Just a mo - Supercharging my Prius

I hate Clarkson, I hate that little twerp Hammond, Mays' dislike of the other two makes him bearable and I have no interest in cars what-so-ever. So why on Earth do I enjoy the Gran Turismo games? Theoretically a real driving simulator would be absolute tripe to me and I'm certainly not going to have the patience for going through all the driving licence tests and why on Earth can I not just use that top notch Ferrari from the moment I turn on the game?

Thing is, I think that's just what makes it popular and why I've been coming back since the original. It's almost a career simulation with the aspect of a pretty good driving game thrown in (management mode if you want these days) and - to me - that's one of the better features of recent sports games to ply my trade as a footballer at Lincoln City and work my way to international goalscoring superstar hero. I'm not particularly car literate, I'm not going to play it and be able to analyse the slight differences that may get a little more out of it, but I can look at the numbers and work out how to get more out of those pixels to give it a boost. Until recently on the Football/Championship manager games you saw nothing but numbers and had to work out how to use them to your best. Stevenage Borough winning the champions League? Relatively straight forward with the right mind.

As a driving game, it's one I've never had a problem with, one of the complaints has often been the lack of visible damage but to be perfectly frank that does nothing to me. It could just be my style but when I'm playing I tend to drive in driver seat view as I find it easier to gauge turns and distances, so I'm not going to see it except for in a replay but rarely am I that excited by a race I need to sit there for another 10 minutes to see it all from a different angle.

In short, as a genre it's one I'm not particularly interested in and that's due to my lack of interest in the subject full-stop but as a game. I keep coming back, for some part I'd say it could be the obvious improvement curve, of course in races if I turn up in a Bugatti Veyron against some substandard family saloons I'll romp home but going from scraping bronze to gold passes on licence tests shows that your skills are improving. Other than that I think it's just a incredibly well polished, deep driving game that if you're only going to play one of them fills all holes. Though my hatred for Top Gear is enlarged by trying to manoeuvre camper vans around "Hammerhead" at high speed!

Oh yes and I get to drive a supercharged version of Bumblebee from Transformers, probably 'er indoors' favourite feature...

Art of Acting 2 - Time to start work

I've been far too quiet on here recently and this comes down to the fact I've been barely able to sit still and relax for a few weeks, and it'll get much, much worse now! Over the next month I'm going to be living at the towns Commemoration Hall first in my role as "Sound Viking" for the youth theatre and then on stage during pantomomomime which is now less than 30 days away from show time, celebrity guests (well rumoured Emily Ovendon from Pythia/Medieval Baebes fame) and Miss Pipe heading to the countries first privately owned hospital *grumble* for childish delight.


With that deadline in mind we're now at the stage where people are putting down scripts, getting more physical and in some cases drifting towards complacency. First up let's tackle the "scripts down moment". Some of us are just about trying certain parts, myself included, without the script but the thing is. This leads to confusion as the person whom would fill the role of "contiunuity supervisor" or "prompt" if you prefer hasn't arrived yet which means that there is the continuous stopping when people don't notice you haven't got your script which becomes a repeat later on when the CS/P arrives (two days before show inevitably) who doesn't know when you're stopping for a dramatic pause or forgotten lines. Or they're over eager with a prompt line. Imagine if you will Romeo & Juliet as I, Romeo stand over the "dead body" of Juliet confronted with your one true loves body you don't just ramble on so I stop take a deep breath lower my head and begin working into a state of tears and a voice is heard bellowing from the wings "DEATH THAT HATH SUCKED!"... There goes that mood then!


The problem is that if there is no prompt in early rehearsals they're not going to know these acting nuances when it comes to performance and as a result people find themselves bundling through lines and losing some of the acting side, alternatively pausing midsentence due to the unmistakeable shout. I've only once seen someone forget lines in a professional show (Christian Slater for the record, noticed having played the role of McMurphy myself) and the secret is that the prompts actually turn up for rehearsals, I know in the West End they're paid for it but if actors and directors are there why can't a prompt from the crew turn up too?


Anywho, it's also now getting to the "physical" stage, having slung scripts over the shoulder a production can start picking up on things that are hard to do with a book in your hand. Aside from hitting someone with a book this will include running fight sequences, slapstick routines and other assorted pieces in situ. This in itself isn't too bad, in fact it's when the show starts to really comes together as people start experimenting. Where it does become a problem though is that you find yourselves getting too eager (I have a shirt somewhere with a nice sword hole in the sleeve from a lucky dodge) AND pushing it further as to what "extras" we can put in. Sometimes this isn't too bad, in panto for example people will expect big, larger than life characters and tricks but you can still push it. From a simple sequence like the stronger, braver character panicing, screaming and collapsing unconcious in a heap in terror (possibly with dropped females, sorry Grace) you can lead to more absurd and self induldgent moments. Already we've spotted a few and need to reign ourselves in. Sadly, some actors don't take too kindly to being told "it's a bit too much", That spear carrier pointing with gestures that would make Hulk Hogan blush during the finale of Hamlet springs to mind.


Finally, some people start to drift in a complacent stage. You'd think with less than a month till opening night people may get tense and start focussing... Of course not! Those who felt "untouchable" back in auditions still get that feeling even now (possibly even after getting the crummier role than their superior acting skillz deserve) and for whatever reason still think that they have forever. These are the people who on last night are still reading the script at every opportunity to avoid forgetting lines, they probably should've learnt them earlier. Of course, there are certain roles which are stupidly wordy so can understand but does that character in only two scenes really demand that much? Acting types sit back, relax and then the week before the show realise where they are and start panicking. Shockingly so do directors, while a last second bollocking may seem like "waking them up" the problem stems at the stage when they say that "everything is going really well". If you keep complacency going it's harder to get that later boost. Feedback does need to go both ways, oh and don't get someone who nobody has ever seen before to do the bollocking, it's hard to put on a show when your cast have walked out at the last minute!


That said, this years panto does seem to be going quite well but with a month to go there's not as long as people thing to get it going slick. Now let's wait to see what happens when the tech rehearsal comes along...

Building Better Worlds

Sorry for making this sound like a Weyland Yutani brochure but having installed the new hard drive for the PS3 I've finally been able to spend some time enjoying bigger games and admiring the crafted worlds of games like Oblivion (below) and Dragon Age, and this has led me to some observations and to relift and old idea which has been lingering (and been reminded to me by the lovely Kate every time we see eachother!

When running around these worlds (best viewed while with female elf character and after removing armour in 3rd person... ;) ) we find that not only do they look amazing and give fantastic energy but whether they're fantasy worlds like the above or barren Nevada wastelands people are now able to create a universe that feels "alive". Games are finally now able to build a universe (cliché ridden or otherwise) which is able to absorb you in another world or time period just like classic literature used to be able to.

Thing is, for the most part some elements of literature seem to have lost this same thing. Despite being fictional worlds they have elements which bring the reality. Even something like Dracula took elements of the reality and slotted it subtly in to the fantasy world, fiction but plausible. The sequel supposedly written using Stokers own notes however constantly name drops people of the era going as far as to change the dateline of the original novel to make Van Helsing a suspect in the Ripper crimes (evidently the alusion is Dracula was Jack the Ripper). Still marginally better then the other vampire series written by Ms Meyer which unlike the books she rips off comes across as half arsed fantasy which doesn't come close to absorbing. At least the Rice novels have that plausibility, for all the absurdities about supernatural beings there's the chance they COULD be legit (spoilers - they're almost certainly not though...)

Thing is, it just feels like creativity can struggle at times, even the books and games I like feel it's all been done before (recommend the Merlin Codex, nice mix of Celtic/Greek/Finnish mythology) in the above examples of Oblivion and Dragon Age it's basically king dies, demon invasion to quell. Books just seem to have got scarce further with ideas and the number of shocking remakes of films seems to go hand in hand with this. Even the "best young writer aged 6-13" who won an award for "original and creative ideas" when asked where her inspiration came from replied "well I watched this film with Brad Pitt and thought that'd make a good book". David Camerons expression in the photo was priceless!

This leads me to my project, a while ago on the Nightwish forum (why do people STILL send me private messages despite leaving over a year ago?) I ran a community story, almost like a text adventure RPG. Essentially it was a genetic engineering Crichtonesque piece using Jurassic Park as a start point and then moving from there to show off the new creations he'd created. Sadly inspiration seemed to hit most of the other writers and I couldn't kill them all off and try and limp through to the end of the episode with just two or three others.

What if, however, it's started with the plan of small contributions and working together to build the universe? What if perhaps there was some form of platform where people were able to make fairly large, in depth pieces of writing with an easy way of sharing it? National Novel Writing Month kind of went horribly wrong for me but nothing to stop people from trying this on the side. Perhaps we'll take Kate's poetry book idea and get a nice purdy cover published (even if it's only amongst ourselves). Now what shall we find as a starting point? Counter cliché fantasy (why do dwarves all hide underground and poncy pointy ears (despite being hawt) ALWAYS live in harmony with nature?) perhaps? any ideas?

Birthday Blues

This is not going to purely be ranting about the lack of breakfast in bed on my birthday, though I am sure that people would concur not even receiving a cup of tea would be incredibly insensitive and just downright mean. These sort of losses deserve a full scale rant but I can cope with them. Nor am I going to complain by the realisation I find myself sitting down and conversing with people half my age on a regular basis through theatrical escapades. Come to think of it the most alarming thing about that is that these kids are trying to teach me far too many dance routines for this years pantomime.


It's about the loss of the "special milestone" that birthdays used to be during our formative years. For the last 5 years very little has really happened and it now becomes "just another day", yes you'll receive a few cards from family members to show that people remember birthdays (incidentally this is now the missus' department, no card, blame her) and you'll receive 45 wall posts saying variations of "Happy Birthday" on your Facebook page and on nice forum communities you may be fortunate enough to receive a happy birthday topic of your very own. It's always nice to receive that small dose of appreciation but for the most part it's just another day.


Compare this to those "milestone" birthdays from not that many years before. As a child you would be lucky enough to receive that special gift you wanted and while we may get one little thing from those closest to us those days are long, long gone. As we go further into our teens these presents become rarer but so to do parties, do people assume as you reach 15 you're no longer deserving? We may be fortunate to have a special occasion such as our 18th and 21st party and special nights out (16th for young'uns due to the septic influence) but for the most part things are drifting further away from us.


What I'm saying is, us oldies should reclaim our birthdays from the doldrums. Why on Earth when I'm at work on my birthday why should I be the one expected to provide cakes/tin of sweets (thankfully cheap due to post Samhain sales) for everyone else? In fact, in schools it's almost seen as expected for the child to have their birthday off with no repurcussions. Let's extend this to the work life. One free days leave for all workers. If you are not due to be in work on your birthday allow this day to used up in another days paid leave.


Then there's the parties. Are we frightened of allowing ourselves to have a big old get together and good time with our friends and family? Let's reclaim the birthday party, let's make it so it's not seen as wierd for us to crash our parents place and put a big old bouncy castle in the garden get our friends round and have a huge sugar rush (not advised for GemGem). If one desires to have a swimming party with the giant inflatable pirate ship then my deity we should be allowed this option without the old bat at reception saying "sorry this is for children under the age of 13". It's my birthday and I want be allowed to be spoilt and have a darn tooting day with my friends. Is it really too much to ask?


I know a spoilt birthday can't be every year for cost reasons and the like but let's be fair here. When do we get the chance to truly be spoilt once we embark on life in the big wide world? It's the anniversary of our birth and we don't get too many days to celebrate that (average 80/29000 days) and this is just not fair. Let's enjoy our birthdays and win those classic days back. Come on, let's be having you!

Splodge

Ah yes, "splodge" the unmistakeable sound of goblin making the mistake of getting too close to an ogre not quite as stupid as he looked at first glance. Yes Blood Bowl is supposed to be the most brutal of sports games and since getting the board game version in around 96/97 one of my favourite of all time. As far as sporting games go there's been nothing for me, subbuteo was fun in doses but ultimately it didn't matter in the long run. Being into strategy games there wasn't a system for long term play and you didn't develop any form of skills other than being a good flicker = victory (though I did grow an attachment to a player with a broken leg in a Villa shirt I called "Steve Froggatt" due to an injury I remembered him picking up). After this there was Totopoly which was a fun little horse racing game. Thing is as far as sporting games went, I'd rather load up Premier Manager than any board games.


So as I began to get into miniature wargaming I came across this one set in the Warhammer world. American football with the added brutality of orcs flattening goblins and assorted other fantasy creatures. Considerably cheaper than going out and spending in excess of £100 to have a reasonable sized "army" it became easier to collect and put together a team. As it now stands I've got all official teams (except Norse, the vikings would be prod buttock, did the minis have any resemblence of the actual team roster) now and took part in two Blood Bowls where the "New Skaven Ratriots" (ratmen) got a Desmond (2-2 w/l record) before "Da Reggae Boyz" (Orcs with some modeling putty dreadlocks in a Jamaican football kit) lost all four.


I did come across a Blood Bowl game for the PC around the time I got first into it. I played it briefly but in the end I was still happier getting the board game out so it ended up in the little second hand game shop in town (sadly, no longer with us) and was forgotten about. As the years progress though I continued to play the board version (the wench is currently undefeated, must stop playing matches with a severe disadvantage against her...) and though my competition days are gone (for now...) my collection still get good game time.


14 years later, after spotting a game called "Chaos League" and spotting the blatant rip-off that it was, I caught the news that the company behind it had received the rights to make the official game. I guess Games Workshop learnt from the past, they accepted a one-off payment for Blizzards game with similarities to the Warhammer universe, next thing you know Blizzard are a huge company and the name Warcraft is bigger than Warhammer, lost them millions. So last year it finally hit the shelves and at the end of the month it's updated to include every team from the board game (bar Chaos Dwarves but they don't exist anymore (not profitable enough))and seems a good time to write it up.


Sound - Like all sports games the commentary can be quite good, with the odd funny one liner but if you play any sport game for more than a couple of hours it does get a more than a little tiresome. Other sound effects are general sporty grunts (and snarls from various creatures) so not fantastic sound but it does create some form of atmosphere though in turn based game play if you're a square short of a touchdown the roar of the crowd goes on forever. Oh the anticipation of a touch down.


Graphics - the image above is from one of the opening sequences (each team has their own sequences which is a nice touch) so not quite in turn with gameplay. In game though it does have a decent look though by modern standards not perfect. It is quite good in that you can instantly recognise the positions of the players and how experienced they are and any mutations and the models do look similar to their miniature counterparts. Graphically it could probably be better but it works and is supposed to be about gameplay right?


Gameplay - It keeps the rules as of the "living rule book version 5" (updated to 6 in Legendary) so as far as the game goes, what works on the board game should work in the game. Sadly a couple of rules are bugged which makes things incredibly difficult to plan ahead, skills dedicated to fouling like Dirty Player or Sneaky Git don't quite work properly which means the goblin method of "counter-splodging" is made harder to implement. A cheaper version of the board game with a couple of rules that don't work right (judging from the 117 page topic on the "Claw mutation ruins games due to being overpowered" that's in the game already! Aims are simple, two halves of 8 turns to try and score more touchdowns than the other team.


Longevity - No two matches against the same team are ever the same anyway and you can always lose that match you should win due to bad dice rolling, you need the skill to make yourself less reliant on dice but every now and then you can't avoid seeing your players laid low as little buggers nip in to beat you 1-0. Add to this the campaign mode which allows you to create your own team from beginning to top and developing skills to (hopefully) make the top and win the Blood Bowl championship itself. With 9 teams (human, orcs, dwarves, lizardmen, skaven (Ratmen), goblins, Chaos (daemonic beasts) and wood or dark elves) you have 9 teams if running to a formula lineup but by tailoring your teams can have much more, not to mention that as skill rolls are random you're never certain to have exactly the same team. Adding in the other 11 teams from the end of October and you should have plenty of replayability.


Overall, I'm probably going to get a lot more out of it than the normal player due to enjoying the board game for so long. If you want a sports game with a bit more depth than FIFA or Madden but don't want the full depth of a purely management title it'll probably go down well with you. It was on the 360, but lost some of the online play meaning online tournaments and the like weren't available and legendary edition isn't going to be released on there for the time being. If you have a PC though give it a go, although for me it's near perfect probably worth a 7/10 for an outsider. Of course, now you've at least got the advantage of demos!

Shambolic Sport

Thought I'd give this a Horrible Historyesque name today and write up. Reason for not writing for a while being that aside from being busy (4 interviews in a week!) when I've had the computer access I've been watching the commonwealth games and trying to figure out why Liverpool fans are so excited about a potential change in ownership which won't actually benefit them too much.

Thing that has me confused about Liverpool is, for starters, how the deal can go through if the owners don't want it to happen. A normal person can go bankrupt, default on their mortgage and have their house taken off them, however an estate agent can't decide to sell their house behind their backs. Not sure why sports different. Then of course you get the fans who're excited and whooping with joy, when it's their own fault. Where we these people when they were second in the table a year ago? Oh they didn't care because they had Stevie G and 'Nando Torres and were sucessful. Can't have it both ways lads (unless finances can be bi...), do you want to spend the money on glory? Or are you prepared to plod around and hope you can get lucky like Spurs or Villa who despite winning multiple European titles (including THE title for Villa) had to settle with years of midtableness just to come close due to frugal management. Even Arsenals' profits don't pay off all debts they gambled on with the new stadium and Wenger is abused due to it.


From here we move back to Delhi where the games' are rife with poor attendences and sickness. Golly gee! I again am shocked. Like the football world cup they've headed out to a country with next to no sporting heritage (a total of 20 medals in 110 years at the olympics), however, unlike the football world cup nobody cares enough to invest the money required to travel out for the Commonwealth games, so you're largely reliant on the locals embracing them. As for the sickness, is it a surprise? Delhi Belly has been a problem with the city for years so anywhere when you have hundreds of people in one place for a fortnight is always likely to affect some of them.


In search for entertainment I've found myself watching some sports which normally aren't on my radar and two of which have really annoyed me. First of which is netball. I watch this game and I honestly can't work out how the game has picked up for so long. While basketball is not my cup of tea I can see the appeal, however the most positive aspect of it is removed when converting to netball in that you lose most of the speed. I just can't see the appeal of watching people move the ball forward, then standing still for what feels like forever and throwing a ball into a hoop, mostly unopposed. Can't believe I could dislike a sport with leggy women running around in skimpy skirts. The other major annoyance is archery. Actually saw someone in a medal final who didn't even need to pull back on the bowstring and just had to hold a widget that did it for her. So not only do they make it easier to aim but you don't even need to pull on the bowstring? Henry V must be spinning in his grave. I'm not going to comment on the poor quality of female goalkeepers in hockey, it's people like that which make female sportspeople look bad, been some great attacking play though around the blunders!


Next up, more sport. Only this one involves harder tackles and more ogres, elves and orcs (OH MY!)

Distant losses

A short and sombre piece today due to time restraints. I've been inspired to write this one today by my wee brother and how he was hit yesterday morning by sad news. He woke up and logged on to his laptop to see the news that his friend Ethan had passed away after taking his own life.


Little Lanky has, as you could guess been pretty damn inconsolable since. One of the things about their friendship is that they've never actually met in person. What they have done though is spent the last 6 years talking on a daily occurance about all manner of things, helping eachother through GCSE's and always being there for eachother whenever one needed the other. In the modern era it's become much easier to meet people of a similar mind and forge those tight friendships. Friendships which often last much longer and seem more sturdy than those forged face-to-face at school.


A few months ago I too had lost a friend, the awesomely named Scott McFly, while me and Scott hadn't had as much conversations nor stayed as close as Daniel and Ethan had been when he passed away (due to my own lack of logging into MSN just for a quick catchup, something I've still not learnt from) it still hits hard. Often, just as hard as when a "real life" friend goes, others it'll hit far worse as you become close companions to all manner of wierd and wonderful people.


I've not really got much more to say, the subject matter in itself says more than any literary ramblings possibly could. Always remember and try to go that little extra for friends no matter where they be from, we can never be sure of anything in this world and sometimes, that loss of the friend from San Antonio, Chile, Ooop North or even just down the road but hard to get to can build just as big a hole as the loss of a family member. RIP good friends, near or far.