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.

I bin dun workin' dem railways

I've got bugger all to really talk about so with the release of Civ 5 I'm going to comment on the divorce earner and time loser that strategy gaming genius Sid Meier is. Even if the only thing he ever went near were the aforementioned Civilization series he'd have accounted for millions of pounds to the biggest selling entertainment industry (well except "adult entertainment") and probably an equal amount for divorce settlements.


The key factor of these games is depth and replayability and he makes sure there's plenty of this. In Civ for example you move from a small settlement to hopefully head of the UN and winning the race to settle on another planet (after nuking Mahatma Gandhi's vast empire due to his xenophobic and agressive diplomatic policies this one's a bit of a wasteland now...) and no two games are ever alike. Plus as it's a long running game it leads to the disease "onemoreturnitis" and that "quick play" soon becomes several hours as you notice the time appears to be long gone. If you were to add up the time played even if you have relatively short runs it's not uncommon for people to have played the series for at least a month of their lives.


The recent bane of my existence has been Railroads. Anyone who's ever played a PC game will be familiar with "X Tycoon" well he's the man behind the first "tycoon" game which was Railroad Tycoon, as you'd expect it's about running railways and the series has got SOMETHING which draws you back again and again. For some, maybe it's the basic sandbox mode and the ability to create a "dream" railway and since it'd cost a fortune to have the full Hornby set designed this way it's far cheaper but to me that's not as fun. A game needs a challenge and to me that just is not it, where're the rivals?


What keeps me coming back is trying to get a "perfect" profitable and efficient mini-empire. Playing on and making Hitchin the business capital of the United Kingdom with all sorts of industry based around this little Hertfordshire town (meanwhile Manchester and Liverpool are certified as "a village") and trying to get it running so well that the rivals are unable to prevent my aquisitions and even funnier, financing my own businesses. Thing is, although it's played out in real time and so doesn't have the onset of "onemoreturnitis" as a plan comes into your mind and you spot that new profitable route and that target it becomes that little bit harder to pull yourself away until the goal is achieved. Then of course you have that next target, and the next, and the next and then, just as you're about to achieve your prime goal.... You're bought out, due to your obsession with that bottleneck outside the metropolis of Lands End you forgot to make sure once you started making big profits that you bought all the shares and some sneaky bugger (Brunell I'm looking at you...) has bought you out and you're seeing out your days as a.... well, depends how well you played but in my case I see "travelling circus freak" an awful lot...


As the man behind games like Civilization and (colonial Americaesque sim) Colonization I owe a lot to my interest in history to this man. I still remember handing in my first piece of homework in secondary school a 10 page document on the relationship between Cortez and Montezuma and it is purely due to the time spent on his games on boring weekends. Now Civ 5 is out I'm going to have to bite on that there thumb of mine not to buy it. I'd initially told myself the laptop wouldn't cope with it but now research shows it probably would I am somewhat relieved how skint I am, otherwise I might finally have drove the wench away with my inescent rambling and warmongering. "Bite that Convention on for size Geneva muahahahahahahaha"

Second time lucky

Okay so I'd prepared a long and detailed series of posts, then the computer died so I'm livid and am now to go rather briefer hopefully will still raise discussion.

First, saw on Sky yesterday that scientists have finally noticed that when an older and calm dog suddenly bites a small child it's actually the childs fault. No shit Sherlock! Turns out that the dog doesn't like having a toddler grabbing it, diving on top of it, pulling on it's fur as it falls over and then to make it worse, children are unable to understand growls and bared teeth, they mistake them for purs and smiles. So they keep going until darling great grandson/daughter gets bit. Dog loses life everyone feels sorry for kiddo. Here's an idea. Keep an eye on your damn kids so YOU can notice this stuff yourself. If you can't keep an eye on your kids don't moan when they do something they shouldn't.


Second on sports, it seems that Delhi may be struggling to make next weekends deadline over the Commonwealth games. As with the above, no shit Sherlock. I understand that in sports you try to spread the major sporting events round but you need to look at the nationwide infrastructure to begin with. In 2003 London managed to foul up the World Athletics Championships and a year later Athens barely scraped it for the olympics. So who really thought that in a borderline third world nation, in a volatile diplomatic situation would pull it off easily? They've had 9 years to get things reasonable yet a week before the off they've barely built any accomodation (shocking, given 150,000 people at best don't have access to basic sanitation in Delhi), the road to the main stadium isn't built (oh look it's collapsed as well now) and parts of various other venues are unstable WITHOUT any one in them. What's that? The rivers just broke it's banks flooding the city? So much for terror threats, they'll implode without Osamas boys going round!


Thirdly onto manners and intimidation, something for more ranty perhaps. Why the blue Hell is a library such a horrible atmosphere here? Traditionally youths hang around on street corners, with cheap cider and look a bit menacing. In Lankyvilles Zimbabwean community they use the library. Yup, of all the places to feel uncomfortable I can't believe it's the library. For some reason, and Sigmar, Odin, Jehova, Apollo or Zeus knows why but young Zimbabwean lads choose the library to be the hunting ground. They stare at you as you walk in to try and intimidate you, when you sit next to one of them they're constantly watching your computer screen and staring at you, they talk loudly to themselves often with Ricky Gervais fake laughs, they mumble insults to you, they elbow you and are just deliberately anti-social. I wonder if library in Ndebele means something completely different to over here...


Finally I want to read into something more positive for the day. Recently I finished Empire of Silver by Conn Iggulden and came across a character from history unfairly forgotten. Sorghaghtani Beki (from now on Sorgie) was wife of Gengis Khans' son Tolui. After her husband sacrificed himself in a shamanist ritual to save his brother and supreme khan Ogedeis' life on campaign she inherited his lands and rules as sole queen (khatun) but also perhaps out of his guilt became a key advisor to Ogedei. After Ogedei died in 1241 his wife Torogene became regent for five years. It would appear according to many references in the official Mongol records Sorgie was really in charge and kept the regency safe through diplomatic and more nefarious means. During the five year regency she was probably the most powerful and influential person on the planet (aside from her 20 years as sole ruler of Iran, Mongolia and north China after her husbands death) and perhaps even makes her the most powerful woman in the history of the world. Sadly the Mongol Empire is no more which means to most of the world she is but a footnote in the lines of history. More respect for Sorgie please Amerupean historians.

What if?

This was actually a topic came up with weeks ago but while locked in my eternal pit of damnation it got put on the back burner. A while back during the traditional 3AM neither of us can sleep conversations me and wench started discussing various What If? scenarios. Of course some of them are over in two seconds (i.e. What if Hitler didn't invade Russia - WW2 over by the end of '41) but sometimes you can go on and look over matters with a bit more depth.


One that often comes up is "What if Henry VIII hadn't divorced Kat?" I always find it quite interesting, as a starting point would England have split from the catholic church? I think ultimately, we wouldn't have done. The only reason we ultimately split from them was that Annie B was a bit of hooker and Henry had become obsessed with having a son which given Kats' breeding always made me laugh. A lot of other countries that left the Papal faith behind had a trigger, I don't know if the English would've had this afterwards. Potentially with the civil war but I think it would've happened catholic/protestant this is assuming after Mary lines remain unbroken of course.


As for Mary. The woman has been demonised almost since the day she was born, ultimately for being the wrong gender. Thing which gets me is had her mother remained queen and Henry not started persecuting Papists she probably wouldn't have earned the moniker "Bloody Mary" as the bitterness would not have been bred into her. Accordingly of course with the strong breeding in her she may have had a much better reign and that may instead be referred to as Englands "golden age" as opposed to that of her half-sister, given that her death seems to have been linked with the stresses she imposed on herself to stop Dizzy Liz from taking charge.


Around these great historical turning points, and I've kept it brief before going on too much of a lecture (any comments to discuss anything in further of course), we moved onto the "insignificant" turning points, or rather our own lives. The conversation inevitably turned into "what if we'd not got together?" and ultimately I honestly couldn't really give a plausible scenario. Wench seemed to watch it better than I could (I got scarce further than less headaches) and saw ultimately in her mind that I would've been managing at the company I was working at when we first got together. Had I not been coming through yet another bout of depression I would've focussed on that and overcoming the demons in that way, instead I'd opted to drop the work stress and took the time to recover by spending more time in Poxford.


Relationship wize she went bolder still and predicted that I'd have got into a relationship with one of three girls she's seen me with using the assumption that I'd have still been involved in the same groups which I guess is pretty solid. I refute all three of these as I was always an expert in getting to the "you're a great friend but..." scenario and put a lot of the relationship with wench down to putting her off a relationship for so long to avoid my depression and as a result mood swings harming her had we got closer it'd inevitably have gone wrong well before it finally happened. Incidentally I'd have got a lot less stress from her so with a higher paying job and a partner who according to her I'd "make the perfect couple with" something tells me this what if went the wrong way! :P


In the end we just had a nice conversation spending time together and looking at those little things that make up our lives and how in little changes the way our directions and history is built up. Of course, nothing can change now but sitting there and taking alternative looks at certain events no matter how small or minor can be a great way to pass the time. Now to start checking the library for some "alternate history" novels to along side the Cornwell and Iggulden.

Art of Acting 1 - Auditions

As we head in to the Christmas period up and down the land various groups are now preparing to enter "pantomime season" where pretty much every actor up and down this land is preparing to engage "over the top enthusiasim mode" and shouting "Oh no you're not!" over and over again. For a long period I hold my hands up to snubbing panto (Me to play buttons? I'm a serious bloody Shakesperian ac-tour) but after my bid to direct and produce a Hallowe'en performance of "The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" fell flat I had a Christmas free and went for it. Personally I've never looked back and I'll do it again. The thing is, when auditioning you find no matter where it is and whom the production is directed by we have a similar procedure.


LIMPETS - Of course, the first thing that happens is that the prospective actors arrive and begin sizing eachother up as potential rivals. The obligatory overtly camp lad no doubt intends to be the butler/servant, a few middle age men are generally going to be fighting over the dame/villain of the piece and roughly 3,971 teenage girls are going to fight it out for the roles of "good fairy" and "pretty love interest". Occasionally one of them will find herself heartbroken in lead male since "well, she looks kind of masculine". Around this, every group has "the regulars", people who come back year and year again who're a little harder to judge ("Do I REALLY want to be the dame 4th year running?") these become the limpets, clinging to those they know.


You see, usually you see groups come in and they're all cuddly and happy and you know they're rooting for eachother. Limpets will inevitably have next to nothing to do with eachother during the run but for now, you're best friends for life. That snooty biatch over there is competition and a limpet will find a corner with fellow limpets and plan their downfall. Hopefully they will read opposite them and make them look REALLY bad but the limpets will often do all they can to make sure their little play thing doesn't get harmed by "outsiders". Shakespeare once wrote "Hell hath no fury like a limpet scorned", a limpet without a role WILL become full of rage and hellfire and begin smeer campaigns on facebook.


READINGS - Once we've gone through the meet and greets and introduced eachother (queue limpets highlighting their years of service) we find ourselves given the roles that the director sees us based on initial appearence and the "I would likes...." almost immediately someone will find him/herself deflated as they're given the complete and utter opposite type of roles to read on. They will find themselves looking like thunder for the rest of the afternoon. Inevitably though people only really get one chance, JUST ONCE CHANCE [/William Wallace] to show what we're capable of. This often ends up with the interesting image of seeing someone trying to show versatility and going through a nice little geographic tour of accents they can do (most end up sounding Indian...)


Sometimes, seeing the script is enough to put people off the role they invisioned themselves/write themselves off in the view of the director (memories of the Zimbabwean Romeo who could barely speak a word of English come flooding back), after this people are well and truly deflated or starting to get confident on their part/sabotaging of the "outsiders" chances.


STUPID MOVEMENTS - It doesn't matter what you're auditioning for, there WILL be a stupid movement session. So many directors like to sit there and watch the way you move. Sometimes this is understandable and in the guise of a quick choreography session where a group of people who're unsure dancers look uncomfortable (female limpets will scowl at the pretty young rivals who appear like professional dancers compared to their flat footed shenanigans) but at least one can understand why. I've never understood why this is required while auditioning for King Leer though.


WAITING GAME - Ultimately, that's it with an audition. Stupid movements will often also cover a little bit of "singing" but by now we've gauged those who're musically aware and whom looked out of their depth so it doesn't offer much except for the remaining 1,573 "pretties" in the event of a tie. Nope you get the waiting game instead. "Thanks for coming, we'll be in touch" this normally has a disclaimer along the lines of "just because you don't hear when your friends do it doesn't mean you're not in". This is a lie, it means you're not in but it gives everyone the butterflies waiting by the phone.


Normally at this stage we thespians begin analysing ourselves and rapidly fall out of love with the audition and aren't too hopeful overall. Some however will be bought to Earth with a bang (most of the limpets in the event of a larger audition) after being convinced they're deities gift to acting. Most will be disapointed and while some will protest and boycott the group, most actors should use this to spur them on. It's still a nice feeling to get that call and get YOUR role (trying to calmly say "yes I will accept X" as your jaw drops is nigh impossible!) but nobody walks into any role and if you're a good, versatile actor you'll still get a decent role. This week I had a bad audition and came out unhappy. I've not got the role I wanted but looking at the script and knowing me I can make it work, anyway, what's the point of playing the same old roles all the time? I personally, am now relishing the role of "Mr Bod" even if he was nowhere near my radar at the audition. Bring on rehearsals!