BeefJack: Prototype 2 Preview

Another article published over at BeefJack, a Prototype 2 preview. I really loved the first Prototype, and have been looking hoping for a second one as soon as the credits rolled. Unfortunately, doing this preview has put me off the sequel a little. I was bemoaning the fact I couldn't pick it up on release, now picking it up cheap a few months down the line doesn't seem like that bad a thing.

Mass Effect 3's ending and my problems with it

Now that I know Mass Effect 3's ending I've been playing catch up on all the bitching about it. Ignoring the over-the-top petitions and calls to boycott BioWare FOREVER, some of these people kinda have a point. This is about to become spoiler central. You have been warned.

I have nothing against downer endings. My periphery glance at the bitching before I'd seen it myself convinced me it was just a bunch of gamers that couldn't handle everything not going their way. Shepard dies. Big whoop. Grow up. But the lack of choice? The feeling that most of your decisions don't effect the end of the game? Now there's a point I have to agree with.

BeefJack: List with a Twist

Three articles in two weekends. This one was a lot of fun to research.

5 80s action movies reimagined as FPS games

No Stallone sort of bugs me, I really wanted to include Cobra but couldn't find it anywhere. Rambo 2 and 3 certainly fit the bill but by the time I'd admitted defeat on Cobra I'd already written the rest. If I'd got chance to do it I'd probably take Dirty Harry out. Not because of its seventies origins, the article's too light hearted to worry about that, but during the research I found out that there was nearly an open-world game based on the first movie. There's currently a Facebook campaign to try and revive it.

Also found out some other crazy facts:
The Russians did a remake of Commando
Steven Seagal started his film career as a martial arts stunt coordinator on Never Say Never Again and A View to a Kill.

Games for a Hangover: Red Dead Redemption

It appears it's the weekend of me on BeefJack. Another article of mine is up, part of our regular feature Games for a Hangover. My choice: Red Dead Redemption.

BeefJack: Why Mass Effect fans feel alienated

Another of my articles is up on BeefJack. Changing the world: Why Mass Effect fans feel alienated. All about how Bioware blundered with the latest Mass Effect book. Really proud of this one, original version was written last week when I was quite outraged at the whole affair. Monday was spent IMing with the editor, Lewis Denby, and made it ten times better.

Struggled for ages with the title though. That's not even mine. The one I left it with was "Mass Effect Deception: How to Lose Fans and Alienate Gamers" Lewis obviously wasn't keen on my reference.

The Darkness: From page to polygon

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

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

Chuck vs. The End

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

Its probably why season 5 has been so good, for once they actually knew this was the end and it was time to draw a line under it all.

Mass Effect 3 Unlocks AKA Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning demo

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

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

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

SOPA and PIPA

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

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

Book Title Story

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

The books were:

WITHOUT REMORSE by Tom Clancy

DEBT OF HONOUR by Tom Clancy

RAINBOW SIX by Tom Clancy

TEETH OF THE TIGER by Tom Clancy

INCOMPETENCE by Rob Grant

BLACK HOUSE by Stephen King and Peter Straub

DEAD EVEN by Brad Meltzer

FIRST COUNSEL by Brad Meltzer

MILLIONAIRES by Brad Meltzer

ZERO GAME by Brad Meltzer

BROKEN ANGELS by Richard Morgan

GOOD OMENS by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

ICURAS HUNT by Timothy Zahn

BETTER THAN LIFE by Grant Naylor

BACKWARDS by Grant Naylor

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

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

This one felt different though. the vision of BROKEN ANGELS I'd had the night before wasn't exactly what I'd call GOOD OMENS for our upcoming ICARUS HUNT. But as FIRST COUNSEL I had a DEBT OF HONOUR to the organisers to see it through.

Genetically engineered prey. Scientists cook up mythical creatures in a lab. Rich people hunt them for a kill that they will be the only person in history to ever claim. Many called it genius. They had it BACKWARDS, it was INCOMPETENCE. You can't go messing with nature and expect nothing to go wrong.

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

The Annual Games Cycle

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

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

My First Proper BeefJack Article

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

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

And A Happy New Year

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

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

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

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

Merry Halo Christmas Everyone

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

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

Wait! That wasn't there before was it?

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

Snow began to fall, huge flakes of it

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

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

It was 9pm on Christmas Eve and he had two hundred miles to go before he got home. And home was exactly where he was going to get to, not matter the weather, Tim was three this year and Dave knew that this was when Christmas mattered and he was going to be there when his son woke up to see what Santa had brought.

It.. It's changed?!?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Halo article on BeefJack

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

Halo: Combat Evolved - Happy anniversary

Pricing the Digital Ink

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

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

On the Fringe of Fringe

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

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

No More Through The Gate

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

GeekGasms.org

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

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

The Two C's of Television

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pocahontas in Spaaace

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

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

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

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

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

A Look Back At Brain Munching

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.