Top Gear Hilarity

Yes, I admit it, I watch a car show. Not just any car show, mind you the car show: Top Gear. And I'll tell you why.

It's not for the cars. When the presenters get into a car and race around and spout off statistics... I don't care. And then they get into the next model up and say 'this goes a little bit faster and thus is the best thing ever', it means nothing to me.

Similarly, their 'Star in a Reasonably Priced Car' bores me. I don't care who they get in, Matt Smith for example, tell us about the cars they had when younger, who cares? Seeing how fast they go around the track, whatever, next!

No, what I like, and what gets me watching, is when they go on a road trip or just go for straight out challenges. When the presenters have to do a task, and set about it... and completely arse it up. That's really why people watch, why it's so popular, why it's lasted so many seasons (having short seasons helps up the season counter too admittedly). Just check out this clip of the presenters trying to come up with a new take on the caravan and see if you're not laughing!


[END]

Read more!

Of Steam, Steal and Murder

We're back on the ground, and running around trying to find the German scientists. We have a great lead, and will chase them down to where they are hiding... but perhaps it is we who are in for a hiding...

Ah, the joys of the GM able to plot things out before we can. We couldn't really defend against this, and it doesn't help that none of us saw this coming... although several of us did predict it before it turned out to be true...

Unfortunately, there were quite a few Skype problems and thus assoicated recording problems. For this game, if you are still wanting to download, there is parts 1, 2 and 4. In the 3 we chase down some leads, but 4 is more exciting anyway. This was Game 55 [Bert will eventually have the full audio uploaded]. Rapidshare. Hotfile.

[END]

Read more!

Resident Not Evil

 I've watching my way through Resident Evil videogames, done 1-3 and on Code Veronica, and I have one major observation: this isn't horror.

The game consists of 'wander around, find you can't go through doors until you get a key, which will generally be on the other side of the map, behind plenty of other doors you will need to hunt keys down for'. And incidentally there are zombies around. But they aren't horrific, they're just plain annoying. There isn't anything in the game about the fact that they are reanimated humans. The characters aren't bothered by this fact, any mention of T-Virus is in the background material files you find, there is nothing directly in the game, no cut scene or anything, that really cares about it. Instead the cut scenes are people just trying to get away from the particular locations, or dealing with boss battles. Because there need to be boss battles, which are not zombies either, but other creations, like the game can't be bothered with them for big enemies either, because zombies just aren't interesting.

Instead, it's all about the keys. With some really annoying obscure keys to get to. And, due to these games being on older machines, the rooms are like five steps big, then you go through door animation #33453 while it loads the next level! Half the damn game is waiting for the door loading screens!

Why did this catch on enough for there to be billions of games and several movies and colouring books or whatever? Was it just that there was nothing else to play?

People keep citing RE4 as a great game. We'll see...

[END]

Read more!

Half-Life

Finally finished playing the first game of the trilogy (ha!), Half-Life. It took me a while, and, I will admit this right now, up front: I cheated. I cheated like buggery, activing god mode in chapter... can't remember, but it was an early arena fight with the black ops team. And I in no way feel any shame in that, because of one basic thing:

I didn't enjoy this game. Well, okay, I liked it in one respect, otherwise I would have simply stopped playing. But I didn't enjoy the gameplay aspect of this game. When I died for the fifth, sixth... seventh? time in a row (even after a break), because the bad guys seemed to have health through the roof (and I was on easy mode), no, I wasn't having fun. And while the 'I over came it!' is a driving force, the joy I knew I would have felt versus the just getting over the immediate frustion... it wasn't enough. Not when I was so early in the game. I definitely wanted to know what happened next, so congratulations to Valve on the story (although I'll come back to that), I flicked on cheat mode and never looked back.

I do wonder how much of my enjoyment was the look of the game. Certainly there's a HUGE gap between HL and HL2 in terms of computer power and the rendering engine, and I enjoyed HL2... because it looked realer? I don't know. I can't deny that a part of me wasn't thrilled by the graphics. Oh, and the lack of a targetting reticule when not weilding a gun. So often I wasn't sure where the hell I was pointing. And trying to use a crowbar on the headcrabs... gah!

However, we have the story. So much in HL2 referred back to events in HL that I just had to find out all the gory details... but it is so spread out. So often I'm walking through virtual miles of corridor wondering if there's another story element around I could be interacting with instead... And the last section which was basically jumping puzzles was not fun, leading up to the big baby that... that was just annoying (flicked on notarget just to stop getting teleported). And if there was some big secret, I have no idea what it was.

It was fun in a way, and I still have the expansion packs to play some time... but I don't see me replaying HL in the same way I like to replay HL2 any time soon...

[END]

Read more!

The Terrible Experiment

While definitely an amateur level movie, I will give that this is at the high end of said movies, with some actual decent production behind it. But not so much in front of it.

The idea:  a soldier somehow manages to find out about some secret experiment going on, and manages to get some high level access to that experiment, and uses it to infect the building it's housed in. The experiment is a gas that... well, basically turns people into The Infected. And then there are the requisite group of survivors that are trying to get out of the building. Yes, it's a zombie movie. Hooray... sigh. And the survivors are as exciting a bunch of nobodies to grace the screen.

And yet, as I said, the production is good. There are some decent effects that a more than just bad CGI overlaid onto the screen (although there is that too), and the infected make up is well done. The movie ranges over a few locations, instead of just one level of the building masquerading as everything (although going up and down the stairwell gets more use than the floor numbering would suggest). And helicopter sequence nearly succeeds at not going over the top (...nearly...).

But the problem is the people. The main group are no-one interesting, and the cops outside are all generic, and there are even kids to care about. And then the big end... just dribbles everything away, spoilers: no big mass zombie run. What? What's the point of not having that? Big let down by no big build up.

So, this could have been something good, and does rise above others. If we must have bad movies, there is a lot worse than this.

[END]

Read more!

Twitter Observation

So been with Twitter for a little while now, but there are some trends already emerging.

The majority of the people I follow like to tweet about... no, wait. Actually the majority of the people I follow don't tweet that much, so that's fine. I can deal with low content tweeters.

Of those that do tweet a lot, about half the time it is 'here's this neat thing I came across' or 'here's an amusing comment' style of thing. That's about what I expect, so that's all right too. That seems to be what you would get when you only have 140 characters in this social spreading machine.

However, the rest of the time... I follow a few celebrities (where 'celebrities' has a very low criteria of 'actor who appeared in some niche things' or 'is known for some very specific thing'), and they like to tweet about 'here's this thing I'm involved with'. Which is fine... the first time. But then you get the 'hey, this person is doing this thing' retweet. And then they tweet again because we might have missed it the first time. And if they are involved with some company, either the company or other buddies tweet, and then there's more retweeting...

Is that what Twitter is? Spam in 140 characters or less? Or more, considering all the urls get shortened nowadays so you can fit more descriptional spam in. Fine, they still need to make money, and want to point people at stuff they are doing so they can get the monies or publicity or whathaveyou... but so much? I'm still wanting to follow them, because their non-spam stuff is interesting enough, but... I'm having a low threshold of tolerance and it gets pinged often.

All we need is cats and porn for Twitter to be the internet in miniature...

[END]

Read more!

Can't see the Cabin for the Woods

Okay, so here's a challenge. Can I review The Latest Joss Movie Aside From Avengers without giving away spoilers? Of course!

A group of people go to an isolated cabin in the woods. Have you seen this before? Of course, you have! Therefore I don't need to say anything else about the plot. It's Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard! These people know what they are doing. Certainly, you'll never look at a Red Riding Hood metaphor again with the same innocence...

It's got a few actors from the Joss School of Entertainment too. Fran "Dollhouse" Kranz. Amy "Dollhouse", "Angel" Acker. Tom "Buffy" Lenk. ...okay, so three big names (there may be others). Chris "Thor" Hemsworth gets a range to play, and Jesse "What's he been in?" Williams doesn't get to do much at all. Kristen "...don't recognise any of her other movies..." Connolly is... on screen, and gets to make the important decisions, and Anna "Panic At Rock Island - oooh!" Hutchison looks good in shorts.

Not everyone will enjoy this movie, but I'm sure those of you reading this will. I look forward to seeing it on the big screen.

[END]

Read more!