Internet Apocalypse

Bayonetta

2010-01-11T05:31:00.000-08:00

With perfect scores from Famitsu and Edge and a glowing review from Kotaku, Capcom seem to have finally found the formula for the ultimate videogame, Guns, Tits and Buns. Bayonetta went on sale in the UK last Friday and smashed into the top 20 at number 5. This might seem like a lukewarm reception to the title, but bear in mind that no one has yet managed to knock Modern Warfare 2 off the top spot for weeks now and, in a chart inexplicably dominated by Nintendo Wii games it has done well to beat other triple A titles like Dragon Age: Origins, Darksiders and Assassins Creed 2.

I’m habitually cynical when it comes to perfect games, so I tried to remain neutral when playing it, trying not to expect anything too awesome, while at the same time, gearing myself up for the first of the big console releases for 2010. First impressions? Well, not great. The cut scenes in this game, although some of them are visually great, are very confusing. At points, the dialogue between the characters makes absolutely no sense and the attempts to explain the plot are laughable. I can’t help feeling that maybe crucial plot elements disguised as Japanese metaphors were lost in translation along the way and what I was left with was an unfathomable mess of random conversations that allude to concepts and storyline only understood by the guy that wrote it in the first place.

That aside, Modern Warfare 2’s storyline makes next to no sense and that’s brilliant, so let’s move on to the gameplay itself. Wall-running, turning into a panther, blowing stuff up and shooting the shit out of things with the guns either in your hands or the ones attached to your feet all feels smooth and well done. The combo system is one you’ll be well used to if you’ve played Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden or Onimusha, with a very similar weapon and character upgrade system. Within 15 – 20 minutes or so, you’ll be well used to the controls and kicking some angel ass. The fact that I didn’t have a clue what was going on in the story actually seemed to make it better as I was hurled from one completely abstract level to another. One minute I’m surfing on a missile, the next I’m running up the side of a sky scraper, dodging trains and the next I’m slamming a huge angel tentacle phallus into a babies mouth and slicing it in half, before tearing it to pieces using demons summoned from and made out of hair. Yeah, it is random.

The game is 70% boss battles. You may get a feeling of “I’m sure I killed you on the last level” as the game forces you to kill the same boss four or five times on consecutive missions, before having you fight them all again in a final, final, FINAL battle to the death. The boss battles are so ridiculously awesome in how they look and the amount of colour and activity going on that it really doesn’t matter and most of them are challenging enough to tax the average player without getting them stuck for too long. Saying that there are points in that game that are so knuckle-bitingly frustratingly hard that I almost destroyed London in a ball of white hot ball of fury several times during the completion of this game.

I’d personally not give this game a perfect score, but it would be pretty close. I can understand why the Japanese might think it’s perfect as they have a higher chance of being able to figure out what the hell is actually going on. I just can’t fault how graphically amazing this game is at times and when I finally turned my Xbox off after completion, I was surprised it hadn’t RROD’d on me again from being overloaded by sheer awesomeness.

Warhammer 40,000 MMO

2009-12-01T15:00:00.001-08:00

THQ have done a sterling job with taking my favourite IP in science fiction and translating it to the gaming medium. The Dawn of War series and its subsequent expansions still stand the test of time today as a fantastic set of games with beautifully modelled units. It's features like the model painter, included in both games, that captured the spirit of what Warhammer was all about and really proved to me that these games were created by people who had done their homework or, more likely, had played the table-top games themselves. THQ extended their rights on Warhammer 40k until 2013 - that was back in March 2007 and since then they have made good on their promises to really bring the characters to life.

A Warhammer 40k MMO had been hinted at a while back. I read an article on Massively which had the MMO down for a 2012 release. I'll be honest with you, I was a bit gutted that it had been planned for release so far into the distant future. The Warhammer MMO is slated for release AFTER Darksiders 2. At the time of writing this, Darksiders 1 hasn't even been released yet. (8th of Jan 2010) However, that was the beginning of the year and this is now. A lot has happened since then, notably the Halo MMO being canned, for whatever reason, and a small recession that I'm sure you're all very much aware of! I mentioned the Halo MMO being cancelled because it is significant alongside all the failed MMOs that are drawing their last rattling breaths, emaciated and defeated and the feet of mighty Warcraft. Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa, Hellgate London & The Matrix Online, to name the biggest names. The Warhammer Online classic MMO is still going, although it confused me as to why anyone would want to move from Warcraft to a new game with a very similar IP. All this depressing MMOWTFFail news was gradually chipping away at my faith in the Warhammer 40k MMO ever being released at all.

Today, Kotaku published some images, released from a "Friendly Source" inside THQ Studio - Vigil Games. They aren't exactly screenshots, but they ARE proof that work on the MMO hasn't been shoved on the back burner to be forgotten about. The presence of the massive Warhound titans give a small hint towards the scale that this game could possibly working towards. The rest of the models do look tantalising, the Space Marine model especially, but I'll hold off drawing any more wild conclusions until we have some more information. But keep going Vigil, I can't wait to see what you guys come up with!

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

2009-11-25T06:20:00.001-08:00

I must confess, I missed the first instalment of Uncharted, “Drake's Fortune”. I didn’t own a Playstation when it came out so I couldn’t get my mitts on a copy. So I wasn’t on the edge of my seat when I heard that its sequel had been announced. Sure, I saw the screenshots, which looked fantastic and I watched some videos of gameplay which looked scripted but still made the game look fun, but I’ve been burned too many times by games that promise the earth and fail to deliver, so I tried not to get too excited by it.

The game combines 3rd person shooter action with stealth as an option but not a requirement to progress through the story. There is a fair bit of Parkour – style climbing which reminded me very much of assassins creed and some puzzles which are so easy, they may as well not be there at all. Where Uncharted 2 really excels is in the mix of all these elements tastefully and in the right quantities so as never to bore the player with too much of one thing. The story was fun and kept me interested while the cut scenes were well acted, both by the character models and the talented voice actors. (Claudia Black especially) All of this is set against some of the most stunning backdrops I have ever seen. Clicking the images below will enlarge them.

The controls work well for a third person shooter. You will find soon after picking up the pad and learning how to use the pistol, that headshots are possible but made tricky enough to be extremely satisfying when you one-shot that evil henchman on the next rooftop over. The game combines 3 gameplay types together well in quantity, however it does fall down at controlling these 3 types equally well.

The Parkour running and jumping controls well enough, but I sometimes found that jumping from ledge to ledge felt rather scripted sometimes, like I was initiating a tiny quicktime event to jump across a gap, rather than using skill to judge the distance of the jump. This DID make the game play smoother but at the same time, made it feel a little linear, which is a shame because the backdrops were really, beautifully rendered. I want to feel like at any point, I can break away and go explore, at least a little bit.

The stealth gameplay was a particular sticking point for me. The stealth takedowns were very smooth when executed and I did try to stealth-kill where I could, rather than go guns blazing every time. However I did find that sneaking around enemies to get behind them was made more difficult because of Drake sticking to the wall at a crucial moment or perhaps jumping over the top of the wall instead of simply standing up behind it. I think this problem could have been solved by a dead-mans-switch method of duck and cover, i.e. if you aren’t holding a button down to hide, then the character doesn’t duck behind cover.

Controller woes aside though, the game is possibly the best game I have played this year. It really is beautiful to watch and to play. It never leaves you bored or frustrated and is impossible to put down. I keep thinking about Metal Gear Solid 4 as I write this. I think the comparison I’d draw is, while MGS4 is a classic that will be studied and praised for years to come, Uncharted 2 is an addictive airport novel of a game that you find yourself devouring in record time and then tentatively waiting for the next instalment. There no doubt will be a sequel to this game and when it is released, I’ll be first in-line to bag myself a copy. Oh yes.

Uncharted 2's stunning backdrops have been unsurpassed this year.

Who watches the Watchmen?!

2009-03-09T08:56:00.000-07:00

And so it seems the hype has worked against the film as I thought it would. The media frenzy and months of scrutiny and anticipation built the movie a pedestal so impossibly tall so as to make delivery of anything that could live up to peoples imaginations and expectations nigh impossible.

As I sat in my favourite seat in the little cinema in Hammersmith, i sensed restlessness in the crowd of people as they watched the movie. After the initial "wow" of the first 10 minutes or so after the opening credits had ended and the story kicked in, i started to become irritated by the number of people texting on their phones, running back and forth to the bathroom, whispering to each other and generally not paying attention to what I thought was a great movie. After I got over my annoyance at them all and quelled my need to stalk the isles with a silenced PPK, picking off those who were not paying due attention and diligence to the movie, I reminded myself of what I had initially thought when reading the graphic novel... "this is ace, but how are they going to translate this into a movie??"

In defence of those... I am hesitant to use the word idiots, but there, i just said it... in the defence of those idiots who could not sit still and listen to dialogue for more than five minutes at a time, I will say this: This movie has been billed and hyped as a superhero movie and, in essence, it is just that. However, the distinction was never made between this movie and, say Iron Man or X-Men in the advertising campaigns. Therefore people who had not read the book arrived wanting to see super powers, flying robots, indestructible men and perhaps the odd one-eyed giant tentacled mutant tearing apart New York (yes, I'll get to that).
In actual fact, what they got was a dark, dialogue heavy movie which I felt sat more on the film noir side of the fence than the superhero side of things. The reasons I think this movie didn't appeal to a large section of the audience in the cinema was the very reason I liked it so much.

Apart from the ending - and there IS a spoiler alert at the beginning of this article, so please stop reading now if you haven't seen it yet - Apart from the ending which was completely different from the comic book, I thought that most of the core elements were captured in the film perfectly. The sets were fantastic and Rorschach's part of the story, which is my personal favourite, especially his time in prison, was very well done indeed. Sure, the odd detail had been changed, they used a circular saw rather than an arc welder to cut the bars off his cell door and he didn't shackle anyone to a radiator, set them on fire and give them a hacksaw, but I do understand why you have to cut some things down and out of a story in order to fit them into what is already quite a weighty film... within reason of course. What I noticed and what I found fairly annoying, was that the night owl and the silk spectre both such a mastery of kung-fu style street fighting. I understand that making them masters of unarmed combat makes for entertaining fight scenes, but in Rorschachs case, I don’t think it was necessary. His style of fighting was so awesome in the books anyway... simply pick up whatever comes to hand and jam it in the opponents eyes... maybe break their fingers or lock them in a fridge.

I think the biggest deviation from the storyline was the ending. Again, spoiler alert. It got to about ten minutes before Ozzy was about to unveil his master plan to Rorschach and Night Owl and I started thinking... "Are they gonna do it? or are they gonna pussy out?" T minus five minutes and still nothing to suggest he was going to be teleporting psychic monsters into New York. When they decided to go with the fusion generator detonation thingy, I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed but in retrospect, I think it might have taken a bit too long to explain and, since there had already been people walking out of the cinema by this point (no doubt wondering where Val Kilmer in his rubber-nippled batman costume was) I guess I can let them off. The effect was the same, but the method was different, that's all. The motive for doing the dastardly deed remained the same but the film makers obviously decided that it was just too tricky to introduce in the last fifteen minutes of the movie, which is understandable I suppose.

You have to admit though, it would have been awesome to see a massive creature mind-blast New York with psychic energy and fill the streets with death and rivers of blood.

Stanton Moore

2009-03-04T07:41:00.000-08:00

Funk drummin never sounded so good!

Stanton Moore is an incredibly talented drummer - so talented, he has his own band, named after him and they are all pretty awesome too. Not a long post today, just an old Vid of the man, doin what he does best... Layin’ down some grooves!!

The Rum Diary

2009-02-27T06:52:00.000-08:00

Oh to be a reporter in the 1950's! Sipping rum in the stifling heat of San Juan after a hard day toiling away over a typewriter in a nicotine stained office. This is exactly how I felt as I accompanied reporter Paul Kemp on his journey through the bowels of Puerto Rico. Today I'm writing about the Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson.

When I read this book, I imagined the setting in tones of sepia, old Chevrolets rolling past in the dusty Puerto Rican streets as people in thin linen shirts and round-brimmed hats try to do as little as possible in the heat of the beating sun. Suddenly my tube journey to work was transformed. I could hear the Jazz and taste the cheap iced cuban rum, a refreshing change to the cramped, sweaty underground of sleepy, flu ridden Londoners.

The book tells of said reporter, his adventures and mis-adventures. He joins a small newspaper, already fated to fail due to its colourful workforce of extrovert and sometimes violent hacks that make their living there. This could be enough of a story on its own, but throw in a love interest shared between the reporter and his unstable friend and you have a recipe for both disaster and intrigue.

What impressed me the most was that this book, written from the point of view of someone who was obviously having trouble dealing with becoming middle aged, was penned by Thompson when he was just 22 years old! Although short, this is a must read for anyone, especially those with a lust for adventure or the idyllic dream of a little work and adventure in far flung lands.

Definitely - I will have to write a short article on Down & Out In Paris & London by George Orwell at some point, as both these books have the same effect of truly transporting the reader to a different place and time. It will be hard to beat books like these on my commute from here on in.

Philip K Dick

2008-12-19T08:30:00.001-08:00

One of the most famous and celebrated sci-fi authors celebrates his 80th birthday this week! Well, unfortunately, he is dead already, he died in 1982. However Mr. Philip K Dick was responsible for a massive body of science fiction that has permeated society in the form of classic novels that will live on for the rest of time, which in turn gave rise to some of the best movies ever to be made.Everyone knows the book "Do androids dream of electric sheep?" which inspired the film by Ridley Scott "Blade Runner". This is, by the way, one of my favourite films of all time. This film was released just a few months after his death. I think it is a tragedy that he never got to see it before he died.But what about the author himself? Well to be honest, until I had started to research this post, I knew little about him. Unfortunately for the budding writer in me, it seems that Philip K Dick joins the long list of visionary masters that I aspire to who suffered from serious mental health problems and heavy drug use. Dick claimed that he wrote many of his works while high on amphetamines and LSD and later on in his life suffered from what sounds to me like paranoid schizophrenia. He would be plagued with flashes of visions into ancient Rome and as these got longer and more intense, Dick decided that this could well me a past life or that perhaps he was leading two lives at the same time. Interestingly, he also had a recurring dream that he was looking for a story entitled "The Empire Never Ended" in a magazine. He convinced himself that if he ever found the magazine in his dream that it might send him mad.

In tribute to Phillip K Dick, I've pulled my finger out and made a start on "The

Man In The High Castle", one of his most celebrated works that I, for some reason, have never gotten round to reading I'll no doubt post about it here once I've finished it.

To find out more about Philip K Dick:

BoingBoing.net have a radio tribute to him archived on this page
The Philip K Dick tribute blog (amazing name) Total Dickhead

Films

I've listed the films of his that i really enjoyed in no particular order. I guess in the order of most awesome as voted for by me (I'm typing them as they pop into my mind). There are 9 films that I am aware of in total but these four are the ones that I have seen, remembered and enjoyed.

Blade Runner

Directed by Ridley Scott. Film Noir about a dark and not so distant future where a private detective hunts down rogue androids, while questioning his own humanity. "Do androids dream of electric sheep"

A Scanner Darkly

A strange method of filming live action scenes then animating over the top of them was used in this movie. It explores an alternate reality where a small group of friends live with their addiction to the psychoactive drug "Substance D". "A scanner darkly"

Total Recall

Truly, one of the most awesome Arnie movies of all time! This was released in the cinema in 1990 apparently (I thought it was older than that!) This film is about a man who thinks he has paid for memories of adventures to be implanted in into his mind. He quickly begins to discover that he has gotten more than he bargained for. "We can remember it for you wholesale"

Minority Report

Adapted into a blockbuster movie and directed by Stephen Spielberg,

Minority Report is set in a future where murders are kept to an all time low by a police force that relies on the pre-cognitive abilities of three young psychics. The main protagonist is a cop, accused of a murder he has yet to commit and pursued by the very police force he used to serve. "Minority Report"

Battle Angel Alita

2008-12-16T07:27:00.001-08:00

I saw the Manga movie of Battle Angel Alita when I was still in high school and it was then that the film became firmly cemented in my mind as one of the most amazing cyberpunk universes of all time. I've just finished reading one of the graphic novels about her that a friend has very generously sent over to me and it just left me totally gobsmacked.

A Little Background

Alita is a cyborg. Her head and torso are discovered in rubbish dump beneath the floating city by a scientist called Ido, who takes her home and fixes her up. Alita has no memory of her life before she is found by Ido, but as she adjusts to her new home in the city, it emerges that she has abilities in combat that are unusual, even for a cyborg.

Battle Angel Alita is based in a city where the useful, wealthy or just plain lucky members of society have fled to a floating city in the sky called Tiphares (Zoram in the movie). The city that sits below the floating utopia of Tiphares is left to rot and ruin, completely overrun by crime, drug abuse and violence. As this is set far into the future, most of the most prevalent criminals are cybernetically enhanced and therefore unstoppable by normal humans. To counter the lawlessness, the governing body of the sprawl known as "the factory" uses bounty hunters to bring in the heads of vanquished thugs and villains. Alita puts her awesome combat skills and abilities to use as a bounty hunter and that is pretty much the beginning of the story.

Awesome!

Why is Alita so awesome? So far, I haven't found out much about Alitas background before she became the cyborg you grow to know and love in the stories. However this mystery is an essential part of what makes her character so interesting. She is plunged into a cyberpunk city of sin with a wealth of colourful characters, most of whom aren't totally "good" or "evil" but instead doing a mixture of moral and immoral acts in order to survive. I really like that in characters that I am trying to connect with in stories. This is because, not only is it more realistic than just having a metaphorical Dumbledore or Yoda or any other totally pure character, but also because you just never know if your main character will be screwed over by them on the next page, or if they will be saved by them from the brink of death, albeit for a tidy sum of money or other aspect of personal gain.

Maybe this story, this world just appeals to my pessimistic side which tells me constantly...

"There is no 'Good', just varying degrees of Evil."

There ARE bad guys in this world and some of them are addicted to BRAINS. Yes! One of the more awesome aspects of this crazy cyberpunk future is that some of the massive killing machine cyborgs are addicted to the adrenaline found in human brains and this need drives them to horrific murders for their own personal gratification. It also means that brains and spines are hot property on a black market flooded with other human body parts and this trade in human tissue can also lead characters into interesting and sometimes terrifying situations.

I think if i reveal much more about the Alita universe I might give away too much or spoil it for the future initiated fan so I'll leave it at that, with an additional recommendation that Battle Angel Alita should most definitely be checked out.

Jennifer Government

2008-11-11T03:14:00.000-08:00

Down the darkest alley of mankind’s possible futures, there is no apocalypse, no great war, no invading swarms of hostile alien forces... there is only Capitalism!

Jennifer Government by Max Barry is set in Australia in a future where the corporations finally control the earth. The capitalist USA now controls most of Europe, Australia and half of Asia. The book follows several characters as they live their lives in super-corporate America.

The main story follows Jennifer Government, a government agent who is investigating a string of killings linked to a new $2000 pair of Nike trainers that have just gone on sale world-wide. At the same time you follow John Nike, a Marketing executive who has arranged the killings of a set of Nike customers in order to raise the profile and street-cred of the new shoes.

The book is non stop action from the word go. It is full of black humour, mostly rising from the super-capitalist world by which the characters are constantly being thwarted and screwed over. There's just the right amount of violence and black comedy to make this one of those books you can't put down. I'd recommend it for anyone who sees themselves as anti capitalist. Fans of Bill Hicks would most likely dig this book too.

Also: There is a free online browser game called Nation States which is inspired by and based in the Jennifer Government world.

Fable 2

2008-10-28T03:00:00.000-07:00

OK. The last few months have turned out to be amazing in terms of gaming and I don’t think it will stop just yet, with Fallout 3 on the Horizon, Farcry 2 actually here RIGHT NOW (!!!) and Little Big Planet screaming at me to sell one of my kidneys and finally get my hands on a PS3. Saying all this, I promise the NEXT entry I write won't be about computer games but, as we are truly in the golden age of interactive entertainment, it seems foolish of me not to get in on the action.

Fable 2 was created by the now famous (or infamous) Peter Molyneux and Lionhead Studios. For those of you that aren't aware of Lionheads back catalogue, it mainly consists of Fable & its expansion and the Black & White games. Lionhead have really carved out a style for themselves and it has become quite easy to tell one of their games apart from the rest, largely due to the open world "Sandbox" game environment that they prefer and also the chunky, cartoony style of their world and character design. Another theme that runs through all their games is the dominant "Black and White"\wrong and right\good and evil parallels that they draw to in each game by making the player decide between morally good and bad choices and reflecting these choices in the player avatar itself.

Fable 2 is a 3rd person RPG game set in a rural backdrop which looks something like an idyllic version of England before the industrial revolution. The game world is stunningly beautiful as are the inhabitants of the world itself. The game veers away from your usual Orc, Goblin, Dwarf RPG archetype in favour of bandits, slavers, shadows and Hobbes (said to be monsters created from little children that are stolen away in the night by monsters). Expect to use a variety of spells, swords and guns to hack and slash your way through a mass of enemies and, depending on how you play, friendly villagers too.

Most of the quests in the game are designed to have an impact on your "good" or "evil" personality, your character changing as you make these decisions in the game. If you make mostly evil decisions you will gradually start to look evil and demonic. Most of this is very familiar to the Black & White games and obviously the Fable predecessor. Some of the biggest changes for me came with the buying and selling of property to generate your income, the ability to hike up the prices on the shops you own if you are evil or lower them if you are a benevolent saint.

Other facets of the game include the ability to buy a home and raise a family (or multiple families). Players can contract STD's from sleeping with prostitutes. You can have children and even become king by eventually owning all the shops and pubs in the land.

This game is seriously addictive. It is playable to the extreme, allowing it to be accessible to players with little experience in RPG gaming. This does however make it incredibly easy for someone who has played Oblivion or Warcraft but no less addictive and fun as a result.

Things I Liked
GFX: This game has fantastic graphics, especially on the backdrops the opening scenes are amazing, especially when you make it to the rural town of Oakvale.

Narrative: The story is very well told (narrated by Zoe Wannamaker) and ties in nicely with the first game, while not requiring you to know too much about it at all. The story is good, if a little obvious to see where it is going from the outset but it is written well enough to get you hooked from the beginning and pull you through to the end.

Playable: The Ranged, Melee and Magical combat are assigned to one button each, a fairly unique combat system sits behind all of this allowing the player to come up with a few simple combos.

Things I Didn't Like
Too Easy: The game is incredibly easy. You could defend it by saying it is designed to be fun for players of all skill levels, and it is, but seasoned gamers will have little trouble rattling through this. Some people will tell you it is also too short but I don't think this is the case. If you want to, the core story thread is there to play through in about 14-15 hours but there is so much other stuff to do in the mean time that you should be able to pad it out easily to 25-30 hours. Then I guess you have to play both good and evil sides of the story which could double that. OK... maybe it is a bit on the short side too.

Too Short: Haha

Casting System: Is very poor. The fact you need to charge up EVERY spell before you can use it means that a lot of the direct damage spells become pointless as you only get to cast against one target before the rest of them are on you. Better to just chop people up with your sword.

Maps: What maps? The only map you'll find for the regions of the game is tiny and you'll only ever see it when you are actually in that region. I managed to get by but this feature was sorely lacking in the game.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

2008-10-21T06:26:00.000-07:00

Shepherds Bush on a Sunday evening. A lively place filled with sounds of pint glasses clinking in the pubs, revellers denying the end of another blissful weekend. Red double decker busses create guttural rumbles as they ferry throngs of Londoners across a sprawling city that never sleeps. But tonight a new sound joins the evening chorus. Tonight the sound of a dying rancor echoes across the rooftops, the crackle of force lightning arcs down the streets and the sizzling pop of lightsabre on storm trooper startles a city fox rummaging in the bins outside

Although I don't pretend to be a hardcore fan of the Star Wars universe, I enjoyed the movies a great deal, I've read a couple of the books and I have played a variety of the Lucas Arts games set in the Star Wars universe so I had a good idea of the standards I should be expecting from this title. As is true with most of the games, books, comics and movies that are set in the Star Wars universe, The Force Unleashed is enriched by a

huge amount of Star Wars "lore" and back story. "TFU" is set just after "Episode III" and follows a young "apprentice" of Darth Vader as he is sent out to destroy Jedi that survived Order 66 (the order to kill all Jedi, given by the Emperor to the clone troopers). The story takes the player to a variety of new locations and to a few very familiar ones. You can expect non stop action from the minute you start the game, as a special treat, the player gets to sample the true power of the dark side by playing the first level as Lord Vader himself!

The game is played from a 3rd person perspective and is primarily a hack and slash through fairly linear levels. When I say linear, it's not "on rails" but there is clearly only one way to progress through the level, although there are opportunities to explore hard-to-reach areas along the way to discover powerups, lightsabre crystals and experience. The level backdrops look beautiful and most of the time they react when you use your force powers. The force powers themselves are activated by single button pushe

s and can be worked into lightsabre combos very easily with dramatic effect. The control system is very intuitive and soon after completing the first level, you should be hacking, slashing, blasting and electrocuting your way through scores of soldiers, wookies, tanks, rancors, miscellaneous aliens and Jedi.

Things I Liked:

Sound Effects : a full range of familiar zaps, fizzles and screams from the Lucas Arts sound department.

Combat: The combat is fluid and the control system is intuitive.

Storyline: The story is well written, the characters instantly seem like they "belong" in the Star Wars world I was completely hooked on the storyline and its characters.

DLC: A new campaign is on the way and 4 new playable characters. I hope they get new moves too. The expansion for this title has some real potential.

Things I Didn't Like:
The force powers can be difficult to control sometimes. Looking at the design of the game, I can't think of a better way they could have approached the issue with the constraints of a console joy pad. The main issue I have with it is the boss encounter which requires the mastery of the force powers to complete it. It is very frustrating and if nothing else, just highlights the issue to the player.

Too Short: I completed the game in about 3 evenings of play, granted i had a weekends worth of play too, i did feel that the game was a little too short and could have done with a few more levels of storm trooper smashing fun.

Replay Value: As I was playing the game I remember thinking, "I'm having fun, I'm going to play through this again!" there is a small element of RPG-esque character development in this game, but as you get towards the end, you should have earned enough points to pretty much max out all the skills, meaning that you aren’t forced to concentrate your characters skills in a particular field. I don’t think this is necessarily a BAD thing, it just means that every player at the end of the game will have exactly the same character, instead of one with different strengths and weaknesses, which would have been far more interesting and an incentive to play it all over again.

In Short...
I would recommend playing this game. It's fun, looks good and is quite immersive. See if you can borrow or rent it as it is short and there isn't really an incentive to buy it again. You could always get it second hand, but i think in retrospect, I would have rented it twice, once to play it through and another time later on next year when the DLC comes out.

Game Review: Spore

2008-09-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

By now I'm sure that anyone stumbling across this blog has already heard all about Spore and been exposed to at least some of the surrounding Hype about this game. Yes. The media storm surrounding the game as it built up to its release billed it to be one of the most innovative and original games ever made.

The famous video of Will Wright "um" using the creature creator when it was in its earlier stages was amazing and there is no doubt that the design of the creator and the technology behind it is absolutely astounding and revolutionary.

Spore received mixed reviews upon release; a recent Amazon.com "glitch" meant that a thread of unfavourable reviews was somehow "lost" from the Spore product page, although after some questioning, the reviews were restored. The biggest controversy to overshadow the game was its stringent DRM (digital rights management) restrictions - which restricted users from installing the game on more than 3 machines and only allowed customers to create a single account capable of receiving the user generated content and adding a users own creations to the collective. EA have since announced that they will be relaxing the rules slightly, allowing the game to be installed on up to 5 machines. This issue is still a point of contention between developer and end user, but it's also a complex one and maybe a topic for another blog.

As Spore is cut up into five distinct sections, which means this review is really 5 mini reviews in one massive block of intimidating text. Sorry about that.

Phase 1: Tidal Pool Phase

This part of the game is awesome. You start as a small amoeba-like creature and have to swim through a primordial soup of other microbes, eating other animals or plant matter to grow in size. Once you have grown, you can munch on the creatures that have been eating you. You are offered the chance to upgrade your organism, giving it different mouths, weapons and methods of propulsion. This part of the game is very addictive, looks great and its great fun. My only real criticism would be that it is too easy and it is over too quickly.

Phase 2: Creature Phase

This looks like World of Warcraft or some similar MMO. You run around with your creature in third person, grinding computer controlled creatures in order to get you experience bar to the top level. You have some skills on a Warcraft-style action bar at the bottom of the screen that vary in degrees of uselessness. There are a few basic quests which give you extra XP, all in all - it is extremely easy and gets boring fast. You are offered the carnivorous "kill and eat everything" route or the herbivorous "eat vegetables and make friends with everything" route. I chose the former as the latter is for girls.

Phase 3: Tribal Phase

This feels like a Settlers game and turns the camera view into a birds-eye view of the map. You are now controlling multiple copies of your creatures, competing against other creatures in a battle to dominate the landscape. You tell your creatures to hunt, fish, attack rival tribes or befriend them. There is no customisation in this phase and i felt myself rushing through it. There is no substance to this phase and the usually classic RTS features it should have don't exist (for example ctr+1 grouping of units, selecting unit type on double click or selecting all units on screen). In short - play a Civ or Settlers game and you will have a much better time than wasting an hour on this part. The Civ Revolutions demo that I got FOR FREE on Xbox live lasted longer than this, was more fun and looked more graphically polished.

Phase 4: Civilisation Phase

This phase is much better than the last two as you get to use the creator tool again, this time to construct your buildings, tanks, navy and air force. I would compare this phase to a command and conquer or dawn of war title but, yet again, not nearly as good.

The phase itself, again, only lasts a very short time and there is even an "I win" button that you unlock after defeating half of the enemies on the map, making the entire thing completely pointless. The vehicles do look really good but you are restricted in how many you can make, the enemies are very easy to defeat and hardly attack at all, even the "aggressive" ones. Also, this phase suffers the same lack of RTS functionality that the last phase did. Very disappointing. It takes roughly three and a half hours of game time to get to the end of this stage without rushing and this is the penultimate phase of the game.

Phase 5: Space Phase

The Space Phase is the proverbial carrot on the end of the stick which kept me playing through three and a half hours of brightly coloured disappointment.

The phase begins with the creator window again. This time you get to create a spaceship. Once you have created one, you are taken through the tutorials which teach you to master trade, diplomacy, terra-forming and changing the planets you have populated by introducing plants and animals.

This phase looks beautiful and the galaxy you have to explore is HUGE. You zip around in your ship and perform various quests in order to gain currency to improve your existing planets, expanding your empire. Think Master of Orion or Freelancer as a basis for comparison on this stage. My main criticism for this phase is that your massive galactic empire only supports one ship to defend its empire... YOU. If you expand your empire to more than 3 or 4 planets, you will soon find yourself zipping back and forth from planet to planet to defend them, without getting anything done. This is a huge game play design flaw in the phase in my opinion.

Conclusion

The best part about this game is, without doubt, the creature creator. Creating the buildings, creatures and vehicles is really good fun and seeing them come to life is great. I really hope the creature creator is implemented in future games. The game play elements are very poor. It's extremely easy, I doubt younger players would have a difficult time completing it at all and once you have completed it in carnivore and herbivore "modes" there isn't enough there to warrant a third run. The game genres it traverses are already dominated by far superior titles that are specialised in doing that genre WELL. While it has some great ideas I don't think it manages to pull them off to the standard people were expecting. A victim of its own hype, Spore is a jack of all trades, master of none.

Kew Gardens

2008-09-22T04:17:00.000-07:00

Financial Apocalypse

2008-09-19T02:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, the share prices for the Halifax (my building society) fell to an all time low, or something like that. Lloyds TSB bought them out, making them stronger and apparently saving them from the one terrifying event that all banks fear, as depicted so perfectly in Mary Poppins - a Run on the Bank. Which started me thinking... if there was a run on the bank, what fantastic repercussions could we expect? Undoubtedly our society would crumble and descend into anarchy, right? How far could this go?

Week 1: Ground Zero

HBOS - The Halifax and the Bank of Scotland share values drop to an all time low of 51%. Thousands of British shareholders see their share values drop from £10 to £1.85. Shocking. Apart from the odd suicide and a few unhappy savers, nothing too exciting happens. The cogs, however, are well and truly in motion.

Week 2: Run On The Bank

On Tuesday 25th September 2008, due to some misguided financial advice from a friend at her local bridge club, Sixty five Year-Old Emily Higgins walks into her local branch of the Halifax building society in Chichester and asks that they transfer all her savings and pensions to her newly opened HSBC savings account. The young teller, James Woodcock, a fine arts graduate of 25 years, informs her that because of a technical issue with their internet connection, they would be unable to do that until the following week. Having no grasp of modern technology or what the internet even is, Miss Higgins panics and kicks up a fuss, loudly declaring that the building society will not give her access to her funds. Within just a few minutes, already worried account holders begin to demand their money be drawn out of their accounts, either in cash, or wired elsewhere. The clamour turns into panic as the painfully slow customer service of the Building society staff exacerbates the situation. Among the growing rabble of angry customers, Dave Watson - Reporter for the Chichester local newspaper makes the call to his editor that would change life as we know it.

Week 3: Financial Apocalypse

several of the panicking Halifax patrons post tweets online about their ordeal in the Chichester branch. Many more post phone camera footage onto YouTube of the riot that ensued in the branch and the resulting armed police presence sent to quash them. Dave Watson’s story, however, is sold to Meridian television and broadcast across the nation that evening. Thousands of people turn up at the Halifax branches the following morning in dismay and those that can, withdraw or transfer all their savings. The inevitable knock on effect and rioting occurs in every major city in the UK. No Bank is safe as people stupidly horde cash which is rapidly declining in value. Jails overflow and the BBC news website reports scenes of brutal Police crackdowns all over the country. By the end of the week, the economy "crashes". The cities descend into anarchy; riots, protests and looting are rife. The police battle to restore order against the populace, their lines of riot shields reflecting the fires that are raging in the husks of looted electronics stores and supermarkets.

Week 24: The Future

The cities across England are all smouldering husks. The inhabitants of which pick their way through the broken buildings, seeking out food and water to add to their caches. Several gangs have taken refuge in shopping centres and the larger supermarkets, defending their stores of food with fierce and deadly aggression. The police and fire brigade have broken down, unable to cope with the strain. The brave men and women who managed to hold a resistance against the massive tide of looters and rioters have elected to save their own families and flee to more rural areas. Martial law has been declared across the nation and a thin force of British soldiers Police what little is left and enforce curfew. What is left of the emergency medical services use their dwindling supplies to treat the wounded in small makeshift emergency medical HQ's. Dave Watson, reporter for the Chichester Local Newspaper, shivers alone in a dark abandoned flat, his mind crazed through regret and remorse as he sees the outcome of his sensationalist news report.

Week 48: The New Curse

Driven mad through grief, remorse and hunger, Dave Watson - Reporter for the Chichester Local Newspaper- steps barefoot into an abandoned street. His filthy black fingernails scratch at a sore on his back, his gums bleed and his matted hair is thinning through mal-nutrition. He casts his glazed and vacant stare slowly from one end of the street to the other, looking for movement. There is none. No one will go near Dave Watsons street. Dave Watsons street is a cursed and fearful place.

Quietly he wanders, his stick-thin frame casts a long shadow on the cracked and overgrown pavement. He takes a corner onto the abandoned high street. Children see him and run. He has no interest in them. They are too fast for him anyway. He moves into the road and slowly meanders through long since burnt-out husks of cars. A hand reaches out and grabs the leg of Daves ragged pyjama bottoms. From the shadows within the twisted wreck of two crashed cars, Dave hears a feeble voice... "scuse me mate, you got any food?" Dave stops, but says nothing... the voice from within the wreckage mews again... "Oi mate - you got any, oh my god..." The voice, stopping short, belongs to an old man wrapped in a filthy green sleeping bag. His face was already becoming weathered from the months he spent outside but most of his features were hidden anyway, beneath a bushy grey moustache and a mane of greasy, straggled hair which poked out from beneath a woolly bobbled hat. He casts his gaze up and out from his refuge too look at Dave Watson. At just over six foot tall and barefoot, his only item of clothing, a pair of red and white striped pyjama bottoms, filthy and ragged, Dave is quite a startling sight. He is stick-thin, bare chested and crisscrossed in blue veins and sores from malnourishment. His cracked lips pull back in a hellish grin, revealing what are left of his yellowing teeth. Dave Watson - Reporter for the Chichester Newspaper lets out a maniacal laugh and stoops to enter the car wreckage. The mans screams ring out across the desolated city and are suddenly silenced.

The South Bank

2008-07-27T15:43:00.001-07:00

Sand Sculpture In Progress

Modern Art

Butterflies

2008-07-18T04:28:00.001-07:00

These are some pics I took with my phone at the butterfly exhibit at the Natural History Museum, London. (click on them to see them better)

Masonic London

2008-06-21T15:06:00.000-07:00

Freemasonry and all the secrecy that surrounds the practice has become an obsession of mine of late. The Masons are a highly ritualised organisation that has spread throughout Europe and most of the westernised world. The organisation currently claim to have over 6 million members indoctrinated and at various levels of rank and power all over the world.
The members of the Freemasons call themselves "The Lightbringers" and it is their mission to spread their light to every corner of the world. They publicly focus their rituals towards a theocratic figurehead called simply, The Great Architect. Because modern day Masons can be of any faith, The Great Architect represents which ever deity the members worship in their own religion. They claim this is so all the members of the lodge can focus their energy on a single iconic figure whilst still remaining true to their own individual faiths. Interestingly enough, the majority of Freemasons last century were Protestants. The Roman Catholic Church shunned the Freemasons and so Catholics weren't allowed to be indoctrinated. I find this strange as the Protestant religion is very specific about not worshipping idols or covering their places of worship in decadance and finery, however this contradicts what you would see if you stepped into the Grand Lodge in London.

The United Grand Lodge in Covent Garden is the focal point for all the masonic lodges in Europe. Freemasonry as we see it today began with this building, formed by the merger of 4 smaller masonic lodges from around the country. Its architecture was designed and built around the strange rituals that are carried out by the Masons during their meetings. There are strong ties to the occult and Freemasonry. The two main doorways to the lodge are preceded by large Pentagrams laid into the floor. Apparently this is to "shrink a persons aura" on entry. The handles of the doors on exit and the symbols and sygils carved around the inner doorways are meant to empower Masons as they leave the lodge and enter the outside world.

The invlovement of the Freemasons in world history has been discussed many times before in various books, documentaries and films. If you would like to know more about this, I recommend The Il luminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea. There are many documentaries about them on line, The Lightbin gers, Emissaries Of Jabulon is my favourite to date. Basically, the background is that the Freemasons have, throughout history, been composed of some of the most powerful and influential people on the planet. George Bush is a member of a lodge called Skull and Bones, Tony Blair is a Mason of the 33rd degree (the highest rank obtainable in the organisation) and so was Lenin. Using the power of their members, the grand masters of Freemasonry, it is said, manipulated the outcome of wars, destroyed cities, caused the French Revolution and are currently to blame for the wars in the middle east. The infamous Masonic motto "New World Order" can be seen on the back of every US dollar bill currently in circulation.

The dollar bill contains many symbols that are allegedly related to the Freemasons. The eye atop the pyramid is also a famous Masonic symbol which is clearly visible in photos of masons in their regaila that are decades old. The number 13 is said to be a mystical and occult number to the Freemasons. The base of the pyramid in "the great seal" below is made up of 13 sections which is said to have special masonic relevance. The phrase annuit cœptis consists of 13 letters and the ribbon beneath the image shows 13 sides.

The Masons are made up of 33 seperate degrees. a mason progresses through these degrees as he moves through the ranks of the organisation.
It is said that the 33 degrees of Masonry are represented in the flag of the united nations, covering the world. Notice the 13 leaves on the olive branches on either side of the globe.

The "Great Seal Of The United States Of America" is also full of these apparently occult and symbolic numbers. The eagle in the seal has 33 feathers in total on its wings. The 13 stars above the eagle are laid out into the star of David (the Jewish Kaballah is the source for alot of this Masonic mysticism. ) The eagle holds 13 arrows in one talon and an olive branch with 13 leaves and 13 olives in the other. There are 13 stripes on the shield in the foreground. There are also 13 letters in the phrase e pluribus unum or "out of the many, come one".

Well... It would be rude not to ...

- right?!

New York City Jazz

2008-04-04T09:04:00.000-07:00

So due to an underground fire, an extraordinarily malicious virus or your negligence in paying the phone bill, the internet as you know it has disappeared. What better way to spend those sorrowful hours, being cheered up by some of the best drumming, the best saxophony, the best piano playing or the best and wittiest banter in the city. I am talking of course, about live jazz music.We went over to the Blue Note Jazz Club in Manhattan last night to witness some of the greats show us how live Jazz is done. With Sax, Piano, Double Bass & Drums, the James Mood y Quartet played us through our dinner with a mixture of fast and eclectic Jazz and also some beautiful meandering numbers that make a listener stare off into the distance and lose themselves in thought and relaxation. The man himself, James Moody, a spritely 86 years old (!!!), was extremely funny with his crowd banter. We were lucky enough to be at the club for his 17^th year wedding anniversary – so I’d like to imagine he played especially well on that night!

I couldn't write a blog about a live music event without focusing on the percussion, so here we go. We were fortunate enough to see Joe Farnsworth play in the Quartet. He is an exceptional Jazz drummer and regarded as one of the best in the world. You should difinitely look at his website or try to listen to examples of his playing if at all possible.

James Moody took us through the first half of the set, then passing the front spot over to Jon Hendricks. James Moody is the oldest person on his bandstand, but Jon is only 3 years younger than him. The 83 year old bee bopped, scatted and sang for a good 40 minutes, giving us a great selection of Jazz and Boss nova and the history that goes with it. This Guy should know. His university course on the history of Jazz has been the number 1 course at the University of Toledo for the past three years running!

I would definitely recommend going to steep yourself in some old time jazz, especially if you are fortunate enough to witness people who have lived and breathed the music for the past few decades. New York’s Blue Note was fantastic, You could also try Ronnie Scott’s in London or Matt n Phred’s in Manchester, all of which are fantastic Jazz venues.

Go Dinosaur Hunting

2008-03-24T08:11:00.000-07:00

Get yourself down to your local museum with a camera and start hunting for dinosaurs. If you live in Manchester, London or New York, you’re in luck because each of these cities has excellent grounds for Dino hunting. There’s plenty of other cities with good places to spot ancient reptiles too! Here's a list of some beauties I spotted this weekend. Click any of the pictures to make them bigger.

Tyrannosaurus Rex: Weighed 6.8 tonnes, bipedal, 13 metres long. Carnivore. Cretaceous.

Diplodocus: Weighed 10-15 tonnes, quadruped, had a six metre long neck and measured 25m from nose to tail. Herbivore. Jurassic.

Triceratops: Weighed 6-12 tonnes, quadruped, 9 metres long, horns 1 metre long. Herbivore. Cretaceous.

Allosaurus: Weighed 2.5 tonnes, bipedal, 9.7 metres long. Carnivore. Jurassic.

Stegosaurus: Weighed 4-5 tonnes, quadruped, 9 metres long. Herbivore. Cretaceous. Jurassic.

The Empire State Building

2008-03-21T07:05:00.001-07:00

There is no Adam only Zool! I went up the Empire State building last night and that’s what I kept thinking to myself. If you’ve ever been up there, doesn’t it look like the building from Ghostbusters??

Anyway, I decided to go down at 10pm on a Thursday night to beat the ques, as the building and its observation platforms are open until after midnight. To my astonishment when I arrived, there was not only a large que, but it stretched out of the door of the building and almost right round the corner! It wasn’t a huge issue for me though, and the line moved pretty fast and, before I knew it, I was inside one of the most famous buildings in the world.

The main entrance hall is very impressive. I did take a photo of it but I have found a better picture on the internet so I’ll add that one to this blog (better meaning straight, not blurred and it hasn’t got half a Japanese tourist standing in the frame). Typically, the time i got to go and see it, most of the building was under construction and an awful lot of the rooms I passed through were in various stages of being painted, renovated or rewired. Nevertheless, i did get to see some very fantastic art deco. The light fixtures, the elevators, the escalators... loads of little things I recognised from movies and comics I’ve been reading all my life. It wasn’t just Ghostbusters I started thinking about, I started imagining the daily planet and Clark Kent stopping lifts from falling down the shafts or Peter Parker standing in one of the offices presenting Jameson with his latest photos of Spiderman. All of these scenes seemed to happen in a backdrop similar to the one I was walking through. I had alot of time to think about all of this, as it took me almost an hour and a half to get to the top. (click the images to make them larger)

Once at the top, the view was spectacular. You can see for miles! I managed to get outside and take a few snaps, my photography skills let me down again though. Here is the best one of the bunch.

Latin Funk (Remember To Tip!!)

2008-03-19T06:44:00.000-07:00

I’m into funk music in a big way. I like some Jazz too, having spent many a Saturday night in Manchester’s Matt & Phreds sipping whiskey and listening to some real talent. I heard New York had a great music scene so I thought I’d go check out what the city had to offer.

First mission, escape Central Manhattan. Times Square is definitely a spectacle with its massive billboards and shops. At night time, it’s fantastic to look at. However, walking through it is a nightmare and it reminds me of London’s Oxford Street, which is the fore-runner for my least favourite place on the planet.

I found a club called Nublu on Avenue C which was perfect. You’d never even know it was there unless you knew what you were looking for but once you go through the front door , the interior is dark, stylish, covered in graffiti and they have a great bar. On the subject of bars, I’m still getting the hang of when exactly to tip people in America. I was politely told off by the barmaid after not tipping her after my second drink. She explained that she doesn’t get any money for running the bar, she survives solely on tips! I tipped her for my two drinks sheepishly. For future reference, it’s $1 for every drink you’re served. I think on a busy night, it must pay a lot better than what our bar staff get in the UK, she must have raked it in last night. Do I tip them in Starbucks?

Anyway, back to music. I saw a guy who calls himself Curumin and his band. They were fantastic. Brazilian Jazz, Funk & Salsa is quite difficult to play on the drums. Curumin, however, was drumming it all perfectly and singing it as well! A very talented guy indeed. He had the entire room dancing by his third song. I’ll definitely be buying his album when I get back to the UK. I’ve embedded a link to his MySpace page (go! go! go!) so if you want to listen to his stuff, my favourite track is “cidade des homens”. If you can’t bothered to go there, his music sounds a little like old school Ozomatli without Tunafish.

Massive Sandwiches

2008-03-18T06:35:00.001-07:00

I have re-located to New York for a couple of weeks so my posts until I’m back in blighty will be focussed around activities you can find there.

The first flowers of spring are flourishing on the trees in London... aaah how I will miss my smelly city. It brings a tear to my eye!

Today’s activity to try out after the apocalypse – eating massive sandwiches. I guess that you can re-create this anywhere, you just need bread and about £20 worth of meat from Tescos. I didn’t actually plan to do this, the procurement of said massive sandwich was purely accidental, I just thought that i had been ripped off massively by the delicatessen. You can find the Deli on times square, although i have totally forgotten the name. I guess words cannot express the size of the thing, so here it is in all its glory:

click image to enlarge

I ate half of it for my tea and half of it for my breakfast the following day. I still haven’t finished the cheesecake. I'm going to be massive by the time I leave this city!

Cage Fighting

2008-03-09T08:39:00.000-07:00

This weekend we had managed to get some free tickets to see the Cage Rage at Wembley arena in London. I’ve seen a few live fight events before, but never mixed martial arts combat, so I thought I’d give it a try. And, in the spirit of true romanticism, I brought my girlfriend along with me too.

I wasn’t too sure what to make of the Cage fighting. The rounds were over very quickly in most cases and matches all seemed to start off well, punches, kicks and lots of movement, but almost all of them descended quickly into the competitors lying on the floor hugging each other. A couple of the contestants looked like they had eaten one too many ice creams at the sea side and their match was the most boring one of all to watch. I’m sure they all train very hard to become cage fighters and they could all most likely kill me in their sleep. However, I found that the hype machine that was surrounding the event had brought my expectations about the fights to such a level where delivering a spectacle that would meet my approval had become impossible. There were a couple of high points which I’m almost but not quite ashamed to say, were the points at which maximum damage had been dealt to a fighter. We saw one guy get a knee to the face and one fighter had his knee snapped by a Japanese leg lock specialist. Ouch.

I don’t want to blog for bloggings sake. If live combat is your thing, I’d recommend boxing or watching some Thai kick boxing which is far more exciting. I won’t be attending Cage Matches after the internet goes down that’s for sure.

London Natural History Museum

2008-03-06T02:38:00.000-08:00

So, the internet apocalypse has finally come upon you. ITunes is no longer downloading your favourite Pod Casts, the hours of illegally streamed media are no longer at your fingertips and your escape into the World Of Warcraft has been closed down indefinitely. What is left to live for?! Well, lets hope you have at least had the foresight to download this blog in its entirety or you’re really in trouble.

This blog doesn’t just deal with books and computer games. Its purpose is to provide a list of fun and interesting things to keep you occupied in the unfortunate event of your complete isolation from the internet and all the luxuries it brings to the comfort of your arm chair. Today’s report looks at the London Natural History Museum.

The museum itself is located on Exhibition street in London. The nearest tube is South Kensington, a two minute walk away. Before you even enter through the massive doors, you might be instantly struck by the sheer size and grandeur of the building that is the Natural History Museum and rightly so. Wikipedia assures me that the museum itself is nearly one hundred and thirty years old & holds over 70 Million items and exhibits.

Inside, the museum is split into four separate zones:

Red – The planet itself, mainly geology. It has lots of video footage of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions as well as an earthquake simulator! The entrance into this zone is arguably the most impressive you are likely to see in a museum, with a long escalator ride which takes you through the centre of a massive sculpture of the planet. There’s a good photo opportunity here too.
Green – Learn all about ecology. This section covers fossils, insects, primates and evolution. You have the opportunity to see a dodo (stuffed of course) and if you are lucky, here is where you are most likely to see specimens collected by Charles Darwin.
Blue – This is my favourite zone. As well as the mammal room which has hundreds of models, skeletons and exhibitions of mammals, past and present, as well as some interesting models of the ancestors of today’s modern mammals, you’ll also find exhibits on human biology.. Best of all though, the blue zone is where you’ll find the dinosaurs!! Anna and I had tonnes of fun trying to name all the various skeletons and fossils.
Orange – This is the Museums wildlife garden which is fairly pleasant. Being brought up on a diet of movies, video games, dinosaurs, sci-fi and violence, the plants didn’t excite me as much as perhaps they should have done. However, the Orange zone is also where the Darwin Centre can be found and this is perhaps the highlight of a trip to the Museum. There are a limited number of tours around the centre, which is in a separate building to the main museum and tickets can be booked at the start of the visit. Thankfully, they keep the groups small as they take people round the centre which is a good thing as we were directed around the centre, which is a fully functioning laboratory, by a real live scientist!! There are plenty of opportunities to ask questions as you are shown round what seems to be a collection of a kind of Noah’s ark of pickled animals in jars. I think a small amount of people may not find this as exciting as I did, either because they are squeamish, which is understandable, or because they are idiots, which is not.

Gruesome – the pickled remains of many creatures, from all over the world can be found at the Darwin Centre.

It is advisable to decide on maybe two of the four zones as, to get the most out of the museum and see everything, you will definitely need to visit a few times. Because of the unique seasonal exhibitions and the ever changing content in the museum, you are guaranteed to see something different every month too. And best of all, its all FREE.

One final thing, the NHM website contains hours of free video lectures on a wide spectrum of biological topics. The lectures themselves are given by engaging scientists, usually experts in his or her field of study. This is a really valuable and interesting resource that I don’t think the Natural History Museum advertise nearly enough.

Assassins Creed

2008-03-06T01:42:00.000-08:00

With a backdrop so gorgeous in its design, a fluid game play style and a sexy new monk\assassin look for your main character, it is easy to see why Assassins Creed generated so much attention and hype prior to its release. For months, myself, colleagues, friends and the MOG Army awaited its release with anticipation and delight at the thought that one of the classic gaming genres, the assassination game, was about to get the 21^st century makeover it so rightly deserved.

The genre already had many gaming gems, including the “Tenchu” stealth assassin games and the fabulously brutal and complex “Hitman” series that had both set the standards high in graphics and game play. It seemed obvious from the day the titbits and teasers for this title were released onto the internet that the game intended to not only compete with, but totally reset the benchmark for the third person “stalk-and-kill” game play style.

I got the game on for the 360, my console of choice for the time being. (I may have to write a blog about the trials of choosing between the three big consoles some day.) Got myself comfortable, made sure there was a readily available source of snack food and alcohol nearby and began to play.

As soon as the game play starts, you realise the potential of the game, the movement of the character, the free running style he uses to move between buildings. The story allows you to quickly sample all the weapons and puts you in a friendly start area to allow you to learn the basics of movement, combat, sneaking and escaping detection.

Just as I'd hoped, the game is easy to pick up and learn with an intuitive control system and fluid character movement. The ability to clamber up onto almost anything in the environment and stylishly jump, flip, wall run or swan dive off it again still hasn’t gotten boring to this day. The character itself will seamlessly interact with the buildings and I saw no clipping or strange collision bugs. The NPC soldiers have an annoying habit of being able to climb buildings almost as well as the assassin can, although they are not nearly as graceful when doing it. I felt a sense of smugness when, after brutally killing a guard, citizen or beggar I managed to perform carious acrobatic escape manoeuvres, ending in a leap of faith into a bale of straw and off the guards radar.

Sadly the beautiful backdrops and fluid movement of the character don’t make up for the games lack of real game play and, once you’ve assassinated a few people, you’ll begin to realise that, not only are you completing very easy sub missions but they are all in fact exactly the same. Even the script for the NPC’s is identical in each city which completely bemused me. They have DIFFERENT voice actors, but the NPC’s all say the same thing!?! Not good.

The combat system is fantastic, especially the counter moves which offer you the ability to dispatch your enemy in a number of stylishly brutal ways, think Dead Or Alive 3, which offers a similar system for countering attacks.

To summarise, this game is great to play and good looking but it has no substance. I think Assassins Creed 2 will be the real winner, as I’m guessing they can spend less time on the combat & movement and maybe focus more on creating a game with more missions, more weapons or maybe an RPG element that allows the player to choose the skills and weapons their character can specialise in. The game gets repetative quickly, so i'd rent this, rather than purchase. Still, whatever keeps you occupied after the apocalypse eh?

Matter, Iain Banks

2008-03-04T18:17:00.001-08:00

Matter is the first of Iain Bank’s books I’ve read, not counting the Wasp Factory that I read quite a few years ago. I think he writes his science fiction under a slightly altered pseudo name as his fiction is published under the name Ian Banks. I checked and it IS the same author, but never mind I digress.

Matter is a novel that is part of a group of stories called “The Culture Novels”. They are all set in the same universe, a universe far in advance of present day where mankind has long since colonised new worlds, discovered new technology, abolished money and of course, has come into contact with various species of aliens. “What’s New?” you might ask, “this sounds very familiar, very similar to almost every other sci-fi book I have ever read” and of course, to a small degree, you’d probably be right.

What sets this book apart from your card board cut-out sci-fi is not just how rich the detail of the world is, and it is described perfectly as you journey through the story, really allowing the reader to immerse themselves within it. Sometimes it takes more than just a good descriptive narrative to really bring a reader into the story. So many times I’ve tried to immerse myself in a world that, for all the adjectives its author can throw at me, just does not take my interest. What really brought ‘Matter’ to life for me was the design on the many different civilisations you will come into contact with while reading the story. Banks has created a universe where humans and aliens of various levels of technology, from feudal civilisations that have only just discovered gunpowder weaponry, to The Culture, a highly advanced super race of humans that live their lives completely without consequence, their technology granting them the ability to not only completely control every part of their own physiology, but actually transcend their bodies altogether. The ideas behind the civilisations themselves, the ships they travel in, the worlds they inhabit and the way they communicate with each other, every facet is, at least to me, unique and refreshing. It is so difficult to find a story so truly original in a genre that is so full of copies & clichés as science fiction seems to be. I haven’t been exposed to anything as fresh as this since the DUNE novels.

Internet Apocalypse

2008-03-04T03:47:00.000-08:00

My assimilation into the writhing mass of information, media, “user generated content” and pornography that constitutes the internet as it is today was not a sudden, over-night occurrence but rather a slow, building dependency on what is undoubtedly one of the most important collaborative projects in human history.

My first memory of using the internet is one from high-school, logging on to an internet chat room with some friends at lunch time and marvelling at the wonder of real time communication with people as far away as America without the use of letters or a telephone.

Of course, being only 14 years old at this point, naturally, we used this life changing, monumental experience to its fullest and spent the entirety of our lunch break insulting people thousands of miles away, safe in the knowledge that they could not do us physical harm. At least, not before we had chance to hide or blame the whole thing on somebody else.

How was I to know back then that the internet would become such an important part of my day to day life AND that eventually, it would be considered socially acceptable to spend time at my computer, not only acceptable, but COOL to do so… depending of course, on what my myspace page looked like, what applications I had on facebook, my latest you tube video or what pod casts I listen to. Now I depend on it solely for my news and entertainment, traffic and travel information, reviews on and purchasing of movies, books, computer games, hardware and software.

We notice things that don't work. We don't notice things that do. We notice computers, we don't notice pennies. We notice e-book readers, we don't notice books.

Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001), The Salmon of Doubt, p. 110

As the internet is integrated further and I enter the latter stages of net dependency or “addiction” am beginning to realise, not so much what an impact access to information and entertainment has on my life, but rather, what impact the LOSS of all this would have on my day to day life. So, much in the same way that the End Timers prepare for the end of the world, stockpiling food, water, medical supplies and books on that great wizard in the sky… so this blog will attempt to scrape together pieces of every day life, media, entertainment, sights, sounds and experiences that you may hopefully be able to fall-back on after the great internet tribulation.