One last comment before I get the train (I know, it's 4:30 in the morning and I'm wondering if the gods invented dawn to punish man - it certainly feels like it!).

Anyway, yes. I played Guitar Hero for the first time last night. I'm in love. My fingers hurt and I've started liking songs I never knew I liked, but it's a hell of a game (now I know why it has sold so well). More updates on this new love affair as they develop.

I'm off to Paris today for Blizzard Entertainment's World Wide Invitational. It's a two day convention full of all things Blizzard. They'll be announcing a new game on Sunday (which I'm hoping is Diablo 3) and there'll be 48 hours of games and goodies - and previews of Warcraft's Wrath of the Lich King and Starcraft 2.

Personally, I'm just going for the free loot ('cos there ain't nuffink better than free stuff!).

By the way, if you're a burglar, I'll be back Tuesday afternoon, please try not to make too much of a mess of my living room when you nick my telly!

I know, I've been busy. So busy, in fact, I've had no time to post anything.

With all the magazines, articles, and book stuff, there's no time to do anything.

I did watch Doomsday, the Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers) horror movie.

It's a pretty poor movie. It starts off great; very atmospheric and rather cool, but it quickly descends into a weak mess of homages. It thinks it's Mad Max meets Time Bandits meets John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars with a side helping of Escape from New York for good measure. The ending goes on and on, and while it's supposed to be all tongue in cheek and humours, I found it unbelievable and overly gory.

Watch it, but only if you're really curious and like Neil Marshall movies.

I saw pop star Jarvis Cocker at Sheffield train station today, and one thing I noticed is how much people stared at him. It was like a sea of heads following his wake (in physics, this would be 'eye gravity'). People look, then look again; then they stare confused, filled with disbelief. Then, deciding that he must be who they think he is, they continue to stare, presumably wondering whether they should go speak to him or not. Should they? Shouldn't they?

It's exactly the same with road accidents; most people can't help but gawp at the accident, and for what? To catch a glimpse of blood or some unfortunate person in a less than situation far worse than their own.

Is it pure curiosity, or a genuine desire to see something morbid or gruesome?

Or are people merely bored and this is a genuine distraction from their own mundane lives? 

The long-awaited Spore Creature Creator is finally here, and while it's only a fraction of the potential of the final tool, it's still great fun.

You can check out the versatility of the tool with my blue meanies, the Frogloks (which is a name I made up and bears no resemblance to any other Frogloks that might exist out there).

 

And my Purple Oik is particularly cute!

 

The tool is great fun, and you'll be able to waste whole years of your life making up new and improved creatures.

Check out Spore (including the 250mb download) at: www.spore.com

This just in: Stan Winston, special effects and makeup artist who blinded us with eye-candy visuals in movies like Aliens, Terminator 2, and Jurassic Park, died yesterday of Multiple Myeloma-related complications He was 62.

Winston won four Academy Awards for his superior visuals, and was nominated for several others in the same categories for Batman Returns and Artificial Intelligence.

His unique style and vision will be missed by the movie industry. 

Find out more about Myeloma by clicking here

It does seem like an awful lot of the true greats of film, book, and television are passing away lately Maybe they're all going to a far better place. 

It's impossible to use internet movie review website IMDB to get a reasonable approximation of a movie these days. Ten years ago it was a brilliant site with highly accurate scores for movies, but over the years, people have flocked to the site in their millions, and with them, the numbers of 1s given to movies is overwhelming.

29% of voters have given Sex and the City a score of 1, and most of those were on the site before the movie was released. Now, it's not a fantastic movie but I firmly believe that there are few, if any, movies that deserve a score of 1.

I wonder what motivates people to vote on a movie they haven't seen.
Certainly, I'd find it nearly impossible to give a 1 score. Even the
absolutely atrocious Italian horror yawnathon The Beyond deserved 2 out of 10 (and it really IS appallingly bad, and not in the good b-movie sense).

Worse, IMDBs #1 movie The Godfather, has around 6% of 1 votes. I'm surprised (but not very) that the highest scoring movie on the website has more than a handful of 1 votes. Don't people realise this movie is a classic? 

I find it depressing that people vote in this way. You no longer can use IMDB as a reliable tool for determining the true quality of a movie, but I guess it's like that across the board. People would rather vote on a movie they haven't seen than vote in the elections.

But that's another rant best saved for another day.

Issue #3 of MMO Magazine is now online, and you can check out my reviews of Alone in the Dark and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII by visiting the following link.

http://www.thirteen1.com/1313608/mag.php 

I think the guys at MMO Magazine did a great job in getting the magazine off the ground. It looks better with every issue.

There’s something for everyone at the movies right now, whether you’re 6 or 60, male or female. In fact, I don’t think we’ve ever had it so good with so many great movies – and it’s only going to get better.

At The Movies Now
Sex and the City:  Hey, it’s still a hard hitter at the movies!
Indiana Jones IV: Fourth instalment of the action archaeologist.
The Incredible Hulk: Remake of the green Marvel behemoth.
The Happening: Another M. Knight Shyamalan ‘twist movie’ about a family being attacked by – something…
Iron Man: Live action adventure based on the Marvel superhero

This is also the year of sequels, as you’ll see below.

Coming Soon
Hancock: Will Smith as a down-and-out superhero in what looks to be a very amusing comedy.
Narnia: Prince Caspian – Sequel to 2006’s Narnia.
Hellboy 2: Sequel to 2005’s Hellboy.
Batman: Dark Knight – more inwardly looking action with your friendly neighbourhood angsty superhero.
Wall-E: Pixar’s animated story of the lonely robot who only wants a friend.
The Mummy 3: Did we need another sequel to the popular action adventure The Mummy? Probably not, but we got one anyway.

There's loads of other goodies coming, too. So, even if you don't love the big movie summer blockbusters, there'll still be something to tickle your fancy.

The new Star Wars movie / trailer is online.

Check it out here

It looks like a prequel to episode 3, kinda.  No matter how good or bad it might be, I reckon it'll do amazingly well at the box office.

Pretty colours, too! 

I thought I'd write up a list of my top 10 favourite novels of all time. I was going to list them in order, but it's just about impossible. You'll also probably notice that there's 13 books in my Top 10. That's because I noticed when you ask someone to give you their top whatevers, they always add about three on to their favourites.

So here's my top 10.  

Night Warriors - Graham Masterton (sc-fi meets fantasy/horror in this novel about the Night Warriors, heroes who battle demons in dreams).

The Lord of the Rings - J. R.R. (some guy or other. I don't even think he's particularly well-known).

Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban (before the series got a bit pants - (did I just say that?)).

The Elfstones of Shannara - Terry Brooks.

The Belgariad - David Eddings (all five books - don't make me choose between them).

The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic - Sophie Kinsella (why is this in here, you ask. Well, it's just brilliant. The main character, Becky, is soo endearing and funny - and just a little bit stupid).

The Devils of D-Day - Graham Masterton *(another raw horror story by the most underappreciated horror writer).

The Colour of Magic / The Light Fantastic - Terry Pratchett.

The Time Master Trilogy - Louise Cooper (such an undervalued writer).

The Undomestic Goddess - Sophie Kinsella (again. She's just genius. Her books are all exactly the same but still brilliant).

The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - Stephen Donaldson (but not the second or third - they're just too verbose). 

Pet Sematary - Stephen King (brrr. Scary). 

Dracula - Bram Stoker (so very beautifully written). 

And, lastly... 

Any book by Me - No, really. I'm just kidding! Or am I...

Know what really gets my goat? People who proliferate their writing with swearing.

They do it on aintitcool.com all the time. Every other word there is a curse word; it's like people who blog feel the need to write as they speak (although I doubt any of these people really swear that much), or are they just trying to be 'cool'? As though swearing makes you really hip!

Either way, it's really not f*cking good enough.

See what I did there?

This joke was brought to you by the letters F and U.

While we're on the subject of weird expressions, have you ever wondered where the expression 'that really gets my goat' comes from?

Well, there are various theories (but no evidence).

This first comes from a tradition in horse racing. Thought to have a calming effect on high-strung thoroughbreds, a goat was placed in the horse’s stall on the night before the race. Unscrupulous opponents would then steal the goat in an effort to upset the horse and cause it to lose the race.

The second dates dates back to the middle ages where business transactions were conducted using cattle. A rich man called Francis had a large herd of goats, which peasants were constantly attempting to steal from him. Whenever someone tried to steal his goats, he would (unsurprisngly) cry out: 'you're stealing  my goats!" This eccentric man became something of a recluse (and a joke) and his expression transformed over the years into the expression we know today.

The third is that of tweaking a man's goatee (beard), which would, quite naturally, annoy him greatly.

There's no evidence that any is the right answer (and they're all pretty ridiculous).

What do you think? 

I've got to stop talking about Dungeons & Dragons because lots of people that read my column have complained that they've no interest / understanding of the game whatsoever.

OOh that's a harsh (and somewhat telling) statement about the world's feelings for the world's most popular role playing game. 

Anyway, moving on from D&D Week, I'm going to do a short review of Crisis Core - Final Fantasy VII, which is out in the States and is due for release in the UK on 20th June. It's a prequel to FFVII and tells the tale from the other side of the fence (ie. from Shinra's perspective).

You play Zack Fair, a SOLDIER 2nd Class, performing missions in fully 3D environments, collecting materia and furthering the story of Shinra as it tries to make an army of super soldiers using the genetic manipulation of the entity known as Genova.

The graphics are probably the best on the PSP (yes, even better than God of War) and the sound captures all the music from the original game (for maximum nostalgia value). If that weren't enough, all your favourite characters are back for cameos, including Cloud, Aerith (sniff), and even the supremely annoying Yuffie.

Score: 9/10. If you're a Final Fantasy VII fan then this is unmissable. For everyone else it's a fantastic and much needed 3D action adventure on the PSP.

Two spells were not in fact killed in the update to the Fourth Edition of Dungeons & Dragons. I found the spells Knock and Passwall in the rituals section of the Player's Handbook.

Rituals are a cheap way of adding any spell the GM feels is missing from his game, but at considerable cost to the player (as they cost time and materials). You've got two forms of rituals: scrolls and books.

Scrolls turn to dust when the spell they contain is cast - but anyone can use them. Ritual Books are found in spellbooks and can only be cast by a true spellcaster. 

Rituals cost money in the form of components to cast and require time and effort, but can be cast pretty much at will. I've honestly no idea why they were added to the game as it just seems like a pointless add-on when those spells should really be in the compliment of spells available to all spellcasters (for example: why can't a wizard just learn knock or why can't a cleric know raise dead)? It seems a little bizarre to me.

The more I read through Fourth Edition the more it seems like it's supposed to be very simple, but there are actually lots of rules that detract from its simplicity (I'll talk about Action Points tomorrow). 

I can see there's a decent enough system here, but it's not realised sufficiently well enough to make the game appealing - at least to me. Why not keep all the other spells together and leave the rituals for really powerful effects that take time and effort to cast? Wizards could have gone so much further with Rituals, making them a combined effort to create amazing effects. Instead, you've got a watered-down system that allows them to add all the spells their battle-oriented system has failed to capture.

It seems a missed opportunity to me.

One can argue that a wizard in Third Edition was defined by their spell choices. Half of the Player's Handbook was filled with meaty spells that took a lifetime to learn, and which were a great source of interest for wizarding players the world over. This isn't the case in Fourth Edition as a spellcaster's allotment is now mostly made up of the same generic combat spells based on fire, ice, and thunder. Long gone is the hundred pages of spells in the core rulebook.

Here's where we say a prayer for the fallen dead - the spells that have been lost in battle (from Third Edition to Fourth):

Iconic Spells We Will Miss: Animate Dead, Barkskin, Blink, Cause Blindness, Charm Person, Chill Touch, Clone, Color Spray, Confusion, Consecrate, Contingency, Creeping Doom, Delayed Blast Fireball, Energy Drain, Enervation, Faerie Fire, Feeblemind, Finger of Death, Flesh to Stone, Gaseous Form, Globe of Invulnerability, Haste, Hold Person, Hypnotism, Knock, Magic Jar, Passwall, Reverse Gravity, Rope Trick, Sepia Snake Sigil, Shillelagh, Shocking Grasp, Spell Turning, Summon Monster, Sunburst, Symbol of Death, Telekinesis, Transmute Rock to Mud, Trap the Soul, Unseen Servant, Wall of Force.

But it's not all doom and gloom (only mostly), because here's a list of the spells that survived the transition:

Spells Making The Core Rules: Acid Arrow, Black Tentacles, Blade Barrier, Bless (whoohoo a holy spell), Burning Hands, Cloudkill, Feather Fall, Floating Disk, Fire Storm, Flame Strike, Magic Mouth, Meteor Swarm, Mirror Image, Mordenkainen’s Sword, Sleep, Spider Climb, Stinking Cloud, Stoneskin, Time Stop (but it’s so very yawny, +2 non combat actionzzzzzzzz), Water Breathing, Web.

What Fourth Edition does is hugely simplify spellcasters by giving them far fewer spell choices, but more actions they can perform per day. They can now cast their "Encounter" and "At Will" spells endlessly, meaning they never run out of spells - but at what cost? The once-wide choice of spells a wizard could cast defined his character. That old-school philosophy is long gone. In its place is cookie-cutter wizards who will almost certainly cast the same spells in every combat throughout their careers.

No longer can you change your spells on a whim, or learn Knock to help out the party (following a short rest). In fact, you're almost certainly consigned to role of battle wizard, because gone are all the spells that could make you a divination wizard or an all-purpose support/combat caster.

In summary, the new system is streamlined and simple, but it's a pale imitation of the previous systems that have come before it. Yes, some of the spells look interesting, but it's certainly not sufficient to compel me to shift over to the Fourth Edition. 

I like my wizards to be able to charbroil, open locks, detect magic, deliver wholesale slaughter on my enemies, AND be able to do it all again tomorrow, only with an entirely new contingent of spells.

Big Brother started again on Channel 4 last night, and it's again clear that the people who most desire to be famous are the least deserving of it.

It's basically sixteen of the most stupid and arrogant people the UK could muster.

I don't think I've got much to say about this year's candidates.

It's hee-eeeeer! Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition sees its release today. And all across the world, no one breathes a silent sigh of joy.

Because it's just not very good.

Or is it? Like Big Brother (which just started again over here in the UK) - you decide!

With vastly differing opinions on the quality of the actual content, comments about the lack of spells and classes, and general griping about how much has been 'stolen' from other popular online games, Dungeons & Dragons 4e is a game you'll love or hate (or in my case, feel total indifference toward). With its streamlined one-rule-fits-all philosophy and its generic all-classes-are-exactly-the-same class system, it feels like a pale imitation of games that have gone before it.

So, how will the newbies / those gamers who've never seen previous editions feel? Time will tell whether 4e can reach new markets. I'd say it might just do the trick. It's got enough mass appeal and has shrugged off most of its geekier elements in favour of a more aproachable action-adventure style of game (plus, what's good for Warcraft is more than good enough for D&D, it seems). And it's a lot more like World of Warcraft or a board game than it was before (gone are pretty much ALL of the complex tables that once littered the pages of the Player's Handbook). But it was those tables that gave the game its style. And much of that is gone. 

So, with a hacked down version of the game in shops today, I can only wonder if the fourth iteration of the game we've loved for thirty years will be the one to break down those barriers and hit the mainstream.

Whatever happens, one thing is clear: with such high production values, Wizards of the Coast, and Dungeons and Dragons, is here to stay... 

We're going through some changes: new forums and column, to make it all safer and with a lot more functionality.

Plus, a few me-related questions on signnup should stop those annoying spammers (which sign up at least fifty times a day  - they clearly have nothing better to do).

So if it's not working for the next few days, you'll know why.

No Dungeons & Dragons updates until it's all done. 

There are many tests on the web, most of them pointless. And there's no test more pointless than the Gaming Purity Test. To celebrate the release of Fourth Edition, try out this long and somewhat amusing test to see just how much of a tragic gamer you are!

I'll post my personal scores later in the week, but I scored so shamefully highly in certain areas, I'm not sure I want the world to know just how geeky I really am.

Check it out by going here: http://www.theferrett.com/rpg/

I've been hearing a lot about Fourth Edition this past week and the one thing that really stood out is how many gamers are going to buy the books even though they no longer play the game.

For many, Dungeons & Dragons is a life-changing experience allowing gamers to experience fantasy worlds in ways they never could alone. I'm sure many people are still very curious about the new edition of the intensely personal game that shaped their childhoods (or, for many, their adult lives, too).

So, are you going to buy the books, even if you have no intention of playing the game? Are we secretly all slaves to Wizards of the Coast? Perhaps we're under a spell? How neat would that be? I can just see the headline: Wizards Employ Black Arts to Boost Book Sales.

Now that wouldn't get any negative press whatsoever, would it?