41:00.000+01:00

I've finally managed to pry myself away from my 360 to play two games from the last generation it's taken me far too long to get round to. What has managed to pull me away from the grasp of Achievement Points and Live? The last Resident Evil and Metal Gear games of course.

Both of these franchises I was relatively late to. Metal Gear Solid I played as the second game appeared and I didn't get to that until it was ported to the Xbox. Resident Evil I arrived even later for. Despite the story really interesting me I'd somehow never played any of the series, sure I once saw someone start 2, and I once tried a friend's copy of the first Resident Evil but I missed the concept of the series and ran out of bullets pretty quickly and died. It took me to owning a Gamecube and Capcom remaking the series on the Gamecube for me to actually play the series properly.

Finally giving into the fact I'd never complete Code: Veronica without restarting I started what many have said is the best in series, Resident Evil 4. It was a pleasure to be stepping into the shoes of Leon again, as Resi 2 was my favourite so far and I found Leon's half of the story was much better than Claire's. It's quite a shock at the start of the game to realise that it's got a lot more gung-ho with Leon shooting anything that moves that isn't the President's Daughter. So far I have to agree with the accolades this game has got and it is one of the best Resident Evil's made to date.

It's a shame I can't say the same for Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Not to say I'm not enjoying the game, because I am, but I definitely preferred the last two games over this one. The references to the previous games (yet to happen when Snake Eater takes place) are great for the fans and playing as the man who will become Big Boss is certainly a thrill but something just seems to be missing. The jungle setting certainly is bold and well implemented but for me Metal Gear works better in an urban type environment. Also something about David Hayter's performance in this game is lacking and his usual performance as Snake just isn't working for me this time. A boss battle that took me nearly two hours is very impressive, however being in the mood to deal with it has seriously slowed my playing time of the game down.

All said though, I am enjoying both games a lot and I'm glad I prised myself away from the addition of Gamerscore for these two additions to some of the biggest franchises of gaming culture.

How Many Films Into One?

2007-05-08T22:58:00.000+01:00

Spider-Man 3 has joined us in a record breaking way and I'm kinda happy. Quick summary, it's better than the second film but not the first. I agree with my mates Drew and Mike in that the first two thirds of the film rock but the last bit is super cheese rubbish. Tobey Maguire seems to have gotten over his need to keep removing his mask whenever he gets into any trouble what so ever, though the habit is still there.

My hatred for Dunst's Mary-Jane increased ever more this time round, ever more the bitch and I thought leaving a guy at the altar was pretty bad. Sandman was a good villain, the transformation scene was unbelievable, although I really wasn't keen on the flying sand storm and his last scene was atrocious.

My main problem is how it would have made two amazing films instead of one pretty good one. Ever since the announcement of Venom being in the film I was worried about villain overkill, a problem most superhero franchises suffer. I hoped beyond hope that near the end of the film Peter would get rid of the symbiote and the ending would be the cliffhanger of revealing Venom. Watching Spider-Man 3 reinforced this belief. The film was doing a perfect job of introducing Eddie Brock and if we can have two films of building Dr Connor's character why rush to Venom and have him fight Spidey in the same movie.

Raimi was doing such a good job of Harry as the new Goblin as well, James Franco seems to have caught Maguire's mask removing disease though. Not to sure about replacing the glider with a futuristic snowboard, the glider is such a symbolic part of the Goblin. There seemed to be a lot of plot holes too, the main being the famous bell tower scene, why did Peter go there? He had no reason to as he knew nothing of the symbiote's weakness. What happened to his spider-sense? Peter kept getting ambushed throughout the film and Venom bypassing it was totally lost despite a line explaining that very fact. Now we get to the spoilers.

In my mind Spider-Man 3 should have been the same film up to the point where Brock got the symbiote and Harry was disfigured then we could have concentrated on some of the sub plots and new characters a little more. I was totally loving this part of the film and thought it was a fantastic realisation of the Peter/Harry relationship in the comics. Harry's more underhanded messing with Parker's head was over far too quickly and Peter seemed to decide to put on the costume and go beat the living daylights out of the someone he thought was back to normal a little to quickly for my liking.

Topher Grace did a fantastic job as Brock and his Venom was great, he deserved more than just the one fight scene, and one he needed Sandman's help with. Spider-Man 4 should have been Venom's movie. Parker trying to regain his popularity, Venom coming along and messing Parker up totally then the kidnap scene from 3 to finish. Parker knows he outclassed so has to go groveling to Harry to help him rescue MJ, the only thing the two could actually forget their differences.

All of which takes us to that final fight scene. Some fantastic moments in it but overall, WHAT THE HELL? Peter and Harry are suddenly best friends and quipping jokes to each other because of something Osborn's butler said. This should have been a fight the two of them forced themselves through for MJ's sake. The clapping at Spider-Man's arrival who we've just been told is hated again, any scene involving the gathered crowd was awful in fact. The shot of Spidey and the flag actually made me winch.

The rumours for the next film have already started and Sony have said they're defiantly making up to six. Hopefully there's truth to Dunst not re-signing and will see if a new actress is enough to get me to like the character. The other main rumour is that one of the two deaths will be reversed. I'm hoping it's Brock rather than Harry for reasons I've covered above.

Man I Love Being a Turtle

2007-04-08T20:28:00.000+01:00

I just got home from watching TMNT and man that was good. I came out of that film feeling like a 12 year old again.

The voices of the Turtles were spot on, and even though they were all brand new actors they were perfect for the roles. The action was great, especially Raphael’s fight scene to Black Betty and the big scene versus the Foot Clan. While the CGI for the human characters wasn't 100% for the Turtles and Splinter it was fantastic. The movements were important for a film about ninja's but what really struck me was the facial expressions. All four turtle’s faces were totally individualistic and you could really see the characters of the Turtles show through, from Raph's grimness to Mikey's easy going attitude. Also how the bandanas on the faces actually looked like bandanas rather than just part of their faces which is something that can happen in animation.

Only a couple of times did I start to worry, mostly when Raph was making his speeches towards the end. Apart from that, as you've probably guessed, I totally loved this film.

Happy Birthday from Marvel and Raven

2007-04-02T12:37:00.000+01:00

In eight days time I hit my quarter century. It's not been bothering me too much but now I'm getting within breathing distance of it I'm starting to get a little worried. 25, now there really isn't an excuse to not start acting all grown up (like that'll happen though). I mean I can't even decide what to do for my birthday celebrations, a few little things are falling into place as we approach but as yet there isn't a big celebration to be had. I may try to relive last year's last minute night out that was absolute quality.

But in the midst of all this indecision, Marvel and Raven have publicly announced my birthday present. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance is getting 8 new Heroes and Villains added to it. We're getting the option of playing as Cyclops, Hawkeye, Hulk and Nightcrawler on the good side and for the bad guys Magneto, Sabretooth, Venom and most importantly Doom. I'm mostly psyched by Cyclops and Hawkeye, Cyke was my character during the original X-Men: Legends game and Hawkeye is one of my all time favourite Avengers.

This of course gives me a reason to play through the game once again with Drew and Daz. When we finished it the first time, we always said we would go through it again with Arcade Mode on Hard difficulty but never got round to it. Drew's got hard decisions to make between Sabretooth, Hulk and the more likely Venom. Daz on the other hand I think may struggle to pick anyone, Doom may be suitable if they've played up his tech and magic angle. I'm quite impressed with Raven as well, recording a lot of extra dialogue to make the characters fit into the game better. This should prove interesting when the team meets Bruce Banner, Dark Cyclops and the main protagonist, Doom himself. Still giving us 10 new achievements worth 250 points seems a bit of overkill just revolving around the new characters.

The Tony Stark that isn't a Total Arse

2007-03-21T16:00:00.000Z

The Invincible Iron Man. Yet another Marvel animated DVD has joined the recent Comic to DVD range and it's another good one. Although I find it quite strange this one was even made as we're not that far off from a Hollywood Iron Man with the genius casting of Robert Downey Jr, especially since both versions seem to be dealing with a different telling of his origin.

Not that I'm complaining because I did really enjoy this one, far more than the two Avengers films previously released. This being me and as an extreme continuity nut I noticed that this actually seems to be based in the same timeline as the Ultimate Avenger films, the armour bay Stark has is extremely similar to the one shown in the second Avengers film and both the Ultimate Armour and the War Machine Armour were shown in it. Also establishing this link further, the voice of Tony Stark is exactly the same guy as the other films.

Onto the actual film and I've always preferred Iron Man in cartoons than in comics. I'm not sure why but Tony just never works quite as well for me in the books as he does when in motion and after months of evil Stark, proud sponsor of the Super Human Registration Act over in Civil War I thought it'd be nice to get a nice friendly version. We didn't quite get that, instead we get a typical heartless business man who places himself first and everything else second. He lied to his best friend and kept him out of the biggest project ever undertaken, even when Tony and Rhodey are building a makeshift armour Tony totally underplays the fact he wasn't exactly creating this stuff from scratch. As the film progresses Tony becomes more human and all round nice bloke but at the start he is a bit of a bastard.

Of course dealing with Iron Man we have to put up with his greatest enemy, the bottle. I mean the Mandarin, though a drunk Iron Man could make for some interesting viewing. This version of the Mandarin is ten times better than any other and instead of being some mental Chinese bloke, he’s a spirit of an ancient Chinese ruler. His appearance is brief and it is far better for it.

The other characters were quite a surprise, James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes was different to any version I’ve experienced before but then I’m used to him either being War Machine or having fallen out with Stark for some reason or another. Pepper, Tony’s secretary, was a lot older and there was no sexual tension there as there would be normally. Most bizarrely, we have a version of Tony Stark who stands alongside his father in running Stark Enterprises. Also, considering this is an origin story the armour was handled very surprisingly. It was explained well but it does catch you by surprise.

To date this is easily the best Marvel Animated film, let’s hope they continue this upward curve with Doctor Strange and beyond.

No More Through The Gate

2007-03-15T21:32:00.000Z

Stargate SG-1 has now finished its 10, and final, season making it longest continuous Sci-Fi series ever. I’ll definitely miss the show and feel bad for Ben Browder for having another show end on him but am I sad about it? Not really. Please be aware any American readers, your scheduling sucks and Sky One has shown the whole thing here in Blighty. This here blogging is going to be very spoilerific.

To be honest, I know I'm a story arc kinda guy but I was hoping for the SG-1 version of Deep Space Nine’s Dominion war. A ‘sod all else and those little happy stories we’re in a war and it’s a nasty one so follow us while we take this galaxy back one system at a time’ sort of thing. Ooo that made me feel all Sheridan like typing that.

Instead the shows leading up to the end of the season certainly didn't leave you with the feeling that it was all going to be over. After Daniel gets taken by the Ori, things quieten down and we get to see Mitchell's school reunion. Daniel returns and despite then unleashing the entire Ori army onto our galaxy we get some wonderful stories involving alternate realities and rebels. I’m not saying these weren’t good episodes, just they weren’t what I was hoping for. Then with two episodes before the curtain falls it all kicks off. In one episode so much ground was covered and it was fantastic. I applaud the writer who came up with Ba’al’s plan, that was an absolute masterstroke.

Then we have the last ever episode of Stargate SG-1. It, erm, wasn't what I expected. Sure I got the explosion I wanted and the start of the episode explains something that has seemed a bit off during the whole Ori storyline in the most shocking manor possible. But most of the episode was a character piece looking intently at our five main characters. It was an interesting way to end the series as nothing concerning the defeating the armies of the Ori was really addressed, but it did make for a good look at what was good about the show.

Then it was all over… well not really. SG-1 have two movies coming, the first ending the Ori storyline and the second a good old fashioned timeline buggered story that Stargate does so well. Plus Atlantis plunges on, a show I really think I need to watch considering how closely I’ve followed SG-1. There’s the 2008 debuting Stargate series that nobody knows anything yet. Plus apparently one of SG-1’s main guys hasn’t given up the fight for his series yet. Though I’m not sure if that’s such a good thing.

I'm with Union Jack

2007-03-07T19:10:00.000Z

Because everyone's doing one.

[EDIT] It has come to my attention that Marvel's UK does indeed have a Superhero law, but our superhero's didn't have a hissy fit over the whole thing. So I'm still with Union Jack.

Happy Smiley Counter Terrorists

2007-03-03T13:02:00.000Z

Rainbow Six, bit of an odd name for a counter terrorist agency but that's what Tom Clancy has given us. We're onto the fifth version of the computer game and this is my second. I'd messed around with the original game but only really got stuck in with Rogue Spear. I became disenchanted with the franchise when they abandoned the planning phase and went all action in an attempt to take on SWAT.

However, I had really loved Rogue Spear and its add-ons so I always felt the need to go back. Enter XBox Live's ability to download demos and I was trying Vegas. After telling myself this was a much needed buy since I first tried it, three months later my Dad came to the rescue and I finally own it.

The game is great and it’s reminding me of the fun I had playing Republic Commando and I'm really starting to like the tactical squad games. The pleasure you get when you successfully take down a room is fantastic. More than once have Michael, Jung and I stormed a room and the dirty terrorist scumbags all dropped seconds later. Also there is a lot of joy from sneaking about slowly killing all involved without alerting anyone else.

Though that brings me onto the problems I have. Sometimes the enemy AI is great, but all too often am I amazed how stupid these terrorists are. Last night I opened a door and shot gunned the guy on the other side for the pure joy of the shotgun. Amazingly, a couple of guys down the hall (out of my view I will point out) failed to really react to my little bit of Rambo. Admittedly they did switch from just standing around to being alert, but it didn't occur to either of them to go investigate what the loud noise was.

As I already stated, I cut my anti terrorist teeth on Rogue Spear and we no longer have the planning aspect. I don't pine for its return but I do miss the level of control it gave me over my team mates. More than once have I wished that they move up from the cover position I gave them. As it stands they only move to cover I tell them too, and therefore I have to be able to see that cover. I also find that when they are on follow in a fire fight they don't make the smartest of moves and I now do my best to make sure they're ordered to do something else other than just shoot people.

The Rainbow series hasn't totally filled the gap it created by removing its planning phase but all in all I am enjoying the game a great deal. I wonder if they've managed to fix the problems with Splinter Cell.

From Zombies to Policemen Officers

2007-02-20T15:30:00.000Z

I've been a big fan of Simon Pegg's from Big Train through to Shaun of the Dead. Now we've got his latest venture from him and his two mates Edgar Wright and Nick Frost. Spaced started this wonderful trio and they've still got the magic.

Bluntly put, I really enjoyed the film. Not quite as funny as Shaun but as a whole the film is absolutely brilliant. One of my first reactions was amazement at one or two of the cast members. Shaun had quite a few British stalwart comedy actors but seeing Jim Broadbent and Timothy Dalton as major players goes to prove how far these guys have come since that Channel 4 sitcom.

Pegg's acting is some pretty fine stuff, I must admit I was quite surprised to see him play the straight man here but he does it well. However, Danny Butterman has got to be one of Nick Frost's worst performances. He was brilliant at both Mike and Ed yet here he seemed to be struggling, only really comfortable when Danny was being particulary Edish.

Wright's directing has certainly improved but I think he's heard one too many good comments about his fast cutting in Shaun, it's a little over done in this movie and at times it felt like he was just doing it because he could.

Winter-Een-Mas

2007-01-26T20:32:00.000Z

Happy Winter-Een-Mas everyone. For those who have no idea what I'm going on about check out the official website or go google it. I hadn't actually realised how big it was until I did that.

As is becoming tradition on the weekend of Winter-een-mas we're celebrating with booze at Scott's, even though all he has is a PS2 on offer. Though I'm taking my old X-Box round too for more varied gaming. I'm also going to make a point of playing as much multiplayer as I can over the next week, something I usually barely bother with, favouring more the single player experience. I'm probably going to be found on Test Drive Unlimited, Rockstar Table Tennis and Gears of War. I'm more than likely going to be buying Rainbow Six: Vegas as well.

Also in the spirit of the season I post again:

3x3

2007-01-15T22:10:00.000Z

I'm currently on tender hooks waiting for Mass Effect from Bioware on the 360 later this year. However, something has come to my attention as a result of this game and a few other upcoming releases. Game developers are becoming obsessed with trilogies. Is it that they've been looking at Star Wars, Back to the Future and The Godfather and decided that is how it has to be done?

Apart from the aforementioned Bioware game, Silicon Nights are finally going to be releasing their Too Human based on Norse Mythology (which does sound quite cool) and it's slated as the first in the trilogy. XBox 360's "biggest game" Gears of War is part of a trilogy. Knights of the Old Republic is rumoured to be a trilogy, and certainly the second game left a few plot points unresolved but I don’t know if it was originally intended that way, the fact it is Star Wars probably means LucasArts did mean for it to be.

Not only that but this year we've got the end of the Halo trilogy starring Master Chief. Two more games have already been confirmed by other studios expanding the universe, and making me actually play a RTS game.

Bioware and Bungie aren’t new to this trilogy business either. Bungie had the Marathon games on the Mac. Baldur’s Gate was intended to be one but in the excitement and moving technology of Neverwinter Nights the third part, Throne of Bhaal, was relegated down to Expansion Pack rather than a fully fledged game.

Not every game can be a Halo though and have its trilogy play out. Shenmue was a fantastic game, but the second came just as the Dreamcast was about to fall in it’s grave. It was later released on the XBox but low sales figures have left the third instalment on permanent hiatus. Then there’s Advent Rising a game that promised to blow everyone away and proceeded to not sell at all. No doubt there are people who enjoyed it and they only got part one of its three part story.

On the other foot we have Valve with Half-Life that was intended as a trilogy but they have now said that they're just going to keep going while they still have ideas and people are still playing. Notice how there is three Half-Life 2 episodes. Coincidence? You decide.

Microsoft Addiction Points

2007-01-11T10:29:00.000Z

I knew as soon as I started playing on my 360 I knew I was in danger of getting terribly addicted to Achievements. Thankfully to start with it was relatively low level addiction as I slowly clawed my way towards several peoples scores who I wanted to match. Then Drew got his 360.

Nothing that harsh was said but I did like to point out his little score. So he made it a competition He halved my lead in no time at all. Really I wasn't bothered but then he made a comment about how he was about to take me over in Dead Rising. Low and Behold he took over my 480 and jumped up to 680, and the race was on. Yes, I am well aware of how petty this is but damn it, it gives my need to get 100% in games a bit more of a competitive aspect.

On the plus side I get to appreciate even more how good Dead Rising is. Third time through and I'm still finding new stuff. This game is amazing, the shine is only just starting to tarnish now that I've hit the maximum level.

Gangsters and Tropical Islands

2007-01-05T10:59:00.000Z

Happy New Year Everybody. A New Year and my first post is about two old topics. I've finally managed to finish two games this week, Far Cry: Instincts and Saints Row.

I'd never got round to the original version on the PC and I realised I needed at least one version under my belt. Far Cry: Instincts was touted as one of the best shooters on the X-Box and saying that to a die hard Halo fan like me is certainly something. It was something I totally agreed with when I started the game, the intro is fantastic even if I did get a bit lost swimming straight away. I thoroughly enjoyed the game, even the bad handling of the vehicles wouldn’t put me off ploughing on. It seems odd to me that both Half-Life 2 and Far Cry go for this style when Halo has proven what can be done because everyone knows how much fun throwing a Warthog around can be. The hang glider section felt pointless too, I really didn't see any point of even doing that since it was far easier to do it via Jet Ski. The game only offered you the chance to use the hang glider twice, the first time the only real time it was needed and I ditched it through not knowing how to control it and finding the aforementioned Jet Ski.

However the vehicle controls are a minor niggle. Much more importantly is the end section of the game. From what I understand from Smith and Daz this was a big problem for Far Cry and Instincts has the same though I've got the feeling it's not as bad. At one point in the story one of the main bad guys legs it to another island and you follow. The minute you land on the new island things go downhill. I can't quite put my finger on what was so bad about it but I loved playing the first part of the game, once I got to this bit I only carried on because I figured I must be near the end. Once again a fantastic start to a game, let down by the ending.

Then we have Saints Row. I've already covered my thoughts on the gameplay so I'm just going to give brief thoughts on the story. Now Saints Row obviously falls under the category of GTA clone but to the extant this game goes to is extreme. More than once during a mission I got a serious sense of deja vu, one or two missions are directly ripped from the Rockstar series. That said the ending for this game is fantastic, though while there was plenty of side missions left to do I felt going back after that would ruin it for me so Saints Row has returned to its owner. Yes the driving’s bad, one aspect of the story revealed in the end sequence wasn't covered enough but decent shooting and a fairly good story do make it worth while.

I need HD in my life

2006-12-17T11:38:00.000Z

This week Mr Drew has spent a ridiculous amount of money on a HD TV. When it came time for our next gaming session it only seemed right that I take my 360 up to his and find out what they could do. Let me tell you, they were beautiful together. First thing I had to do was both Halo 3 trailers, these amazed me when they first came out, but seeing them in HD took my breath away. Then onto the games.

We spent most of our time on Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, unlocking the last few morsels erin that game ready for the hard mode arcade action, of which we got a taste for and Drew and I are once again addicted. I was a bit let down of the jump from X-Box to 360 graphically originally but HD totally removed that. How much better this game looks is incredible. Everything just looked so much more detailed and crisper.

Drew had mentioned it was the racing games that really looked amazing on HD, unfortunately I don't own any but luckily I do have a demo of Carbon on the hard drive. I was drooling at the car selection screen never mind in game. Finally we tried Dead Rising, I noticed less with this game, but that may be due to the fact Capcom made it for HD and really ignored the standard definition. If was nice to be able to read the text in game for a change though.

Gangsters and Capes

2006-12-14T16:44:00.000Z

Two topics up for discussion today. Firstly Heroes because I'm not going into much detail. This show is fantastic. Finally a show I have gotten into right from the get go rather than sticking with it because I feel like it could go somewhere. I'm not sure I've done that since Buffy started on Sky One. It really does feel like someone had a comic story to tell but managed to get a TV network to make it instead.

Secondly there's Saints Row. It was one of the first demos I downloaded off Xbox Live and while not overly impressed I did think it could be quite fun, and I've been craving some GTA like action recently. When I first put the game in the machine I hated it, I thought it was very badly done. The car handling is atrocious, the cars feel extremely similar, its only you start getting into the game and start driving very different types of cars that you can start to notice the difference in the handling. Though the handbrake never improves, no matter what you're driving the normal breaks barely do anything while the handbrake is the guaranteed to stop you dead with a near perfect 90 degree turn.

The early missions aren't anything special, at least for the Vice Kings anyway. There are three gangs to take down in the City of Stillwater and it's entirely up to you which order that you do them. I've just finished the Vice Kings and moved onto Los Carnales. The difference between the early Kings and Carnales is quite shocking as I'm really enjoying the Carnales missions while the Kings I did get bored with half way through and it's only my worrying determination to finish games that kept me with Saints Row at that point. Also the activities, while initially standing out as good, just don't work for me really. I realise that they are pick up when you fancy them but I just find myself getting very frustrated with the level system used for them.

All said and done Saints Row is an alternative to GTA, not a better one and not necessarily worse either. They both do certain things better than the other, car handling is certainly better in GTA while targeting is better in Saints Row for instance. One thing for Saints Row is that although the story isn't great is does feel a better gang experience than San Andreas was, which seemed to forget where it came from once CJ’s brother got arrested.

Quick Shout Out

2006-12-04T22:49:00.000Z

In order to make my posts a bit snappier, if I've got something to say I'm just gonna say it, rather than waiting till the end of the month (which I'm still gonna use as a general sum up).

First off, I've finally got off my arse and posted up links to some of my friend's blogs and the like.

Secondly, I've finally picked up last week's comics. In my pile the to read list was X-Factor (yes a week late but it's fantastic) and Iron Fist. I feel ashamed it's taken me this long to pick up Brubaker at Marvel, but now that I have his and Matt Fraction's story is fantastic. A quick read but brilliantly told. The advertising in Teen Titans was atrocious, and people have been complaining at Marvel? Also Wisdom was a bit of a let down. While it did feel like a proper British comic in the Marvel universe, it also felt like the story needed two issues to be told.

Movies Games and Videos

2006-11-27T14:28:00.000Z

During getting my website back up and running and preparing an actual update for it, I realised I’ve not used this for one of the main reasons I originally set it up. When I updated my website I usually covered what movies, games and comics I’ve been watching/playing/reading. Due to my lameness at getting updates done it always bugged me that it got ignored. So here we are, and hopefully I’ll get this done once a month.

On the movie front we of course have Casino Royale. I applaud the makers abandoning the formula that has been ruining Bond films of recent and returning to the books with the very first one that somehow never got made. The film is great, and I could barely believe I was watching a Bond film, and I was delighted to see a third of the film dedicated to a poker game.

On the TV I’m quite pleased at the Legion of Superheroes show, and I’m ashamed to say I’ve not yet got around to watching Heroes. Other than that I’m sticking with the shows I’ve talked about many times on here.

As already stated I’ve recently bought an Xbox 360 and am I glad I did. Apart from the initial gamertag issues (see Mini Rants entry below) things have been going great. First game I got was Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. Nothing majorly different from X-Men Legends 2, and what they have changed is for the better. Less item slots makes gear management a damn site easier, though my RPG heavy team mates bemoan this particular change. Instead the costumes have different abilities and you pick which costume suits your gameplay. Also Extreme Powers work on meter you build up rather than based on pickups making them much easier to use and more rewarding, though I’m not keen on ‘everybody uses it all at once’. At times it’s way too much overkill. Also the new team management is quite cool, and adds a bit more depth to the game.

On games that are actually next gen I bought Dead Rising. This game is great. If you’ve got a 360 you need this game. I’m thoroughly enjoying going back through this game for the 100%, unlike most games where I just feel the need to do it. I also broke my promise to myself and started playing Oblivion. I always said I’d lose my life if I started playing, and to prove my point I’ve lost a lot of hours without even realising it.

Comics wise, nothing much has changed. I’m looking to dropping a few titles but I’m not 100% made up my mind yet. I’m still loving Civil War, though I need to limit the amount of titles I’m getting for it, it’s become a bit all encompassing for my collection. Really need to get hold of more Invincible, reread the first trade, the only one I own and am craving the next book, but need to hold off till the New Year.

Catching Up

2006-11-14T10:41:00.000Z

Going through my old rants on Monday as I was sorting my website out I realised I talked a lot about shows that have had a good run and some have even ended, and my opinions weren't necessarily the same now as they were on seeing one or two of the episodes. I even feel I need to talk more on the new Fantastic Four now that I've watched more than two episodes.

But first the big one, Justice League Unlimited. This currently rules supreme as the best superhero animated series ever. Ongoing story arcs that built up over the season with a huge payoff at the end, especially the Cadmus arc. Green Arrow clearly making it into one of the big names alongside GL and Supes. Even with the massive cast they stuck with the GL/Hawkgirl romance, making it a love triangle with Vixen with the added complication of John meeting his and Shayera's future son. This brings us to one of my favourite points, tying it all into Batman Beyond. Not only did we have the time travel story featuring the Beyond JLU from 'The Call', but we had the episode that should have been the last ever episode of the entire DCUA universe, Epilogue. OK, so it was extremely Batman centric, but it linked everything from the start of Batman: The Animated series to JLU through Batman Beyond. If you've not seen any JLU stop making excuses and Get It Done!

Three years ago I wrote my first rant and it was about Teen Titans and overly I was quite enthusiastic about the show. That enthusiasm carried right through to the end of the movie. In some parts it increased. For instance I now regard the theme tune as a fantastic piece of J-Pop. I loved the fact the series could be deadly serious one show and deal with Robin being too focused then the next just go off on one and the Titans get trapped in a magic hat. The Mad Mod episodes always surprised me with how experimental they were being, especially as this was far more of a kids show than JLU. The characters grew on me and Starfire stopped annoying me, though I still prefer the comic’s version. My biggest problem was it's last season, the season before had been fantastic, but then they went travelling the world and meeting new Titans in order to warn them, and the show felt really shallow during these episodes.

As I already mentioned, I've watched a few more episodes now and while it hasn't grown on me a huge amount, there are a couple of things that have warmed me to it. HERBIE as the Baxter Building's AI is a great little touch. Its become obvious that it's based on the movie continuity except Doom is the comic version, which makes sense since Movie Doom was terrible. The Human Torch is annoying the hell out of me, which is rather troubling since he's my favourite. He's far too stupid, he's meant to be cocky not an idiot. Most importantly we've had another episode building on the Kree/Skrull war, with a fantastic prequel to the debut of the Super-Skrull and a twist at the end. More than anything else, this has got me watching more of the series.

Finally, we have Smallville back on. Zod was a rather good episode but nothing spectacular as the last episode of the previous season was. So far the new series is quite good. Thankfully we've been given a new reason for people being super powered instead of Kryptonite powered humans, though the first one felt like a rip off of Poison Ivy. This season we have a young Oliver Queen, and just like JLU they've got the character down, though this is millionaire play boy Queen instead of the fighting for the everyman Queen. I've yet to see the episode where he properly goes out and about in a costume, but the cheek of the producers having him go to a fancy dress party as Robin Hood, but actually put Ollie in the pre-Infinite Crisis GA costume was wonderful. I think it'll be good for Clark to meet someone who enjoys the life of a costume hero for his progression to wearing his underpants on the outside, unlike the Angel of Vengeance *cough*Huntress*cough* we had last season. My hatred of Lana Lang grows ever more with each passing episode, hopefully now she's with Lex she can die a horrible death that will finally put Lex on top of the evil chain where he's been travelling towards for the whole of Smallville's run.

Don't worry, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance is coming, I'm just trying to finish it before I talk about it. Also Legion of Superheroes once I've seen a few more episodes (I am learning), but so far so good.

Mini Rants

2006-11-06T10:13:00.000Z

Nothing outstanding for me, but a few little things. Finally got round to the Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo. Good movie that carried on from the series in a great way, hopefully we see more things like this and Ultimate Avengers then we do Superman: Brainiac Attacks. Bring on the Hellboy movie.

Got an X-Box 360 this weekend. I was all happy through out Saturday and Sunday. More to come on Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. However, I had some trouble with setting up my X-Box Live account. You see I have been on Live before with my old X-Box but got bored and the account was cancelled. There I am trying to reactivate it but I just don't have the info, which is well over a year old. In my desperation I actually ring Microsoft's helpline to get them to reactivate it then I can update the details. After pretending to be Chris and waiting for 5 minutes while the guy prats about, I'm told it was cancelled. Which I knew. However, it turns out when Microsoft cancel an account it can never be touched ever again and that Gamertag is lost to the world. No more NightJim. Sucks big hairy elephant balls. So I've resorted to KnightJim. Bloody Microsoft.

New Robin Hood on BBC isn't all that, first episode suffered from trying to play it too lightly, the following episodes have improved on that front, but something about it doesn't sit quite right. It may be how Dave put it, it's far too clean for medieval times.

Got Agent X, was disappointed by how little Gail Simone wrote of it, first and last stories. Hers are easily the best in the series, one of the others actually reading like a through and through Deadpool story, which is against the whole point of the book. Alex desperately was trying to be different to our man Wade.

Everyone's After Aliens

2006-10-26T10:46:00.000+01:00

Two subjects to talk about today. First up, Torchwood started on BBC 3 on Sunday and I was there for the first two episodes. The new Doctor Who has done so well it’s managed to spawn a spin off that’s aimed at adults. So far it appears to be a British X-Files based in the Doctor Who universe. I just hope they manage to address UNIT at some point, because the fact the British Military has an organisation that investigates the paranormal seems to have been forgotten.

Captain Jack Harkness, the second companion for half of Ecclestone’s series has been given control of the third Torchwood facility in Cardiff. The fact that Torchwood isn’t hiding the fact that it’s based in Cardiff is one of the things that have impressed me about the show. Having just come back on the Friday from my business trip there it was very cool seeing one or two places that I recognised. Even to the point that one of the pubs I went in could just be seen as Gwen, the character the series seems to from the perspective of, enters the Torchwood facility for the first time.

More to the point, the stories are really good. It is far more adult that Dr Who can be at 7 o’clock on a Saturday night with death and murder quite strong in both episodes. The show does seem to have a fixation on sex though. With Captain Jack a little is to be expected, he was easily the horniest companion in the history of Who. We have been promised every single member of the cast will get a same sex kiss, and we’ve already had two in as many episodes. The whole plot of the second episode revolved around an alien that fed off orgasmic energy, killing the male in the process, similar to that Outer Limits episode that scared me shitless when I was 14. It seems to me that Russell Davies has to get some of this out of his system, since he has to spend his time looking after a ‘family’ show the rest of the time.

Thankfully they’ve addressed the fact that Captain Jack is alive despite the fact he died facing the Daleks in the final episode of Eccelstone’s run. He even mentioned wanting to meet the Dr to find out what’s going on. Technically the audience knows this as it was shown at the end of the Who episode (though I had to read it on Wikipedia) and from the special effect when he kissed the orgasm alien its obvious that its to do with the chronal energy that Rose Tyler absorbed. All said, the show is great and I fully intend to keep watching it every Sunday.

The second topic of conversation is the new Fantastic Four cartoon. I’ve watched two episodes so far, and I’m yet to be impressed. The animation is pretty slick although it falls under the category of the US imitating anime once again. I was mildly surprised to see the first episode start with a Ronan the Accuser story, a minor character from the Marvel Universe rather than an origin story or something with a better known character such as Doom. Which brings me onto my next point, it feels like I’ve missed some episodes. The series just starts getting on with things, no real character introduction and the second episode is Doom and it doesn’t really explain the feud between Doom and Reed its just accepted fact that Doom hates him. Now I can cope with this as I’m a major comic geek and this stuff to me is like the Bible is to the Pope, but have we got to the point where we don’t have to tell the origin of the Fantastic Four or their biggest villain? If so that’s great, but I only thought we were there with Superman, Batman and Spider-Man. I’ve got a total of five episodes to watch, I’m going to watch them and see if I fancy watching anymore. Though the hints at a Kree-Skrull war hinted at in the first episode has got me very intrigued.

There Can Be Only One

2006-10-21T09:08:00.000+01:00

I bet you're wondering where I've been? Well probably not but I like to pretend anyway. Well after my 3 week trip to Canada, which was great thank you. I just got home when work asked me to go to Cardiff to help look after the new people in that new office. They also gave me a semi-promotion, so I'm now looking after IS Support while someone gets round to actually advertising for the positions there properly.

So I'd been home a week when work sent me to Wales for another week, which has to be said was a great time as well. Anyway, I'd not had a huge amount of time to dedicate to the promise I made myself and to the good people at Heroic Images. That of getting my website back up and running once I got back from Canada. I got one night on it before going to Cardiff and we're nearly there and since I've got three days off from work I hope to get more down this weekend. Then I've just got the DNS to sort out and we should be ready to go.

Last night, having only slept for 2 hours on Thursday and traveling, I was shattered and in need of a film. So I watched Highlander: Endgame, against Chris' recommendation. Well his recommendation wasn't far off but it wasn't that bad. But as Chris put it I've watched quite a lot of the show and he hasn't. Which I feel is one of the main problems of the film. Its big thing was that we finally had Connor and Duncan together properly for the first time, and it was good for some of that, we got to see there history together, and why Connor wasn't about for the series. In other ways the film really didn't manage that.

The main villain, apart from being extremely cheesy and over the top, was someone that had been plaguing Connor for centuries but had nothing to do with Duncan, yet it was Duncan who had to take him out at the end. This seemed to be the problem for the film as a whole, they never managed to find someone who had real resonance for both of the MacLeods. That said, it's not like Christopher Lambert is in the modern day setting a huge amount, which is probably a good thing since how old he looks these days. Not really the nest thing for an immortal. Also some of the blue screen was absolutely shocking as well and all three people watching laughed out loud.

It's not a great film by any stretch of the imagination and unless you've watched the series you're probably going to disappointed.

GUNning it

2006-09-11T18:02:00.000+01:00

Friday was an absolute quality night out, though Alex ruined the theme by getting back with his ex earlier in the week. Saturday, hung over to hell, I decided I needed some good shooting action, something not offered by any of the games I’m currently playing. What with actually having something to write about I decided I better fit another post in before the Canada trip.

Gun was one of those games that when it was released had intrigued me, the adverts looked great and when was the last time a decent western game was made? Anyway, Smith had warned me at the time that while it was supposed to be good it was also very short. However, seeing at £10 and on Buy One Get One Free you can’t really go wrong, unless you decide the latest Leisure Suit Larry or Lula game would be a good purchase.

Anyway, Gun is a brilliant game but, as Smith warned, it is rather short. I completed it in a weekend, though admittedly it did take two hardcore sessions. The game starts off rather hard to control but as your stats improve and you buy upgrades for your weapons it gets a lot easier, and a lot cooler. In no time at all I was picking bandits off their horses with my rifle and taking arrows and dynamite out of the air with my pistol.

The storyline is great and has a fantastic Western feel, with kind hearted whores, dirty business men, history with Indians and Civil War veterans looking to right wrongs. Also it managed to throw quite a few curve balls into the story, something which is quite unique in action games.

That’s not to say the game isn’t with its faults. I had one total crash and a fall through floor moment. The physical gestures during in game speech were quite often comical, and once or twice a model’s hands got mangled up during those gestures and I once saw a mission specific target walk through a wall. Also the game does a GTA and lets you keep playing after the storyline, and the more complete the game is the more fun stuff you get. Thing is, it’s not that hard to complete the side missions, once they’re done there’s not much to do, making the two best items in the game practically pointless.

All said, a great game, that was well worth the £10 charged, even better when you think I only paid a fiver.

Long Time No Update

2006-09-08T18:57:00.000+01:00

So nearly a month and no update, and God knows how long it's been since my site's been updated. Hell the thing isn't even working right now. Well I've had nothing to rant or rave about, nothing I've seen has really given me any strong feelings. It's going to be even longer. On Wednesday I'm off to Vancouver on holiday with Drew for three weeks. Right now I'm telling myself when I get back I'm going to get back on track.

Civil War is still going great and I'm not bothered at all about the delays, I'd rather have it all told well by Millar and McNiven than put up with some fill-ins, a personal hatred of mine. I'm thinking of having a major upheaval in what I buy. Two comics have already been cast aside. Marvel Team-Up is finishing and I'm thinking of giving up on Birds of Prey. Speaking of Gail Simone, I finally got to read her 5 issues of Deadpool. Absolute Genius! Some of the best Deadpool I've ever read. Really need to get hold of her Agent-X now.

Stargate season 10 is pretty good, and Blade has improved but still isn't that amazing. Need to watch the new Fantastic Four animated.

Games wise I've got plenty on my plate. Currently been paying attention to Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, which seems to improve the further you get in the game. Also Chris bought Guitar Hero and it is brilliant. Wish I had an X-Box 360 for Dead Rising, the demo of which blew me away (Damn you Smith!).

Well I'm off to go get drunk again. A celebration of my four of Flat 28 are all single at the same time, the first time it's happened since we met six years ago.

Avenging to the Ultimate

2006-08-15T23:54:00.000+01:00

Since the first film came out during the time I’d stopped updating my website and before I started this blog it never got covered by me and as I’ve just finished watching the second film I figured lets talk about both. Although with emphasis on the second obviously.

Released early 2006 Ultimate Avengers took Millar and Hitch’s first Ultimates storyline and made it an animated film. Unfortunately, they did that by dumbing the story down for time and audience reasons. In my opinion, while nowhere near as good as the original comic series it was an ok film, with Ultimate Cap and Iron Man getting good showings. The wife beating storyline was lifted and the aliens were nowhere near the threat they were in the comic. I can understand why most of this was done, Millar and Hitch had 12 comics to get their story across. Ultimate Avengers had less than an hour and a half and some of the scenes would have ramped up the rating of the film, but you can’t help miss them when you know they should be there.

The second film creates a totally original story and it’s better for it. Starting that the Aliens are defeated just set back was a great idea. Kleiser, a great character from Ultimates who was wasted in the first film finally got a good showing, though his defeat was one of the more disappointing parts of the finale. We also get the wife beating storyline rear its head in the only way I think the movie producers could have gotten away with and I’m glad to see it. The second seems to symbolise more of a departure to sticking to Ultimate timeline and mixing from normal Marvel Universe to create a match that suits the film, with an introduction of Iron Man’s Armoury and Tony switching to the War Machine Armour.

Both films have fantastic animation, but some of the design leaves a lot to be desired. Maybe it’s the fanboy in me but a lot of the character design just comes off bad. Mostly going for the Ultimate designs is all well and good, and it’s understandable going with the more well known green Hulk. What annoys me is, although it’s Ultimate Thor the designers have taken away his beard making him look more like he belongs on a Californian beach than the battlegrounds of Asgard. Also super spy Black Widow has her top unzipped and showing a whole load of cleavage, to be expected in this kind of production, but I was expecting her to zip it up when it came to going into action. Plus the new design of Black Panther was awful in my opinion and instead of looking regal, T’Challa looked like he belonged in a wrestling ring. Lets not even get into this new morphing into a panther power he’s found.

All in all, the Ultimate Avengers films are good fun for the superhero fans looking for some light entertainment, though anyone who has read Ultimates volume 1 will find the first a bit annoying.

The Big Boy Scout

2006-07-30T11:31:00.000+01:00

Of course I have to talk about SUPERMAN RETURNS. A thoroughly good Superhero flick, which has equal focus on the relationship between Lois and Clark as it does Luthor’s evil scheme. My heart started racing from the very start with the opening credits with the John Williams film, which I admit is kinda odd since I’ve never had too much of a soft spot for the Reeve films, while the first two were good, I wasn’t even born when they were released and only ever caught them on ITV. I have to admit, it’s been some years since I’ve seen. Also several FUCK YEAH moments when Supes was doing his thing.

On a down note I had a problem with a few of the characters, I always had a problem with Gene Hackman’s Luthor so Kevin Spacey’s didn’t rub me the right way, though he did do a better job than Hackman. Parker Posey’s character annoyed the crap out of me, I will never understand why they’ve had Luthor have someone like that hang around with him, an introduction of someone like Mercy would have been so much better. On the plus side I expected to hate James Marsters’ character from the moment he was introduced, and was pleasantly surprised that Singer and co made him a very likeable character who I’m going to feel very sorry for when he finds out the revelation that Clark and the viewer are shown at the end of the movie.

Also the flight scenes were a mixed bag, some were “Oh dear God that’s some terrible CGI”, others, well, lets just say, I believed a man could fly.

On a minor note, at San Diego Comic Con, Edgar Wright, director and co-writer of Spaced and Shaun of the Dead has been announced as the director of Marvel’s Ant Man. An interesting choice of character for a movie translation, but Wright picked and wrote it himself and the few ideas he mentioned at the Con sounded quite cool.

Another Vampire Slayer

2006-07-25T10:59:00.000+01:00

It's been awhile since I've actually wrote about something sci-fi or comic book related and since that's the main point of this place I think it's about time.

So, the new Blade TV series. Thankfully continuing on from where Blade: Trinity finished, Blade's got a new partner and seems to be sticking to Detroit, now revealed to be his hometown. I'm not overly sure about the revealing of his real name and home town, I've no knowledge of the comic to know where they got this from, I only know what I've learnt from the films and the episodes of Spider-Man he appeared in. The name did seem a bit forced in, like they had decided that he had to have a proper name and just dumped a bit of dialogue in there to reveal it.

The new actor seems to be doing a good job of filling Wesley Snipes shoes, though he's nowhere near as cool at the minute and he does seem to hunch when he walks. Not sure if this is on purpose or just because he's not sure how to walk about with a sword strapped to his back. Whatever it is someone needs to teach him to stop it.

Also the whole premise for the ongoing story seems a bit... crap. I liked it when the girl was bitten, but thought we were going to get a replay of the (girl) from Blade 1 when Blade and Whistler stopped the transformation. Instead Blade gives her some of his serum and she gets her human mind back. To me this just seems wrong. It makes Blade having these abilities but being a good guy less unique, plus I thought the whole reason it worked for Blade was his half-breed nature. They give the explanation that it only works for her because she hasn't been turned for 24 hours, but I'm still not convinced.

Nightwing: All My Life

2006-07-11T12:23:00.000+01:00

So I've decided to have a go at one of these music videos edited together with animation. Because its me it had to be Nightwing and Foo Fighters. Enjoy!

Cheered up and Inadequacies

2006-07-05T12:28:00.000+01:00

Like Smith, I promised myself I'd not using this as a diary but felt I really needed to today.

Well I feel a whole lot better. I’ve been pretty down recently for various reasons and been trying various things to cheer me up, none of which have been working. It’s amazing what a quiet night in the pub will do for you. After the initial quick bitching session and catch up, we had a very long and very geeky conversation with both of us cracking the other up. We even managed to fit in a quick rant about women in. Thanks a lot mate ;)

Also figured I'd talk about why my comic has not been updating for over a month now. See in interviews with professionals they go on about how good a storyteller their artist is and how they pass on so much through the imagery. Due to a total lack of artistic talent I use sprites, so fixed camera angles and no real expression. Plus I don't make my own sprites, Alex makes them for me (which I am eternally grateful for), therefore I've got a set of sprites to pick from and if I do need a new one I have to give Alex a weeks warning. All in all these leads to a very frustrated writer. I'm not saying I've stopped. I needed a break, I reckon it should be back soon. I determined to get to the next few storylines where I've got people interested in doing guest arcs. In the very least I'll give me time to seethe over the inadequacies of my chosen format. Anyone fancy drawing it?

Finally an update

2006-07-02T22:03:00.000+01:00

I feel I’ve been letting my geek responsibilities (not to mention my general blogging ones) down recently. Thing is, I’ve not had anything major to write about. Watched the odd Smallville and kept reading my comics, but nothings really got me angry. So I’ve figured I better start covering subjects that impressed me.

First up is Whedon’s X-Men. Late to the game but earlier this month I bought the first trade and it was amazing. I know many people have said it but I’m just adding my voice to the choir. Colossus and Kitty were fantastic and Wolverine acted like Wolverine, which actually made me realise how bad X3’s portrayal of him was. It felt like the X-men should do. If you’re an X-Men fan or a Whedon one and you haven’t already I urge you to go get it!

Second, we have Star Wars: Republic Commando books. I know I said I was barely touching the Star Wars books anymore but Republic Commando the game blew me away with how good it was and the first book got quite a good review so I picked it up (BTW, I never did pick up that other series based after New Jedi Order, hive minded insectoid Aliens = Rubbish!). The first book is a straight forward, behind enemy lines infiltration op the second a lot more in depth deep cover investigation. I’m amazed at how different to the other novels they feel. They read exactly like most Special Ops books I’ve read, only difference is it’s based in a sci-fi universe. This is something I’ve been crying out for ever since we got the Rogue Squadron books, and thank god we’ve got them. They’ve managed to restore some of my love for Star Wars.

Last, we have Civil War. Two issues in and it’s fantastic. Captain America is kicking so much arse and being cool about it, Spider-Man’s reveal shocked me, took me a few days to process that one. Personally I’m enjoying this far more than I did Infinite Crisis.

Footballer's Wives

2006-06-19T19:54:00.000+01:00

Had to share this. Thanks to Johnny Vaughan on Capital Radio and my Mum for this.

Disccussion on what a collection of Footballer's Wives should be called. Here are the options:

A Boutique
An Implant
A Giggle
A Handbag
A Meow
A Pout
A Vacuum
A Rack
A Shallow
An Extension
An Excess
A Surgery

Personally my favourite is "a shallow".

The Wolverine and Storm Show

2006-06-01T22:43:00.000+01:00

Thanks Drew for the title of this.

You guessed it, I went to see X-Men 3 last night. Figured I'd better say something since everyone's expecting me too but this is going to be quite short, cos I actually quite liked it. Sure there were a few minor problems with it, Plastic guns, Vinnie Jones and Magneto's helmet not fitting properly and conducting whenever he used his powers.

Also the inclusion of Spike, the politically correct rip off of Marrow from the X-Men Evolution cartoon and far too many story threads for the time given, the Bobby, Kitty Rogue and her trip was tragically unexplored as was the Angel storyline with his father. Other than that I quite enjoyed it. Special mention must go to the inclusion of the Blackbird as the X-Jet, my favourite X-plane as it was this plane in the 90s cartoon and in the comics when I started with X-Men, a silly thing but I loved seeing it.

Update on Smallville and Stargate

2006-06-01T13:09:00.000+01:00

So I managed to get through the whole of season 4 of Smallville and it was quite a slog. My problem with the ‘losing memory’ story line got worse with 3 episodes in a row doing it at one point. The main story arc kept me hooked though and I’m glad it did. Season 5 has significantly improved things with only one “Oops, I’ve forgotten what I’ve actually done” episode to date. We’re also getting more concentration on the arc rather than the odd 5 minutes thrown in. I’m also getting perverse enjoyment about Clark worrying about the very problem that Brodie brought up in Mallrats, that he might take out Lana with one well aimed shot.

I’ve also got over my problems with the continuity with one simple realisation. There is no way this Clark can ever become any version of Superman that we know of. Lois and Lex would take one look at Superman and recognise the guy they spent a good few years hanging out with. And so what? If you’re that bothered lets call it an Elseworlds and stop worrying.

It also seems to have taken a leaf out of Stargate’s book for getting audience by having other cult actors appear. With James Marsters of Buffy and Angel fame appearing as Brainiac (though never called that) and having it rubbed in your face with a Vampire episode and the lead vampire being called Buffy. Then the other Duke of Haazard turned up, in a Dodge Charger no less. Plus they not just using real people but pulling in other DC heroes now. After season 4’s Kid Flash episode, we’ve had Aquaman and Cyborg from the Teen Titans in season 5.

Speaking of Stargate it looks like we are getting the mini Farscape reunion with Claudia Black becoming a regular in season 10. It’s also covering Firefly/Serenity angle with Morena Baccarin confirmed to appear and Richard Dean Anderson’s Jack O’Neill coming back for an episode or two. Plus Michael Ironside appeared at the end of Season 9 and he’s practically been in everything going.

DC saved by Superman and Schuie's up to his old tricks

2006-05-28T15:24:00.000+01:00

Well, sort of. It was the Monaco Grand Prix this weekend, the first F1 race I've watched for ages.

David Coulthard, DC for short, just secured Red Bull Racing's first Formula 1 Grand Prix podium plus DC has been having a bit of a rough time for the last few seasons. On a weekend where they were sponsored by Superman Returns. The car had the well known S on the nose and the back was made to look like a cape billowing from the driver's cockpit.

On the podium itself Coulthard had to wear a red cape, which would have been even funnier if he had been wearing the Superman firesuit like he was meant to and his team mate had done.

As for Michael Schumacher, I'd more or less forgotten all his dodgy little moves over the years, until Qualifying yesterday. Michael was top of the board with minutes to go before the end of the session and he goes and parks his car on Ras Cas corner and ruins everyone's lap so they can't better him.

Thankfully the stewards agreed with My Dad and Me (plus 90% of the F1 community) and sent Schumacher to start at the race from the pit lane. It shows how good a driver he is to end the race 5th (though at least 4 or 5 of those places were attrition).

I agree with Jackie Stewart that Schumacher didn't set out to do it, he had a minor incident which he decided to make a major one and ruin everyone else's laps.It seems a stupid move in what may be his last year in racing to remind everyone what type of person he can be, bringing back memories such as Adelaide with Damon Hill and Jerez with Jaques Villeneuve.

MI + MI:II

2006-05-07T19:58:00.000+01:00

Watched MI:III this afternoon. Not bad, better than the 2nd anyway. Problem is when I came out of 1 I was "Wow", I was the same for 2 though on repeat viewings it doesn't hold up. I came out of 3 and it was just "Yeah, it was good".

It did have a lot of quality sections in it. I thoroughly loved the SWAT like rescue and the kidnapping was fantastic, and you could so tell J.J. Abrams of Alias fame was behind the film at that point. The bridge sequence was pretty good, and I liked the fact that when Hunt broke into a building it stayed with the team outside being concerned and waiting, but maybe this was because it was so similar to a sequence in MI:II.

Which brings me to my first major gripe. As we left the cinema Danny mentioned it was like they hadn't watched either of the previous films and I have to totally agree with him. This is where I get really spoiler heavy so I'm warning you all now. After MI:II I remember saying to Smith that they're going to have to think of something new for the bad guy because in both films it was rogue agents, and while the main bad guy isn't a rogue agent the whole reason it goes so very wrong for Hunt is a rogue agent, who just like Voight in the first film, was his boss. Admittedly it had a bit of a twist on it but come on people, some originality please. And that wasn't the only thing, Hunt's squeeze is in trouble: MI:II. Has to steal a biological weapon: MI:II. Hunt goes rogue because everything's gone wrong and someone on the inside is a traitor: MI. Those are just off the top of my head, I’ve got a nagging feeling I’m missing one or two.

Also it's a good job I don't suffer from motion sickness because the floor in front of me wouldn't have been pretty if I did. Half the film the camera's acting like it's having an epileptic fit. I get the idea that it's all gone a bit hectic, but I actually want to be able to see something when things get slightly exciting.

All in all not a bad film, but I think I've had enough of Ethan Hunt and the IMF.

George Lucas is a total and complete tw*t

2006-05-04T19:51:00.000+01:00

The guy's been pissing me off for years. Various comments such as "The books aren't mine so who cares?" How about the fans you left alone for 20 years and that was all they had to keep them going?!? Then we had Greedo shot first and other such travesties of the Special Editions, shortly followed by The Phantom Menace, where if Jar Jar Binks wasn't enough we had the stupid little shit Anakin to deal with ("Rolling! That's a good trick" Yeah, if you're 10... oh wait, you are). Not to mention the numerous terrible dialogue moments and the total lack of chemistry between Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen.

But getting back to my point, ever since Lucas released the Special Editions we've been told that we would never see the original prints again, so I held on for dear life to my decaying video copies. As films the originals flowed so much more easier and felt much better films I wasn't very happy to know I'd never get to replace them for everlasting DVD's. I didn't go out and buy the DVD's of the trilogy when they were first released, and I ranted enough about them at the time so I'm not going to go into that again. Eventually I caved when the money grubbing gits I work for offered it at a super cheap price. I was pleased with some changes to closer the orginals, hated Christensen and wasn't bothered about "Did".

Then the bearded git's announced that after 9 years of saying they'll never release the original cuts again, they will.

Arsehole!

How to make a sci-fi show last

2006-04-27T16:44:00.000+01:00

I’ve been watching a lot of Stargate SG-1 recently, the little sci-fi show that could. Stargate is one of those shows that I used to watch because if was a fun show. When I went to uni I was never bothered about catching it so missed a few seasons worth. However, I did catch the odd bit of news through SFX magazine, Daniel leaving, Daniel coming back. The series getting renewed and renewed and now taking over X-Files for the longest running sci-fi show. But mostly I came back because I wanted to see how the brilliant Ben Browder from Farscape managed in this show now that he took over from Richard Dean Anderson as the head of the team.

The first 4 or 5 episodes of his debut series Claudia Black was a major character and we had our own little Farscape reunion. This led me to joke that this was how Stargate had managed to last so long, by being the home of actors from Sci-fi shows that no longer exist, thus attracting the fanboys. My statement was further helped by Lexa Doig from Andromeda starring as the new doctor on the base. Then things started to get out of hand. The Smoking Man from the X-Files turned up as one of the bad guys, leading me to joke all we need is someone from Star Trek. Low and behold, Richard Picardo, the Doctor from Star Trek: Voyager returns in his semi-recurring role, a role I had admittedly forgotten about when I made my joke.

So it seems the way to survive cancellation is pack your show with cast members for cancelled shows. Someone needs to tell Joss Whedon! (still bitter about Firefly)

Smallville's gotten a bit poo really

2006-04-17T11:01:00.000+01:00

Smallville was something I really enjoyed when it started. A look at Superman as his powers kicked in was pretty cool. Even if every villain of the week somehow got their powers from Kryptonite. Then Clark started to find out about his extraterrestrial origins. It started off well, and the use of Terence Stamp (Zod from Superman 2) as the voice of Jor-El and Christopher Reeve as the scientist who knows everything, later to be replaced by Margot Kidder after his death were master strokes.

However, the direction they took his plans for Kal-El didn’t really sit well with me. Now I’m not one of those geeks that cries when ever something changes in translation and admittedly I only know the broad strokes of Supes’ origin but as far as I’m aware Kal’s father never sent him to Earth to rule it and for me it ruins some of Superman’s nobility.

Also every other episode is someone loosing control of their body, pissing people off then coming to not remembering a thing and everyone not liking them. First one I can remember is Clark and the Red Kryptonite, and really it was the only good one. Then I pretty sure Chloe and Lana went under control several times during that season just for Clark to go into a cave mouth and come out as “Kal-El”. Then the cheerleaders start making everyone fall in love with them, Lionel Luthor takes over Clark’s body and is nasty to everyone and then Lana is taken over by a 16^th century witch, closely followed by Lois and Chloe, and I’m only half way through the season.

There is the occasional good episode though such as Kid Flash turning up, and that’s a continuity fuck up and a half, but it’s getting to the point that they’re not enough. I’m going to slowly work my way through to the end of Season 4 and see if I can be bothered with Season 5.

Something New

2006-04-15T21:32:00.000+01:00

Bored of having to arse about with HMTL and FTP every time I want to have a rant I thought I'd try Blogger and see how that works. Basically I want to rant far more than I need to update my website so taking a leaf from Smith's bookI decided to set up this thing. Hopefully have a proper rant soon.

When Dick met Chris

2005-07-14T13:17:00.000+01:00

I was given the 'Batman and Robin' toy as a present from Drew a few years ago, when I bought the Nightwing toy and I saw them next to each other, this was the first thing that popped into my head.

Lord of the Rings: The Third Age

2005-06-28T17:30:00.000+01:00

Anyone thinking about giving this game a go, REALLY don’t bother. When I started it, it was going quite well, but very quickly is broke down into fight every minute then watch a cutscene.

The over reliance of Gandalf voiceovers for movie clips seriously hampers the story mode. Nearly after every fight do you unlock an ‘Epic Scene’ that tells you either a bit of the film that doesn’t really concern yourself, or an explanation of events that just happened to you with scenes from the film which are quite irrelevant, for instance when I met my dwarven companion the Epic Scene was full of shots of Gimli with Gandalf’s voiceover saying something like, “This is Gimli, the Dwarf I travel with, he’s quite a nice chap unlike the one you have met. Shame you won’t get to meet him.” Occasionally though, the story will be told from in-game cutscenes that actually feature your own characters, when those happened I felt a lot more connected to the characters. Shame they were few and far between.

The battles are almost random encounters, just not quite. There’s a nice little icon at the top of the screen that gets brighter the closer you get to a fight making it feel slightly less random and much less annoying. They’ve put a few variations on the Final Fantasy style fighting. Most obvious of which is to change your party mid-fight. This is a major change and one I welcome quite enthusiastically, the amount of times I’ve got into a fight in Final Fantasy and think “Damn it, so-and-so would be really handy right now” I can’t count. Also the variation of the line ups; reinforcements, being surrounded and only long range is really quite cool. Shame they didn’t bother with different rows like Final Fantasy.

This game could have been great. But they turned it into constant fighting and ‘unlocking’ scenes from the film. And don’t even get me started on the Balrog fight.

Knights of the Old Republic II

2005-03-17T17:26:00.000Z

The sequel to one of my all time favourite games is out. Is it any good? Hell Yeah. Rich story and great characters, but it has its faults. Improving things for my personal experience is Chris playing Dark Side this time, instead of vaguely watching someone retrace my footsteps I get to see the other side of the game, some small differences, some major.

One problem I do have is the loading screens/times. I must stress here that in some areas they’re fine in, but others, of note so far the second planet you visit where I got extremely pissed off with them, every two seconds there seemed to be another one. What made it worse was some of the areas appeared tiny, making me wonder the reason for the need to load the area.

I’ve heard the complaint that the game doesn’t have any of the planets from the films. THANK GOD. Is it just me or is the fact that so much happened on backwater planets like Tatooine or Hoth getting a bit ridiculous? I have no problem with places like Coruscant constantly being visited, it is the Capital of the Galaxy after all, but the place furthest from the bright spot of the galaxy I do. Instead we visit a bunch of places that have resonance for this time period, originals or mainstays from games. Onderon, Dxun and Korriban are from the Tales of the Jedi comics that this is following on from. Plus Korriban is a return from the previous game, as is Dantooine. While Peragus II and Telos are originals. Its Telos and Nar Shaddaa that I have problems with. Why make it a new planet with Telos when the previous games Taris fulfils the role perfectly? Nar Shaddaa, surely this hasn’t been this built and that bad for all this time, I can buy that Coruscant is but not a Smuggler’s Moon.

One of the main parts of any RPG is the story. In this KotOR 2 excels… sort of. Personally I think the story of your character is much better that the one in the first time game. Instead of a mind wipe and you discovering what happened to you, the digital you knows exactly what he’s done but he’s keeping quiet, you have to put it together from what other characters know/say. To me this was much more satisfying, the character much more mysterious and for my Light Side game someone who didn’t want to advertise where he was during the Mandalorian Wars.

Which brings us nicely to the other members of your party. Once again all the members have rich stories behind them. Unfortunately this only comes out if you spend time with them, a good touch as they’ll only tell you things if they trust, an excellent example is in Chris’ Dark Side game where the Handmaiden won’t even speak to him anymore because he’s too evil. However it also has the downside that you can miss some major plot points if you don’t favour the right people. In my games one or two of the Handmaiden’s decisions were a bit surprising, and I imagine Chris is going to be quite baffled by her.

The plot characters outside your party are quiet a mixed bag which I feel is LucasArts fault rather than Obsidian’s but more on that later. Colonel Tobin, a secondary character on Onderon who reappears (in the Light Side game at least) felt extremely well flashed out. Meanwhile Darth Nihilus, one of the main bad guys, was as two dimensional as a Garfield cartoon. This becomes blatantly clear during the ending.

Ah, the ending, the main complaint of nearly every gamer whose played KotOR 2. The game was originally planned for a February/March release, then LucasArts took the bright decision to ship for Christmas in the US. Clearly the game wasn’t finished or even ready. Obsidian tried their best but in the end nothing will ever make up for that lost time.

This game could have outclassed the original easily and was well on the way to doing that. Unfortunately, LucasArts got greedy and as a result the game’s ending lets it down. Hopefully Knights of the Old Republic III can address this.

Comics Aren’t Just For Kids

2005-02-23T17:20:00.000Z

In this here text you may find a rant about Comics aren’t just for kids. However, this is more about a conversation I’ve been holding in for years. The conversation you have when someone actually says to you “But comics are for kids!”

Last night, I was in the pub with a fellow comic reader and a lady from work. As the night was winding up my friend just had to ask me about Green Lantern: Rebirth #4. The lady in question sat with a puzzled expression as we chatted for a minute or two about Hal, Kyle, Ollie and Sinestro. She just had to ask what we were talking about, “Comics” we both replied. Her eyebrow raised and “Aren’t comics just for kids?”
Darren launched straight into “Some of the comics I get I let my kid flick through, but others I wouldn’t. Take the Punisher for instance…”
I announce I’m going to the toilet while he covers the Punisher, figuring hit her with an obvious one first. As I leave I just hear “He’s a marine who’s just got back from ‘Nam and he goes on a picnic with his family and they stumble on to a mob hit…”

So I siphon the python, get some more drinks in and wander back to the table. Not sure what Darren’s said but it looks like a god damn good start. Angie still looks a bit hesitant though. “Why not just tell the stories in books?”
“Why should you?” I ask
Angie starts saying how books are quicker and easier to show what’s happening. Personally I think she’d conceded that comics tell stories for adults, but is struggling with the fact adult stories are being told in what she sees as a child medium.
We hit back that think of comics as a film, the art as the actors. While a book tells the story by spelling everything for you out, in a comic the art helps tell the story. Someone is sad it shows on their face, someone is sad their body language shows it. The look on Angie’s face proves another score for the comic geeks.

Angie’s crawling for ground, she knows she has a point, tries to bring up Batman, he’d been mentioned during the GL: Rebirth conversation. The problem is some people still think of Batman as Adam West, “Holly Campness, Batman” and the death traps they always escape at the start of the next episode.
Now she’s just wandered right into my territory. Time for the big guns.

Batman is a true psychopath. As a child he watched his parents get gunned down in a robbery, vowed no one would ever suffer like that and dedicated his life to fighting crime dressed as a bat which causes fear in criminals.
Angie hits back with Robin.
“Do you remember Robin is Dick Grayson?” I get an affirmative smile and nod. “Well in the comics he’s grown up and nearly got married.”
“And became Nightwing,” Darren pipes up, somehow I miss this little fact out, don’t ask how I wonder myself.
“The second Robin had his brains smashed in with a crowbar by the Joker,” Angie’s face is dropping as I say this, Darren drops in “Then blown up” and I carry on, “Which brings us to the third Robin, Tim. Tim’s mother is killed and his dad crippled when he first became Robin. In the last year, his dad, his girlfriend and another girl he is very close too have all been killed.” Angie’s face dropped. “Not exactly for kids is it.”

“So I should be careful the next time I take my son into the newsagents,” Angie quite rightly asked.
“Not really, comics are more in specialist stores these days. However, if you are thinking of buying any comics for your kid make sure it’s the right line. In one comic you have the fun stories suitable for kids, another you have Spider-Man finding out his first love woman cheated on him with his greatest enemy and gave birth years ago. The first love who he accidentally killed.”
“Erm Ok… He killed his first love?” Angie asked a bit intrigued I think.
“Absolutely. In the film where Green Goblin drops Mary Jane off the bridge and Spidey saved her. That didn’t go so well in the comics. Gwen was thrown off the bridge but Spidey webbed her feet to stop her, only problem she’d hit terminal velocity and SNAP. He breaks her neck. She was dead anyway though.”

That’s when the conversation pretty much ended, it being closing time and all. While I don’t think we had a convert on our hands, I do believe Darren and myself managed to get somebody to at least respect the medium. Another victory for the good guys.

Blade: Trinity

2004-12-16T17:17:00.000Z

How is this a 15? Blade 1 was less violent, less explicit language and the woman was less likely to turn a 15 year old on! I mean both 1 and 2 were 18s! Despite what Chris puts to me I’m gonna stand by my stance that the BBFC are getting far too lenient. Now I’m going to stop sounding like someone’s mother and actually get to what I thought about the film.

I liked it, I’m just really unsure how much, I keep flicking between it’s the weakest of the 3 Blade films or better than 2, but it is a great action film. This CGI is a lot better this time than in Blade 2, where the Ninja fight in front of the lights was terrible. It had a lot less glaring inconsistencies in this one too, Blade 2 was terrible for this, like the UV protection suits that they suddenly forget what they used them for. The biggest one I can really think of was him driving his oh so precious car straight into the bikers, then switching the UV headlights on to kill the driver. Surely he should have just switched the things on instantly killing the two bikers and not damaging the car he spent the first fight scene in Blade 2 not even scrathing.

Wesley Snipes came across as going through the motions in this film, he knows how cool Blade is, he knows he’s amazing so he just trundled through the film doing the same thing he’s done for the previous two. In fact the bits I really enjoyed of Snipes was when he was being a bit less like Blade, such as “Mother Fucker, I’ll kill you, I’ll just enjoy it more.”

Jessica Biel was fucking gorgeous and I’ll take her over Sarah Michelle Gellar and Kate Beckinsale any day of the week. She has to fight Eliza Dushka for me though, in chocolate mousse. It was nice to see her with the bow and arrows too, I’ve developed a great love for them because of Lord of the Rings and Green Arrow recently.

Ryan Reynolds as King was fantastic, and possibly what made the film so enjoyable. I was constantly getting Jason Lee with Kevin Smith vibes off of him. However, I want it on record I’ve been saying “Fuck me sideways” for years!

Dracula, I loved how they made him the ultimate vampire by giving him all the advancements we’ve seen in the other two films various vampires have had (minus Frost’s Blood Godhood obviously). Blade’s day walking, Reaper’s superior feeding method and the Count’s (Blade 2 old geezer) look to the nth degree. However, Dominic Purcell’s acting was terrible. Of course all villains in the Blade series have the unfortunate position of trying to live up to Stephen Dorff’s Deacon Frost.

As for the other bad guys, Danica Talos was fun in a campy way but I couldn’t see past the fact that she was in Rachel Leigh Cook’s Josie and Pussycats. Her brother did next to nothing, which is a shame cos it’s the second Ray from Due South! He deserves a good role! Triple H I wasn’t particularly fond of, both Chris and I laughed out loud at one point during the “Wrestling match” between him and King, but on looking back he makes a nice change from the last two big guys who were just big and hard. He’s big, hard and a big softy, I mean look at his stupid dog.

Overall I really did like it, despite how negative this all sounds, I seem to have the innate ability to just sit back and enjoy a flashy action film for being just that. I also think it did a great job of turning a movie and it’s sequels into a trilogy as well, the previously mentioned Drake being all the parts that various evolutions from vampires from the last two films the most obvious of this.

The Batman

2004-11-12T15:58:00.000Z

We have a new Batman show on the scene. Let me start with, isn’t it about time Warner Brothers gave some of the other big heroes apart from Bats and Supes a chance. Now that’s over with, on with the meat of the issue.

I really like the intro. The visuals are perfect, exactly what was right with the Beyond cartoon and Teen Titans as well. The music is pretty cool and I’m not sure if it’s in the theme or just background music of the program but I definitely heard hints of the old 60’s tune done very well.

The animation is very slick. Like the Teen Titans cartoon it’s not in the Dini style. As mentioned in the Teen Titans rant, I’m sad to see the Dini era is over. I’ve come to terms with it now, and he’s having one hell of a swansong over on JLU. The fight scenes flow extremely well. They’ve also gone the route of what is coming standard these days and this is using CGI for vehicles, which personally I like but I know these things are love or hate.

I’m not sure why they’ve gone with the Bat-Wave. One, what’s wrong with the Bat-Computer? Two, It brings back horrible memories of the 60’s Batman, especially when backed up by the Bat-Bot. Truth be told I quite liked the suit, just not the name. The amping up of Bane required it, and the fact that got trashed was even better, just Bat-Bot?

Not sure why they went for the Batman Returns version of Penguin rather than the one that’s been used everywhere else. It’s a version that never really worked that well while the freaky looking mobster is so much cooler. This version of Joker isn’t great either. He’s gone from insane genius willing to do anything for a laugh to just plain crazy. Man-Bat was a terrible mistake. They’ve turned the tragic character into just another looney that Bats has to fight. Another tragic character to suffer from this cartoon is Mr. Freeze, yet another tragic hero which for some reason they seem to using the version from Batman and Robin and turned him into Arnold Schwarzenegger, a low beat criminal one at that too.

This makes the rest of the characterisation even stranger. Bruce v Batman is done perfectly, especially considering this is early career, you can believe this guy becomes the obsessed individual we all know, but right now there’s a much more blurred line where Bruce ends and Batman starts. Ethan Bennett is great character, I can understand going away from Jim Gordon when most people think of him as the old Commissioner, but why a totally unique character and not someone like Hardback Bock. Yin is good as well and a great foil to Bennett but once again why the new character when you could use Montoya or another from Gotham Central. Alfred once again is spot on.

Not all the villains were done badly either. Catwoman is fantastic and I think I enjoy this version of the character more than the original Animated Series’. Bane got a power upgrade and a slightly new look to match but apart from that is nearly a carbon copy of Bane of old.

All in all I think the show’s a bit of a let down. Despite the characterisation of the main cast and the animation it just fails on the other levels. Removing what was great about most of the villains kills it, and the bad names for the tech are a step backwards. I’ll keep watching it, but I’m not overly fussed now.

Star Wars New Jedi Order

2004-09-16T15:57:00.001+01:00

The New Jedi Order has come to end and was it any good? Muh. Ok so it came to an end quite a while ago but I’ve only just got round to reading the last book so nurr. Personally I think that the whole thing was hit and miss.

A bit of a confession first. In general conversation I always blame the prequels for my fall (or should that be rise?) from hard core Star Wars fan to almost normal levels but to be honest it’s the prequels and the New Jedi Order books. My problems with it, well I just got really sick of a lot of what the series was basing itself around. Planets that were important to Star Wars as a whole were getting wiped off the map, I appreciate that this had to be done to show how bad the Yuuzhan Vong were, just don’t agree to the extent it was done. Coruscant I believe needed to happen, as much as it saddens me they did that to such an important part of Star Wars mythology it did need to happen. But ALL the other planets? I think they went a bit overboard.

I actually stopped reading the books just before Anakin’s death (Star by Star). They’d built him up so much and was easily the most interesting character during the whole thing to date I just got so annoyed and stopped dead. For about a year. I finally did pick up Star by Star and Anakin’s death blew me away, I’m not sure if I’ve read a better death. This nicely brings me onto one of the good things the series accomplished. The growth of the new generation. Like I just said it really looked like the only person who was growing was Anakin (Kyp Durron looked like he’d had a total personality reversal to me), upon his death everybody else got meaning, Kyp swung round, Jania went on a dark journey (buh-dum-ch), Jacen stopped being a whiney little git and Tahiri went through a shed-load and that was damn interesting.

Corran’s return bugged me though. I love the character but the only people who can write him properly are his creator Michael A. Stackpole and his buddy Timothy Zahn. Stackpole wrote him out in a very good way. I felt his reappearance later on just didn’t feel right.

The Yuuzhan Vong. Too many cooks spoil the broth. It took forever for these guys to actually mean something. For the first half I got no real feeling who they were or about, just sadistic bastards who liked mutilating themselves and enjoyed killing things, especially droids. Once again it was halfway through that it got good. Finally we got a sense why they were like they were, we understood why they were invading. By the very end I actually really enjoying the Yuuzhan Vong.

From where New Jedi Order started and where it ended what do we have? Well a shit load of property damage to the Star Wars universe, major growth of the Solo twins, and the Jedi Order finally comes to mean something in the post movie world. The amount of planets bug me, but looking back on it now I realise that I expected this saga to make the Jedi’s mean something and actually develop the new generation. That was done, even though it still was Luke, Leia and Han save the galaxy a bit, it’s getting less so.

All done, I like where the series ended up, took too long to get going though. However I don’t like where Star Wars books are now. With this and Clone Wars it looks like they’re going to be huge sagas spanning many books, I hope it doesn’t become the norm. New Jedi Order also gets the unfortunate honour of me no longer buying every Star Wars book anymore because of it. As it stands now I’m not getting any Star Wars books unless they have Michael A. Stackpole, Timothy Zahn or Aaron Allston as authors. Which of course gives me a problem because Allston is writing parts 4-6 in a series of 9. Ahh whom I’m kidding I’ll get all nine parts.

Star Wars Special Editions

2004-09-11T15:54:00.001+01:00

I loved the special editions when they first came out. LOVED them! I was majorly into the whole Star Wars universe and all they did was enhance it. It took me a few years to look at it objectionably and realise what a fucking cock up Lucas had made. The end celebrations were much better with just Ewoks. Greedo shooting first? For fuck’s sake let’s just totally destroy Han’s character development, totally destroy his uber cool moment and make him an idiot. I mean did Lucas actually think it was believable for someone the distance Greedo was to miss?

Now we have even newer versions coming out. One’s that Lucas claims are even better than before. So what travesties await us this time? Well first off we have Naboo joining the celebrations at the end of Jedi. Hayden Christensen replacing Sebastian Shaw as Anakin as well. And most criminally of all bloody redubbing Boba Fett to sound like his damn “did”.

But of the not really bothered, hard core fans are crying about it ruining the charm, is the once more improved effects. Most notable is the improvement to A New Hope’s Special Edition Jabba which so needed it.

Good stuff though? Surely not. Actually it seems so. The first thing I heard about was Ian McDiarmid replacing the ‘fake’ Emperor in Empire. This one is a stroke of genius. It was one of those annoying things that couldn’t be helped while developing a movie series. Best of all though? Apparently Greedo no longer shoots first and Han gets to mutter “Yes, I bet you have” again.

I’m almost tempted. At the very least I’ll get rid of the original Special Editions from a few years ago.

Worlds Finest!

2004-08-22T13:22:00.000+01:00

Inspired by Chris and me watching the Batman episode "Girl's Night Out" while drinking.

Justice League Unlimited

2004-08-05T15:53:00.000+01:00

So the Justice League gets a third season and a new set up. Now they’re the Justice League Unlimited and they now have every DC hero as members. Now that’s what I call a concept. It one of those that has been batting about my head for the last year or so, after I read JLA/JSA: Vice and Virtue. Why on Earth are there multiple teams of superheroes on the Marvel and DC worlds. Doesn’t it make a ton more sense to have one team with all the heroes in then when a mission comes up you pick the best people for the job?

And what a perfect way to arise awareness of DC heroes for the public. My guess is every episode will have one of the Big 7 in with a team of unknowns, just like the first episode ‘Initiation’, Green Lantern, Supergirl (returning from the Superman series), Captain Atom and Green Arrow (who in my opinion sounded to young but apart from that was spot on). Hopefully this will inspire people to go pick up books of any heroes they really like from the show and gives a chance to someone other than the big names to shine outside of the comics.

A new name and a new theme tune. Thank God we got rid of the CGI start, I’m not too keen on the ‘samples from the show’ part of it but I guess they have to showcase the characters involved. Shame the old tune had to leave, I really liked that the new one I’m unsure of, but haven’t made my mind up.

On a small note, Captain Atom was voiced by George Eads. That might not mean much to most but he’s Nick in CSI. WHICH IS COOL! He’s the character you should hate cos he’s all buff and you know the girls love him, but he’s a dude thrown in so he’s alright.

Now all we need is an episode with Nightwing in and a Hard Travelling Heroes episode, ok it wouldn’t be Hal but still, and I’m set for life.