A Look Back At Brain Munching

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?

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.