Doctor Who turn 50 part 3.5: The Three Doctors

Yes, I'm going outside the boundaries of our one serial a Doctor rule to include the serial with multiple Doctors. Look we discussed last time I'm struggling to not watch more, and these episodes have always intrigued me. Besides, it fits with the 50th having Ten and Eleven meeting the mysterious Non-Doctor.

Here we have the whole universe at stake and some high up Time Lords decide to break their own rules and let The Doctor team up with his previous selves. Troughton's more than solidified as awesome here, and the interplay between him and Pertwee is amazing. Shame Hartnell is banished to a TV screen, but even there it's clear he's a lot older. The Time Lords felt a little odd compared not only to what we know today, but also what we saw in War Games.

Doctor Who turns 50 part 3: The Daemons

Jon Pertwee's entry in my look book. Pertwee is the closest I get to having my own Doctor of the old cast having watched bits of Spearhead from Space and Doctor Who and the Silurians back when I was a kid.

However, watching this – and understanding his exile this time – Three seems like a total dick. He's short with everyone. Certainly my least favourite of the Doctors so far, which is odd, cos I vaguely remember liking him when I watched Spearhead a decade or so ago. I do like the idea that he's just pissed off about being stuck on Earth though.

Star Trek - Strike Zone book review

Just a quick repost of a small review I did for yet another Star Trek book as part of my Peter David read through, next up was Strike Zone. Actually the book that started this whole thing other than just New Frontier - which was how it started - as someone informed me that the alien species introduced here go on to play a role in the later series.

Strike Zone is interesting but also a little odd - almost like someone decided to write a sitcom episode based aboard the Enterprise. Everything seems to be played for laughs to some extent. Data throws out 'misunderstood' one liners with rapid ferocity. There's actual physical comedy during the big fight scene near the end, which means for the most part you really never take the whole thing seriously.

As it's written in 89 it also suffers from the problem a lot of tie-in novels do when done at the time when the show was in early production. That of some of the characters don't sound quite right. A couple of phrases David injects goes against those that TNG settled on, and he's also pretty brave with a couple of historical moments, such as Klingon politics, that later shows went completely the opposite on. Still I enjoyed it, though I think it might be completely missable, if not for the fact PAD brings back the other alien race, the Kreel, in his later series of New Frontier, which is pretty much why I read it.

Doctor Who turns 50 part 2: War Games

Going into The Daleks and knowing I was about to watch the first appearance of the greatest enemy allowed me to appreciate what I was seeing and put it into context. I didn't have that for War Games. I'd been vaguely warned of “something huge for canonicity” but nothing more than that. Half way through we got the War Chief, and I thought I figured it out. Here was the very first appearance of the Master, his identity to be revealed later... Or maybe it was retconned?... Hang on, he's dead? So he's not the Master?

What all this worrying about the War Chief meant was I totally missed this was not only the first appearance of the Time Lords, but the point where a whole lot of back story for the Doctor was established. While I'm not sure watching back story you already know can be as thrilling as going back to a “first appearance” like the Daleks, there's no denying War Games is important.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has landed

Now I know I've still to address GTA V (barely stopped playing it), I've got about three more parts of Doctor Who at 50 half ready, but this week something happened that I thought I should cover first. Agents of SHIELD started.

I've been waiting for ages for this one. Whedon returns to television and regular instalments of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yes please. Spoilers AHOY!

Star Trek - Double Helix: Infection book review

As I was reading Double Helix: Infection on Kindle as part of collection, I was shocked at how suddenly it ended. I felt like I wasn't even halfway through the story when all of a sudden things started to wrap up. The story never really got going, the ending was by chance, I just don't feel any sort of resolution from it at all.

Now obviously it's part one of a bigger series so it was never going to be one hundred percent resolved, but you can frame it in a way that offers the individual story closure. The situation on that particular planet could be much better addressed than it was.

BeefJack: Game Dev Tycoon Review

Game Dev Tycoon isn't the type of game I'd normally go near. After enjoying, then quickly getting annoyed with both Theme Park and Theme Hospital I've just never bothered with business sims again. This sort of popped up out of nowhere, and as my plate was relatively empty I figured it was worth a shot.

And am I glad I did. I said in the review, this needs a sequel. That is REALLY true. I've since gone back to it - always a high sign of quality if the reviewer goes back - and those problems are more apparent, though it has a slight rogue-like element in you get to keep your knowledge of the audience which is pretty cool.

Game Dev Tycoon Review

The De-evolution of DC Comics

The parting of ways between DC and the Batwoman creative team of W. Haden Blackman and J.H. Williams is yet another sign that all is not well at one of comics biggest houses. Since the launch of New 52, it seems that there's always a writer or artist leaving because editorial is overbearing. We barely get any creator leaving because their story is finished. It's nearly always their editor wouldn't even let them tell it.

This time the Batwoman duo had their leading lesbian propose to her girlfriend, and were then told that they could never have the two women actually marry. The news of their departure led to another outcry from fans wondering just what is wrong with DC? What are the editors thinking? And more shouts that they were done with the publisher.

I read Cyberforce and Aphrodite IX

In the 90s, I was a teenager, so for my comics reading this meant two things. 1. My traditional reads of Marvel comics were of particularly low quality and 2. Top Cow's bad girl/cheesecake approach was just the thing for my out of control hormones. I became a big fan of Witchblade and Fathom, as well as the ultra violence that Darkness offered. I threw myself into their darker than Marvel universe, but I never got round to Cyberforce or Aphrodite IX. Both tech based comics would suit my love of Sci-Fi, but both seemed at odds with the supernatural world Witchblade and Darkness inhabited. Then I switched back to Marvel.

This of course meant I missed the rebirth of Top Cow under the guiding light of Ron Marz but that's another story. However, not only has the mystical side gone through a relaunch, but they well all out with Cyberforce and tried a Kickstarter. Which meant that the crowd funding paid for the first five issues so Top Cow could give them away for free. It's a bold move. They also gave away the first issue of Aphrodite IX's reboot for Free Comic Book Day. So naturally I gave them both a try.

BeefJack: Splinter Cell: Blacklist review

Splinter Cell is a franchise I should have been a fan of a long time ago. My love of super spies almost rivals that of things in space or superheroes. Yet Sam Fisher and Third Echelon never quite sat well with me. I tried the original game back on the original Xbox (man, I want to write Xbox 1 every time there, stupid Microsoft) but I found it way too hardcore with too little room for error. I can remember the exact room I got up - the Chinese Embassy with a keypad door - when I decided to give up and forsake the franchise. I ignored every iteration after that, yet the growing fervour for how well they were done did make me glance at them from time to time.

Finally with Xbox 360 we had the wonderful opportunity of demos for download, so I tried Double Agent. That was still rubbish. But years later I also tried the Conviction demo and that was awesome. I bought the full game and thoroughly enjoyed myself. So when Blacklist was announced I was quite happy with what Ubisoft were looked to be doing. Now it's out, well, here's my thoughts.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist review

Tomb Raider, The Non-Reboot

Admittedly a little late to the party, I finally played the new Tomb Raider, and I loved it. I think the game kept going a little too long gameplay wise. Lara got a little too action hero post-Temple. As an origin story it was brilliant, even if she went from one kill to many a little too easily. I'd have liked a three stage process, first kill, realising she will have to keep killing, then first brutal kill. As it is, her first stealth kill where she, CALMLY STRANGLES A GUY WITH HER BOW happens a bit too easily for my liking. But it's a game and these are the concessions of the medium.

However, I do have one big problem with another aspect of it. Everyone was calling it a reboot. It isn't. If you listened to last week's BeefJack podcast you'll have heard me say some of this argument, but partly having not finished the game, and partly being ambushed, I didn't argue my case very well. I used the example of Star Trek as a reboot, the new JJ Abrahms films being a different timeline to the old Roddenberry stuff. While true, Abrahms also did it in-universe too, so a better explanation would be Batman.

Strategy Informer: Space Hulk review

I've been eagerly waiting for Space Hulk ever since I first found out about. I'm not that huge of a 40K fan, it's gothic sci-fi setting doesn't do that much for me. However, it does look fecking cool. Plus, since XCOM I've discovered I might quite like tactical turn based strategy so this seemed like the perfect chance to test if it was a one off thing, or a game type I really enjoyed.

I had a quick peak at it while I was at Rezzed, and I was struck by how slow the Space Marines moved. It seemed at odds with what I knew. Unfortunately I didn't get to play it, but my trepidation for the title performing had started to rise.

It was kind of a hard review to write. As you may have seen with other reviews, Space Hulk has its problems, and I'm not going to say those issues don't exist. My problem comes from that for the most part I looked past those and still had fun. I think all the reviews I've done to date have been a clear "This is fun because..." or "This is shit because..." however, I think it might be my first instance of "Here's all the reasons it's rubbish, but despite all that I like it."

The final score I gave it was something I really struggled with, I'd yo-yo between one figure because I had fun, and another because of all the rough edges. In the end I went right between the two, and then the Editor may have changed it anyway. To be fair, I think the score he gave more closely matches my words, despite my feelings.

Strategy Informer: Space Hulk review

Transformers Prime is more than Optimal

Transformers Prime has finished, well nearly finished. There's a movie coming out in a few months, but the series itself has wrapped up. Just live Star Trek tries to hit that magic Season 7, Transformers seems to have three seasons and a movie. It's weird that I only really started watching it a year ago, after some initial hesitation which had left me abandoning the show. When I wrote about it at that time I was only a few episodes into the first season and I was already starting to enjoy the new cartoon. Having now seen all three, I think it might just be the best Transformers show there has been. Ever.

One of my original complaints were the kids being in the driving seat. I've almost always been annoyed at the inclusion of humans, going all the way back to Spike. I've just never seen the point. They get in the way and annoy, and that's exactly how the three in Prime started. If we were getting another show about kids who just happened to be friends with giant robots I wasn't interested. Then it turns out they tend to be one of the shows biggest strengths.

BeefJack: Memoria Preview

Wow, not only do I actually get a blog back out on the Friday for a change, but over at BeefJack my preview for Memoria, a point and click from Daedalic Entertainment is up. I slightly cover this in the article, but Memoria is an interesting one. It's a sequel, but they don't admit that anywhere in the PR stuff, instead trying to pass it off as a new game about the female protagonist. Who - at least in the preview build I played - only took up about a third of the playtime.

BeefJack - Memoria Preview

The 12A/PG-13 Wolverine

Wolverine should not be a 12A (or PG-13 for the Americans). This is one simple reason, his claws. He has razor sharp claws that extend out of his hand. There is no way to make a character with that being one of his most defining features super kid friendly unless you make some serious short cuts, which is pretty much was Jason Mangold did. Every stab and every slice never draws blood, we only get told he kills someone with them three or four times in the whole film. He stabs someone just off screen so many times it's ridiculous. There's just too many concessions here to make the film suitable for the children.

His claws are also a big bone of contention in the story for me. The Wolverine is a story that finds a way of inhibiting his much vaunted healing factor, something that many writers complain about and is quite a tried and tested trope with the little Canucklehead. And if I'm quite honest, it works pretty well here. Except for one reason. His claws.

Doctor Who turns 50 part 1

Doctor Who has been one of those franchises that I've always been interested in but never dived properly into. Hell, I only started watching it properly with Russell T Davies and Christopher Ecclestone's revitalisation of the show. Before that, I'd got the odd episode and I think I'd only watched one full serial, with Third Doctor Jon Pertwee, who I vaguely remember liking and the TV movie with Paul McGann. Oh, and the animated Shada with McGann too, which I realise is a bit weird.

Every now and again I'd feel a pang to maybe go back and try out some of the old stuff, usually at the end of a current series had properly thrilled me, or an episode that brought back an old bad guy or reference. But not having a clue where to start and it looking like a momentous task, I never bothered. Until this year when I visited a mate and he had Genesis of the Daleks on DVD. We sat down, we watched it, I wasn't impressed. Any interest in going back was dead.

Shadowrun really does Return

Shadowrun Returns is out. While other high profile Kickstarters make headlines due to delays, Harebrained Schemes stuck to their proposed release date – more or less – and have made an RPG in just over a year. That's pretty impressive. Of course a lot of the work has already been done as the lead designer Jordan Weisman helped create the Shadowrun setting twenty odd years ago.

I first heard of Shadowrun about seven years ago when I started playing pen and paper RPGs. Its mix of cyberpunk and Tolkien intrigued me. I even came up with a concept of a sword wielding elf street samurai who was ex-corp. But for some reason my gaming group never got round to playing the actual game.

Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians preview

Beatbuddy was a game that I first played at Rezzed, and if I'm honest with you guys, it's because it was next to the Space Hulk booth and they'd been emailing a lot before the convention. Despite this rather dubious beginning, I'm glad I did give it a go, because it's a really fun sidescroller. Unfortunately, I had so much on when I first got back that I didn't get chance to write about it until well after my thoughts had faded on it. Luckily Thr3aks had preview code ready, so I played it again - and saw more of it - and then wrote about it.

Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians preview

The return of Mid-tier Games

Day late, sorry. I wrote this a while ago, round about when Blood Dragon came out, but I managed to get distracted by other work, so I'm posting it here instead. It's a subject I feel quite passionate about, which you'll hear if you listen to today's BeefJack podcast.

When this current gen of consoles started we saw a quick decline in a certain type of game. Not quite Triple-A, but with more budget behind them then your indie developers. These mid-sized studios were what gave the PlayStation 2 such a ridiculously large library of games.

But as development costs sky rocketed, it was no longer financially viable for publishers to try these games. Their budgets were practically triple-A, though the experience wasn't. So instead they threw the spare cash into the blockbusters and they got even more bloated... I'm getting sidetracked, where was I?

The original Star Trek movies

As part of my big Star Trek revival, I've decided to rewatch all of the TOS movies. I've not seen most of them since I was a kid, and knowing the reputation of some of them, I've bad mouthed them quite a bit. But I've realised I can't really remember them. I was probably under fifteen when I last watched them and that was, sadly, a long time ago. It was time I gave them another shot.

Slight giveaway about Star Trek Into Darkness is featured too. You have been warned.

Strategy Informer: Magrunner: Dark Pulse

I have never struggled with a review so much as Magrunner. I've played worse games (Marvel Heroes), but Magrunner just left me feeling completely uninterested. If I hadn't had to play it I doubt I'd have last five minutes. Anyway, for a full explanation as to why it's rubbish:

Magrunner: Dark Pulse review

BeefJack: Deadpool Review

Another review, this time it's Deadpool. A character I loved up until Marvel realised that he was suddenly super popular and flooded the market. I got a bit of Deadpool fatigue, and Daniel Way's bit too wacky interpretation of the Merc with a Mouth was the final straw. Recently I've started looking back, and having read the first issue of Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn's new run it seems the comic might be back on the right track too.

Anyway,

Deadpool Review

Despite the score, I really did enjoy my time with Deadpool. It's not without its faults (which the review explains) but I'm enough of a Wade Wilson fan to not care. I enjoyed it. Just when it comes to recommending it to other people it becomes a bit harder, and really that's my job.

Strategy Informer: Tengami Preview

Finally there's another Rezzed article out. This time it's my quick playthrough of Tengami. It's hard to explain just what type of game Tengami is. Basically put you control a samurai walking through a pop up book... yeah that's not very clear at all, is it. Just go read my preview!

Tengami Preview

State of Decay thoughts

Zombies and videogames have always gone together well, partly it's because their AI is pretty simple to program (swarm the player) and enemies models don't need to be as distinctive as other enemy types. Another is that they are an unquestionable evil. In a medium where story telling isn't always the best, you need something the player will fight without question. Just like Nazis.

However, videogame zombies and zombie lore have always been very different beasts. Body shots count. You can usually get bitten and not really worry about it. That is until recently. Last year gave us The Walking Dead and Zombi U. My love of The Walking Dead has already been covered, but it was more a story in a zombie world then surviving in one. Zombi U on the other hand sounds a bit more like it. There, if you get bitten, you die and lose everything. Then take control of another survivor and you might just bump into your old guy, now the living dead. Kill him and claim your stuff back. Unfortunately it was on Wii U so not many have played it.

Meanwhile, three separate projects aim to give a real Zombie horror survival experience this year. Dead State, Project Zomboid and State of Decay. While Project Zomboid has released an alpha and is available to play in a early state, State of Decay is the first 'finished' one out.  Despite the name, it's more like you have an entire county to cover, with one large town and two smaller ones with various croppings of humanity scattered about. Here you are dumped with the most unlikeliest of survivors and told to survive. You can trade with other groups, head into any building in the entire county to scavenge, all while trying to keep you and your group alive.

It's brilliant.

Strategy Informer: Ethan: Meteor Hunter preview

The last two updates I've had here are just links to elsewhere. Well, rather nicely, I've been getting a lot of work, but also over last week I went to Rezzed and had a bloody great time. Not only did that take me away from my (self promised) Friday updates I try and do, but it gave me plenty to write about for the games industry. So this blog might not be much more than "Hey! Go read this!" for awhile.

Anyway, here is the first.

Ethan: Meteor Hunter preview

A nice little platformer that didn't seem to live up to its potential.

Strategy Informer: Marvel Heroes

I wanted to like Marvel Heroes. I really did. I've spent countless hours with Drew and some others playing through the Marvel ARPG games all the way from X-Men Legends to Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. They were our games. Now I'm living 300 odd miles away Marvel Heroes looked like a way of recapturing that magic.

It doesn't. What's more, Gazillion and Marvel try to rob you at the same time of giving you a poor gameplay experience.

Marvel Heroes Review

BeefJack: Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness 4 review

I've been a fan of Penny Arcade for quite a while now, even with all their Kickstarter shenanigans. When On the Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness started way back in 2008 I jumped on it, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Now it has come to an end. And I reviewed it. Just like I did the third one.

Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness 4 review

Gather around the Captain's Table

The jumping of the time frames is a constant of the Captain's Table series, but it's taken to a new level here as Kirk tells a story set during the 60s series, Sulu (and later Kirk) during the movies, all while the framing story takes place post-movies. For the most part it works well, but I get the feeling L.A. Graf shoe-horned the framing story in. Considering this is meant to be Kirk and Sulu tell their stories to a captive audience, there are times when you'd expect the other to throw in a sly comment, obviously not all the time, but at the end of a chapters when the storyteller shifts. At the end, as their tales finish and we switch back to the framing, nobody seems to care any more everyone having drifted off as the two Starfleet captains finish their story. Jerry Oltion (the only other one I've read so far) handled it much better with a bit of bar-type camaraderie going on throughout.

E3 2013: Picking sides in the next-gen

For somebody who writes about videogames for a living, I've not written a great deal about the next generation consoles, partly because I say a lot on the BeefJack podcast. Now we're at E3, now seems like the perfect time to address that.

When Sony revealed the PlayStation 4 I was there laughing at how bad of a job they did. It's hard to remember why now, but it felt lacklustre. When Microsoft announced the Xbox One, suddenly Sony didn't look like they'd done that bad of a job after all. Microsoft completely flunked it, a stupid name that someone in marketing was probably extremely pleased with themselves with, one hour of talking about TV and barely anything on games themselves. The few they did mention are the ones that will come to everything anyway, Fifa and Call of Duty. So meh. Except Quantum Break, but that was so vague it was hard to get excited.

My return to the PC

When I was a kid I always wanted a console. A Mega Drive or a SNES, I wasn't particularly fussy. However, my dad insisted on something I could use educationally as well, so instead I got an Amstrad, closely followed by an Amiga (which thanks to rampant piracy at the time probably made me more of a gamer than Sega or Nintendo ever could). Then of course it evolved into a PC, and my status as a computer gamer was cemented.

That was me for my teenage years. I was PC through and through, all the way to University. There, sharing a flat with a bunch of other gamers - especially Andrew Smith who was die-hard console gamer - I started investigating just how much consoles had to offer. The final nail in the coffin was winning my first Xbox. Yes, I won it. My first console was totally free. I know, I'm a dick.

BeefJack: Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded Preview

Despite being a big Point and Click fan, I never really got Leisure Suit Larry. Sure as a teenager it was something to giggle at, and play off your over-active hormones. It always fell into the same category as Lula, except the Germans would go way further than Sierra ever would. So how did it come to be regarded as one of the Point and Click big franchises? Either way, it managed its Kickstarter funding, and I got to preview it.

Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded Preview

Writing this as a preview was a bit odd. I was given a full copy of the game, though admittedly with a few bugs still running around. That said, looking at the Kickstarter, creator Al Lowe was ready to release this version, but others decided to squish those bugs first. None of them really got in the way, there were some weird graphical glitches here and there, but only one was really distracting. Either way, we're told Preview, so this is a preview, even if I really approached it as a review.

BeefJack: Resident Evil Revelations review

This was a bit of a quick turn around for a review. I got the game last last week, and the embargo was first thing this morning, so a draft had to be in last night. Unfortunately that's resulted in some last minute edits without my say so. Some work, some don't so much. But that's the nature of a quick turn around.

Either way though, Resident Evil Revelations seriously impressed me. I was a bit hesitant about about Capcom saying the sales of this would dictate the future of the franchise - I mean how much can a port of a 3DS game really do? Turns out quite a lot.

Resident Evil Revelations review

If you want Resi to return to something more like 4 and those that came before it, I urge you to give Revelations a try. You won't be disappointed.

Star Trek Into Darkness - Out of Lens Flare

It's hardly a secret that since Christmas I've dived back into Star Trek, mostly the 24th Century adventures of The Next Generation, New Frontier and Voyager. But like a lot of lapsed fans my return to this franchise was mostly down to JJ Abrams and his reboot in 2009. Now his sequel is out.

Like many a Star Trek before me, and no doubt countless afterwards, I'll say that Into Darkness is a great science fiction action film that just happens to be Star Trek. From this point forward Spoilers Ahoy!

Mark of the Ninja

I've been meaning to play a Klei Entertainment game for a while. I played the demo of the original Shank and was blown away by the animation and art, and the side scrolling beat-em up was pretty damn fun. But I revisited it to show a friend how awesome it was a few days later and was incredibly disappointed by how little fun had retained for a second playthrough.

Every time the Shanks came up for sale on XBLA I've thought about slapping down the Points for them, but just never enough to actually get them. Then Mark of the Ninja came along. I'll admit I didn't even realise it was Klei for a very long time, well after release. It intrigued me, especially with its art style (which the fact I didn't realise it was Klei makes me look even more stupid). But it was BeefJack's own Anthony Shelton that really got me to pay attention.

While the rest of us were harping on about how good The Walking Dead and XCOM: Enemy Unknown were, Ant declared Mark of the Ninja his 2012 Game of the Year, and he's not far off the mark.

Supernatural - Life after Death

Supernatural should have finished at the end of its fifth season. It end with a hell of a lot of finality, and wrapped up everything that had happened, hinted at or ever talked about. You can't get much bigger than the end of the world. Not just your every day thermo-nuclear war apocalypse either, but End of Days, Heaven vs. Hell. Judgement Day without Arnie.

But Supernatural's ratings were too good, so CW commission a sixth season. But the show's creator, Eric Kripke was done, his five year story was told. So we got a new showrunner and everyone said Supernatural should have finished at the end of its fifth season. Until now that is.

BeefJack: Injustice: Gods Among Us review

Last week I said I doubted I would get a blog post up and did. Today I definitely won't. However, once again I have a review. Back at BeefJack for this one

Injustice: Gods Among Us.

Seriously got to indulge my comic book fanboy here. Despite being very cautious about it when the game was first announced I ended up absolutely loving it. As to why? Well go read the review.

Red Dwarf X - Back in the Black!

Red Dwarf and I go way back. Though if I'm honest I was late to the party. I got into the boys from the Dwarf when Season 5 was showing, but immediately ate up the videos from previous series. However, when Dave announced they were reviving the series I was more than a little hesitant. I remembered Seasons 7 and 8 both being quite bad, and quite a lot of time had moved along.

Back to Earth was pretty pants, but apparently it did well enough for the show to get a full season commissioned. Season X came out last year on Dave, but I only just got it for my birthday last week. Why the wait? Partly because I was very worried after Back to Earth, and partly because I forgot.

I'd heard good things about X. Facebook and Twitter had filled with people saying it was return to good old fashioned Red Dwarf. Also post-Back to Earth I'd revisited Season 8 and discovered it wasn't quite as bad as I remembered it. In fact it was pretty decent. I was ready to take the chance. When I finally sat down with Red Dwarf X I was in for a surprise.

Strategy Informer: Motocross Madness Review

I'm not sure I'm going to manage a proper blog post today, my brain's decided to take the week off, which is really annoying because I'm pretty sure I didn't authorise any holidays for it.

However, I did manage to write up another review for Strategy Informer.

Motocross Madness Review

Hopefully I'll manage a proper post later, I've got one half written. We'll just have to see if my brain comes in  to work later.

Tron: Uprising deserves more of a legacy

Been a bit busy this week, so instead of Supernatural or something new I'm going to post one of the blogs I wrote but never put up. Fun Fact: This was originally written as the first half that would later become the Young Justice post. Though it was written in the run up to YJ finishing, and when that finally stopped I felt it deserved its own. Anyway, enough prattling. Tron: Uprising.

Over the weekend I went looking for more episodes of Tron: Uprising. The animated spin-off of the Tron films set between the original movie, and 2010's Tron: Legacy. I was in for a shock. The last episode I watched ended on some what of a massive cliffhanger, but apparently there wasn't any new ones. In fact that was to be that last episode ever. Disney had cancelled it.

Strategy Informer: Pressure Review

Now I'm writing reviews for other sites. There's no stopping me now!

Pressure was an odd one, as I played it, it really did nothing to greatly offend me. But as I got writing the review I realised I mostly had negative stuff to say. It was only then how much of a chore I'd realised I'd had playing it.

Pressure review

BeefJack: Looking back at LucasArts

Remember this morning when I said the reason for me not talking about LucasArts would become clear. Well here it is.

Looking back at LucasArts

When I first mentioned to Jamie that I wanted to do this he he thought about both of us pitching in on a look back and asked what my favourite LucasArts games, I told him that was impossible. That's like asking someone to pick their favourite child (yes, he used that in the strap too).

After I turned in my draft, he decided I'd said it all, and he couldn't really offer anything. For my side, I held back a bit. I could have kept going.

There's a lot of games I feel bad for not mentioning. Grim Fandango. X-Wing Alliance. Day of the Tentacle. Raven's Jedi Outcast and Academy. Mysteries of the Goddamn Sith. All great. But for me there are five games that I fondly remember from LucasArts.

Monkey Island's 1 and 2
Dark Forces
Jedi Knight
TIE Fighter
and Full Throttle

And I couldn't resist a special shoutout to Republic Commando.

Earth 2: A DC Reboot done right

The obvious topic for this week's post was obviously Disney closing the doors on LucasArts. That's not what I'm going to talk about though. Why should become clear soon. What I'm going to talk about instead is DC Comics' Earth 2.

I've been pretty vocal about my unhappiness with DC's New 52 reboot. I'm not sure if I've ever made it clear as to why though. It boils down to the fact it's a mess. A reboot is a time to clean up, make everything work together brilliantly. Just like Young Justice did. The fact they let Batman and Green Lantern escape mostly undamaged is another factor. Trying to keep some stories in continuity but have details change is an exercise in futility. I stopped reading everything DC. Even Nightwing. Then last weekend I tried Earth 2, and it gets a lot of things right.

BeefJack: Fathom Preview

My first proper hands-on preview. Can't believe it's taken this long. No idea why. However, I might have got a little bit carried away with my water puns here. Though the headline is all my editor Jamie. Who is also responsible for the "utterly brilliant" comment about Victoria Mars. A show I have never watched.

Fathom Preview.

Giving Star Trek: Voyager another chance

I was originally going to write about Supernatural today, a TV show I fell in love with, then got annoyed, and now slowly learning to love again. But I'm not. Carrying on a trend I said I wouldn't, I'm going to talk about Star Trek some more. Actually Voyager, to be specific.

Why? Because I went hunting through my archive to check if I'd written about Supernatural when I first got hooked. What I found instead was the last time I started to sink back into a Star Trek shaped hole. That entry ends with the line “Despite a few friends arguing it, I’m not going as far as watching Voyager though.” which I found pretty funny, because that's exactly what I'm now doing.

BeefJack: Alien Spidy review

It seems ages since I actually reviewed a game for BeefJack, so it's unfortunate that my return is Alien Spidy, a thoroughly lovely looking game that is just so frustrating to play. Also, the thing has six legs. Alien or not, that isn't a spider!

Alien Spidy review

Young Justice is served

Young Justice has finished. The show based around the sidekicks of the DC Universe and Batman setting them up to be some black ops division of the Justice League. A brilliant show, with adult themes that just happened to be animated. After two seasons it was talked about with reverence, and got a fairly decent audience to start with, but Cartoon Network did everything they could to kill it. And being the channel that shows it, they have final say.

Back to the New Frontier

Continuing Captain Mackenzie Calhoun and The Excalibur's journey into uncharted Thallonian Space, Martyr sees Calhoun being worshipped as a Saviour thanks to the events of the previous novel, and using that status to try and broker a peace between two warring factions. Of course not everything goes to plan.

Martyr's not quite as strong as the opener, but since that was four books into one I'll allow it. I did like how it shifted the focus of the book to some of the other members of the crew that got a bit of a short straw in the originals.

It's been a long time.

Erm, wow, I've not been here for a while. A whole month without a post. I've got a couple drafted, but I didn't hit publish and I apologise. I've also been working on a sequel to The Sound of Money which is coming along nicely.

Speaking of which, I've also published The Sound of Money on GoodReads and ReadWave, so if you're a fan of either of those sites you can go pick it up there, and it's still free.

Meanwhile I also did a short interview with Dead Space 3 composer James Hannigan over at BeefJack. I've also been disappearing down a big Star Trek hole, but there might be more on that later.

Boldy Going to a New Frontier

A week ago I wrote about reading Pulling Up Stakes by Peter David, aka PAD, mainly because I wanted to show support after his stroke, but then having the wonderful surprise of it being really bloody good. In that I mentioned I was also tempted by Star Trek: New Frontier.

My first geek love was Star Trek. Star Wars later stole it away, but it was the crews of Enterprise D and Deep Space Nine that I thoroughly adored. When I went to university, Voyager was midway through and I quickly lost interest, barely touched Enterprise, and was pretty appalled by Nemesis. But things weren't much better in the other franchise either.

Then there was a saviour. J J Abrams helmed a triumphic reboot of Star Trek and I was reminded how great a series it was. I still didn't do that much other than re-watch my favourite of the older movies and the Borg saga from The Next Generation. As I mentioned in the other Peter David post, I kept glancing toward New Frontier, but never got round to it. Until now. And it was brilliant.

BeefJack: The Cave Review

I've been looking forward to The Cave since it was announced. My love of games really started with The Secret of Monkey Island, so Ron Gilbert - and by extension Tim Schafer, then Double Fine - gets me excited about anything they works on. When Gilbert went to work at Double Fine everything came together into a glorious whole. The Cave was the physical manifestation of that... well if games can be called physical manifestations.

So it is with a sad heart I present my thoughts of said game:

The Cave Review

Pulling Up Stakes aka Helping Peter David

I've been a Peter David fan for years. But for some reason, exclusively his Marvel Comics work. I keep glancing at his other stuff - Young Justice at DC, New Frontier for Star Trek - and thinking I should give some of them a go, but I just never seemed to get round to it.

Then the terrible news over the holidays hit. PAD had a stroke, and what with him being an American, Peter's recovery was about to swallow a whole lot of funds. His wife, who has been a trooper keeping fans up to date when it would be so easy to concentrate on the more important things, explained pretty early on that one of the easiest ways to help was to buy his work. My first thought was I was finally going to start New Frontier, but Mrs David laid out several books of PADs that would be more help. The one that seemed most appealing to me was Pulling Up Stakes, a vampire novel dealing with a organised group of Vampire Hunters. The twist being that the main character was also secretly a vampire.

Fallowed Ground

My third short story is now available from Smashwords for all eReaders.

Unlike the previous two that took place in the same universe this is a totally a different setting. A proper sci-fi one. It's also the last of the stories I sat on. Now I need to get writing again.

Fallowed Ground

It is a golden age for Human expansion as they spread across the galaxy, colonising any world they find that is suitable. There is no end to what humanity can accomplish, but arrogance has always been their downfall, and nobody stops to consider what might happen if they choose the wrong world.

Bonus blog description:
Not every planet is barren, and not every territory is relinquished without blood first marking its Fallowed Ground.

That was suggested by Jamie Donnelly to be super cheesy. I love it, but it's not suitable for the story I think.

The Pitch

My second short story, The Pitch, is out. No, I'm not that quick. I may have had a few insecurities about releasing them, and other little things that just stopped me. Once I got The Sound of Money out the door most of those insecurities went with it. Another one will be appearing next week too.

This is a different character to the previous story, Gavin Talbot, who resides on the other side of the law to Nate Taylor.

 Once again it's free for all eReaders. Enjoy and tell your friends.

The Pitch

BeefJack: Game of the Year!

It seems I was a little distracted yesterday with the release of The Sound of Money to notice that over on BeefJack two other bits of my work went online.

First off is the Game of the Year article for The Walking Dead. Unlike all the other games in the GOTY series, this one had four of us argue for it, so I think it's safe to say its the winner. Have a read why Joannes, Ben, Sean and myself think Telltale's point and click was the most important game of 2012.

Also there's the final podcast of the year where, alongside Anthony and Danny, we talk about three of the biggest videogame stories of the last twelve months as well as more arguments for our Game of the Year picks (though mine's pretty much "Go listen to The Walking Dead special").

The Sound of Money

It's been a long time coming but my first short story, The Sound of Money, is finally available for anyone to download. Seriously, anyone, I'm giving this thing away.

See!

I'm in a really odd place right now. But this is one of a few surprises I intend to unleash over the next few days. I'm thinking the next will likely be after New Year now though. But what are you doing here reading this? There's a free book to go claim.

Assassin's Creed III addendum

A month or so ago I reviewed Assassin's Creed III for BeefJack, and I quite liked it. However, the way deadlines work and games the size of ACIII, you don't always get to complete the full game. You simply bomb through as much content as possible and get a decent feel for it.

After my review was done I went off to play Halo 4 (obviously), Need for Speed: Most Wanted and quite a few other games. I've now finally returned to ACIII to finish it up, and I'm starting to think that I got a bit too excited originally. The fact Assassin's Creed had recaptured the magic blinded me a little.

BeefJack: Primordia Review

Remember when I said that when I didn't review Baldur's Gate I got given something else? (It's right below this post, it's not hard to miss) That something else was Primordia. A point and click adventure game from Wadjet Eye and Wormwood.

Primordia review

This was a very good turn up for the books. The game was awesome. Now go read the review to find out why.

At this stage I can't praise Wadjet Eye enough. I played Gemini Rue earlier this year and loved it. I also have Resonance sitting in my Steam collection after buying it during a Steam Sale, but haven't had the time to get round to it. After the two I have played I think I might be working my way through the entire collection. Eventually.

BeefJack: Baldur's Gate Interview

Erm... well it's been awhile since I've been here. I've had to get a part time job for some extra monies in. As such I've been prepping a big surprise, and fulfilling my BeefJack duties. Speaking of which, here's an interview with Overhaul Games' Trent Oster all about their Enhanced Edition of Baldur's Gate.

Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition Interview

Baldur's Gate is the game responsible for getting me into RPGs. I loved it way back when, and have been pining for this new edition since it was announced. I was also meant to be reviewing it, but I was one of the few that got struck by its launch problems, so I had to pass it on. Instead I ended up with another game, which was a good thing, as you'll find out very soon.

BeefJack: Assassin's Creed III review

After Revelations my love for the Assassin's Creed franchise was seriously waning. The reveal of the American Revolution setting and wandering around the wilderness had me back in. Thanks to BeefJack I got my hands on a review copy, and I have to say Ubisoft have really brought it back from the edge.

Assassin's Creed III review

All Hallow's Eve: Alan Wake

It's Halloween which means it's time to play scary games. Rather than do a relay like a few years ago, I decided to take a stab at a new game. Well, new game for me anyway. Alan Wake. This was a bit of an odd one for me. I'd originally been excited, the web series Bright Falls put me off, then the American Nightmare XBLA game got me interested again. I picked it up cheap near the start of the year but was waiting for it to get dark in the evenings so I could play it properly. Halloween seemed like the perfect excuse, plus it helped with the BeefJack podcast.

I do like it. The setting, the mystery and the drama are all played brilliantly. It is a decent enough horror game too, BUT it ruins its own horror.

BeefJack: Of Orcs and Men review

Another review of mine is up over at BeefJack. This time it's Of Orcs and Men, a game I'd barely heard of when I was asked to review it. That should have been my first sign. It wasn't, instead I watched a trailer and was mildly hopeful. As Jamie Donnelly put it "It's either going to be surprisingly good or amazingly shit." Unfortunately, I don't think it was either.

My word count was pretty tight and there were a few things I didn't have room to moan about, such as the environments. They weren't too bad, serviceable anyway, and if the team had just used them for one level you'd probably never be bothered. Instead they reuse them out for a good three of four levels in a row and by the end of it you're so bored of looking at the same brown textures it is untrue. However, that is a minor point compared to what I do mention in the review.

BeefJack: Need for Speed: Most Wanted Preview

I say it several times in the preview itself but Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit was an amazing game. I loved that game, and still play it. When it was announced that Criterion were making another Need for Speed I was extremely happy. So happy that BeefJack got me to preview it. Unfortunately, "It's Criterion making another Need for Speed" isn't enough so this is my more thought out response.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted Preview

The video's in there as I felt that alone was enough reason to play that. Although the text that made that obvious got cut.

BeefJack: 7 reasons why 007 Legends won’t be legendary

Activision release 007 Legends next week. I, for one, am not fussed at all. James Bond games are a little hit and miss at the best of times and there's just so much looking like it's going to be a bit mediocre that I just couldn't keep quiet about it.

7 reasons why 007 Legends won’t be legendary

I was actually worried that this version was a little too fanboy-ish. My editor felt otherwise though. However, I'd already started restructuring the article. Bonus Blog Paragraph time. I envisioned a rewording of number six and a deeper look into the videogame industries obsession with Goldeneye.

Goldeneye isn't in 007 Legends, and for that we should be thankful. Rare's game blew players away, it was the perfect Bond game, and it has never been surpassed. Unfortunately, that's something game publishers seem to have got stuck on. A few of the Bond games that have come out in the past fifteen years have been trying to be 'the new Goldeneye' and these are always the ones that stumble the hardest. They even gave up trying to tie games into the films at one point and gave us a spin-off, Goldeneye: Rogue Agent, that made no sense and barely featured 007. There was also the remake that swapped Brosnan for Craig in the Bond role. 007 Legends looks like another Bond game that's fallen into the 'Goldeneye trap'.

BeefJack: Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel preview

I've done another preview for BeefJack, this time in the form of Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel. A game that interests me mainly because of who's making it. Which is pretty much how I approached this entire preview. I thought it would be a bit of a struggle, and my entire first take was all wrong. But once I found a decent angle I was away. Ended up being quite an easy one.

What was my angle? Go find out!

Transfomers: From Cybertron's Fall to Prime

I am a huge Transformers nerd. It's one of my Big 4 childhood franchises, though I do tend to drift away from it. But every now and again something comes along that has me looking back to see what's on offer. Once again it's High Moon Studios that have got me to return to the war between the Autobots and Decepticons with Transformers: Fall of Cybertron.

Fall is awesome! That's quite an opening statement but I feel quite safe saying it. Its predecessor, War on Cybertron, was pretty damn good but something was slightly lacking. Looking back, while the three player co-op was fun it severely hamstrung the game at the same time. No robot stood apart from the rest, they all felt like one homogeneous whole. It's understandable, the person playing Bumblebee has to be just as capable as the one playing Optimus Prime, despite all evidence to the contrary.

BeefJack: The Podcast!

After being the man behind the GeekGasms.org podcast for just over a year, when we started talking about a possible BeefJack one I was all over it. Well today sees our first official podcast go live, and I show off the art of seamless transitions.

Go listen to Lewis Denby, Simon Williams and my "northern underwater robot" voice. Cheers for that Jamie.

Hopefully many more to come.

BeefJack: Inquisitor review

After making a lot of noise about the Baldur's Gate re-release our reviews editor cottoned onto the fact that I have a bit of a soft spot for the 90s style iosmetric RPGs so he offered me Inquisitor. A Czech game that may be just three years old but it feels like it could be thirteen. That's a good thing by the way.

Inquisitor review

Bet you can't guess what my next review is going to be?

Bourne Legacy. Bourne to be mild

I've been a huge fan of the Bourne series since the first film arrived. When news of a fourth film broke I wasn't too offended, even when they started thinking of using a different agent as Matt Damon wasn't keen on returning. Jeremy Renner's casting was a different story, but that was mostly because he'd also just agreed to do Mission Impossible with the potential of taking that over. Does he really need two spy franchises?

Anyway the first three makes a great trilogy, but I saw no reason why they couldn't keep going with the right story. Bourne Legacy has all the trademarks of being that story, but it doesn't have enough panache to pull it off.

BeefJack: A look back at Broken Sword

I'm a pretty big Broken Sword fan, so when news of the Kickstarter arrived I had an afternoon of going slightly crazy as I jumped about with glee. Then I spent the weekend playing the Director's Cut of the first game and watching the second game of YouTube.

Okay that may sound odd, my original plan was to play my old copy of The Smoking Mirror, but since I played it sometime in the 90s the CD has managed to wipe itself. That seriously bummed me out Saturday morning.

After that I wrote this: A look back at Broken Sword.

I kinda skim over the fourth game but SHHH I've not actually played it. I know I know, it's unforgivable. When it came out one of my flatmates bought it, so I planned on borrowing his, never got round to it. However, the pledge I gave to the kickstarter is for a free game at GOG.com so The Angel of Death is finally going to get tangled.

Top 20 Games of all time 2012 Edition

Or: My vote for BeefJack's Top 100 games.

Every year BeefJack put together a list of Top 100 games. This list is compiled by all contributors for the site listing their Top 20. It's sorted by some mystical mumbo jumbo by Jamie Donnelly and somehow we end up with 100 of them.

So what was my own list? I'm glad you asked:

20. Need for Speed: Most Wanted (Criterion)
19. Metroid Prime
18. Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
17 Left 4 Dead 2
16. Halo 3: ODST
15. GTA San Andreas
14. Red Dead Redemption
13. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
12. Metal Gear Solid
11. Batman: Arkham Asylum
10. Assassin's Creed 2
9. Resident Evil 2
8. Mass Effect 2
7. Halo: Combat Evolved
6. Half-Life 2
5. Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
4. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
3. Planescape: Torment
2. Deus Ex: Human Revolution
1. Star Wars: Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight


Now I already can see one or two changes I'd make since writing that. I had a hard time deciding on which GTA to include, and I'm still not convinced I chose the right one. I'm thinking maybe it should have been Half-Life 1 instead of 2 and should Metroid Prime really be there? If so what would what replace it?

As for the final list itself, well I'm ashamed of my colleagues that Jedi Academy was the Jedi Knight game chosen. I could have understood it being Jedi Outcast, but Academy is the worst of the franchise. Why Academy?

What about the Top 10, well it's dominated by Valve but I don't see much problem with it. It please me that Deus Ex: Human Revolution charted so highly. I wasn't sure if that was just me that held it in such high regard. Plus its daddy is there too, a game I've yet to play (though do finally own thanks to a Steam sale).

BeefJack: Forget Hollywood

While last week's comic piece may have been the article I was meant to write, this one I'm far more proud of. It actually started life as a joke idea for the now forgotten List with Twist feature, but between the Sleeping Dogs quote and some wonderful editorial advice from Mr Jamie Donnelly it became so much more.

Without further ado I give you:

Forget Hollywood

BeefJack: How other superhero games can replicate Arkham City’s success

or What can other Superheroes learn Arkham City and Rise above the Dark Knight?

Yeah that was my title, I love it but it was way too long.

But here it is. The feature I may have been born to write.

Bonus blog paragraph. It was cut because it was really the same argument as the bit about Superman but from a slightly different angle.

Another example is Green Lantern who is only limited by his imagination, which works brilliantly in comics or in movies (his powers, not the movie itself you understand, that was tripe). In a game that is next to impossible to pull off though, he's limited to the objects the developers give him. In a team up game that is going be massively limited, but give a studio the time and resources to create a variety of animations and context sensitive creations and you're getting close to a cool sound Green Lantern game.

Back to the Singularity

I always meant to play Singularity. I remember seeing the trailer at one E3 and thinking “Yes! I want to play that!” Especially with it being Raven Software being behind it. I loved their early FPS but had forgotten about them in the deluge of X-Men games they did post Jedi Academy. Somehow though I lost track of it. It came out and I just never got round to it. When GAME had its financial woes near the start of the year I finally managed to get hold of a copy.

Singularity is one of those first person shooters that wears its Half-Life 2 and BioShock influences clearly on its sleeve. It even has a crazy device that takes inspiration from the gravity gun and bits of the story slowly unfolding by sound recordings scattered about the island. There's even a twist just like the “Would you kindly” that doesn't quite work as well. It wasn't helped that I'd guessed it already either.

Gemini Rue

Well I said I was going to, and having finished Gemini Rue, it was everything years of anticipation had built up Beneath a Steel Sky to be. It's sci-fi noir at it's finest. There's a grizzled cop, a shit ton of rain and criminals running the show. The only thing missing is the femme fatale.

I'm can't be bothered going into a full blown review, but it is a truly amazing adventure game, and noir as hell.  It was great to see a point and click adventure not relying on humour. I highly recommend you try it, but I'm going to the pub.

Whiskey, straight. And leave the bottle.

Beneath a Steel Sky

Beneath a Steel Sky was one of those games that I've meant to play since I was a kid. From the age of twelve or something. This past weekend I was in a bit of a retro gaming mood and GOG.com have it available for free, seemed like a perfect time to address that nearly twenty year old hole. Especially after finding out that Dave Gibbons worked on it and that he'll soon teaming up with Revolution for a new game.

Despite my urge to play Beneath a Steel Sky, I didn't actually know much about it. Just that it's an adventure game set in a dystopian future, quite a bit cyberpunk, you're on the run and the main character is a guy in a black trenchcoat, of course. All true, but that little knowledge and the title formed a succinct image in my head. I dreamed of a gritty, noir, almost Blade Runner-like adventure. Well that couldn't have been more wrong.

BeefJack: Penny Arcade 3 Review

My latest review is up at BeefJack. Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode 3. Apart from the ridiculously long title what is there to say? Well that's what the review's for.

The blog only behind the scenes gumf for this one was that I actually played the game so much over the weekend I forgot half what I had to write. Luckily Mr Pickard hadn't published it when I picked it up again yesterday and reminded myself of them. I popped back in and review was improved no end.

Splinter Cell isn't about stealth?

I'm starting to get quite angry about everyone going on about how Splinter Cell: Blacklist has lost the stealth the series is renowned for. Is this simply because of the E3 demo? But it's an E3 demo, its always going to be big and loud. While it does show Sam Fisher running out into the middle of the bad guys guns ablazing. that's not all it offers. Just before Mr Fisher gets a little gun-happy he's quietly sneaking along the outskirts of the enemy camp, opens up the back of tent with a knife and takes out the first guard without a single person noticing. THEN he jumps out and murders four people in the blink of an eye, but it's an active choice of the player rather than the only move available to him.

Later on Sam runs up a wall and kills a guard on the balcony above, now this is pure Conviction style stealth, but whoever is playing this demo is going for flashy in order to please the audience. Instead of being careful with the body he drops it straight into water directly in the path of the other enemies and shit kicks off. It was immediately apparent that this was a speed-run and I could see how to do it better if he just paused for a second or two, but that's not the nature of standing on stage in front of the large crowd demonstrating a game.

BeefJack: Prototype 2 Review

Yes, a month ago I made the glorious statement that after previewing the game I was quite happy to wait until Prototype 2 went down in price before picking it up. That was all before the lovely people at BeefJack gave me a copy to review. I fairly enjoyed it, way more then I expected to after previewing it. That said I do bemoan the fact they changed the lead, Heller is a complete prick, even Mercer was more fun to play than this guy.

To sum up here's my original conclusion: Prototype 2 is the gaming equivalent to superhero summer blockbuster, dumb as a bag of hammers but you'll have a hell of a lot of fun at the same time.

Oh and this is my first ever review :D

The Problems with Downloadable Content

Downloadable content and the perceived perceptions of it are generating quite a lot of press at the moment, especially those that are ready to be downloaded the first day of a game's release. First BioWare caused uproar by daring to have a Mass Effect 3 squad member that fully integrated into the game, then Capcom offered twelve characters for Street Fighter x Tekken that were already on the disk.

For some gamers these are basically the same thing. “We're having to pay for something we should have gotten for free!” is the comment most seen in news stories. As far as I'm concerned they are polar opposites.

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.