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Dungeons & Dragons Tactics is a bizarre little game. On one hand I wonder how these games ever get made (for reasons to be explained below), and on the other, it's very clear why: Dungeons & Dragons is a massive licence, with millions of gamers worldwide and countless titles already in existence, every computer gaming company wants a slice of the pie.
But in this case, it's a rather strange pie; probably something like pomegranate and broccoli, or apple and aardvark. Regardless of the flavour, there's definitely NO meat in this game. Unless it's rump of Lurker, or something (only the ge-D&D enthusiasts will get that one).
Tactics is a top down role player where you guide a party of up to five heroes through various environments (dungeons, crypts, wilderness, etc.) on an epic quest through all twenty levels of game play. It all looks rather nice and it has great sound with a lovely soundtrack.
But here's the thing: the game's interface is dire. There's just no other way to say it. It simply is the worst interface I've ever seen in any game. Ever. Managing pretty much every aspect of your characters is painfully difficult, and the whole control system is incredibly frustrating. It's impossible to see vital information (like hit points); the game world is hard to navigate, and there's no dungeon map facility. There are monsters early in the game with overly high Armor Class ratings, meaning battles take forever to complete as they can't hit you and you've got precious little chance of hitting them back.
All of these features make it a painful game to play. The whole game is counter intuitive and there are so many titles around that have FAR superior systems. The developers could have stolen any one of a hundred better control systems.
Sadly, though, beneath the horrible interface is a substandard game that's barely worth playing even if you're a Dungeons & Dragons fanatic. Even if you're patient enough to persevere with some of the game's more offensive design flaws, you're still going to find the game unpalatable.
The only thing in its favour is that its got mind flayers. Which is a +1 in anyone's book.
Overall: 3/10. Needlessly frustrating. A passable game that could and should have been so much more.
After Doctor Who, the only way Billie Piper could go is down. Quite literally... For in her new role as Belle de Jour, in Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Piper plays an escort / high-class prostitute.
Going down... See what I did there?This show is pretty racey with lots of very sexual scenes right from the outset - so it's definitely not for everyone. In the first thirty minute episode she has sex with several different men, has a chat with a purple vibrator in her hand and rides a man in his fifties with a saddle and riding crop!
She does walk around half naked most of the time, so it's not all bad, then!
Call Girl tells the tale of Belle (real name Hannah), who loves sex and money, and enjoys her work and the fact that she has two lives, the normal girl-next-door Hannah, and the fabulous power dressing, blowjob-revelling Belle.
And never the two shall meet. Or will they?
Piper is absolutely entrancing. She's highly convincing as Belle (draw your own conclusions) and this feels like the role she was made to play. She's a very sexy and confident woman, and uses every one of her assets to draw the viewer in from the opening moments of the show.
While the show's been given some criticism for glamourising prostitution, the show certainly is highly appealing, and I can imagine men all over the UK switching on to ITV 3 at 10:00pm on Thursdays for the next five weeks.I was reading in the London Paper this morning that some 'unscrupulous' people had put video spoilers to the ending of Halo 3 on Youtube.
That's far better than the people who put spoilers in the subject lines of forum posts - an insensitive and selfish to do no matter what the subject. Sadly, as I was saying yesterday (about the lack of censorship on the web) this sort of thing happens all the time.
In summary: if you don't want to know the ending of a game, then don't look at Youtube. Or avoid spoiler websites. Or both. Finish a game before you go anywhere even remotely dangerous.
Anway, yes, I was ranting about the newspapers. Just because something's on the web doesn't mean people are going to look. I think it's cool. If people want to know about the ending to Halo 3 and they can see it for themselves without ever playing the game (because they don't want to) then this kind of thing is ideal.
It's like all those people who ask me: Does Harry Potter Die?
Hmph. Go read the book for yourself, or go here for spoilers.
But you don't have to click on that link. You can just as easily remain oblivious to the endings to Book 7 until you read it.
Just confirming what we already knew, the Beckhams are at the top of American magazine Radar.
In a search to find the most overrated people, places, and things, the magazine found that the following things were also out of fashion:
I think the Beckhams were rightly placed. They are giving out entirely the wrong message to young people (there are more important things than money, clothes, and fashion), and as for Brad Pitt - surely he'll never lose his sell-by date.
But what have cupcakes done to anyone? They're delicious bite-sized mouthfuls of creamy heaven.Just goes to to show you can't please everybody.
Big News! After almost thirty years away from our screens, Hammer Horror is making a new movie - their first since 1979's The Lady Vanishes. The new title is called Beyond the Rave and is a vampire story set in London's rave underground. It stars Sadie Frost and features Ingrid Pitt in a cameo role.
Beyond the Rave - see what they did there? Its a vampire movie called Beyond the Rave...
Anyway, on the subject of Hammer Horror, I bought the Hammer Horror Collection from HMV the other day. It's a 21 disk set of the most popular Hammer Horror movies of all time. With an R.R.P. of £149.99, it's on sale at the moment for just £40. Bargain!
... is so absurdly weird. It's entirely faceless; people can do or say whatever they like without repercussion, hiding behind the anonymity of the web.
I don't know many people who'd come up to me in the street and say my website's crap, I'm a fag, and that everything I do is shit. Well I do know a few people...
Anyway, it boggles belief, really. Why would anyone bother to waste their precious life insulting a complete stranger? Brings me back to the mindlessness of the Uwe Boll hate, I suppose.
There must be better things to do with life than spread hate. But the internet is filled with flame wars. They're everywhere you look, even on the most innocuous forum (like Alan Titchmarsh's Gardening Forum, bizarrely).
I learned long ago (thanks to Bottled Imp Games) to take everything said online with a pinch of salt. It's easy to write an angry email and to post it; it takes a bit of wisdom to hold back and to sleep on it before sending.
If something really peeves me I'll write a really angry email, but I won't send it.
It's a great way to work off steam, and I guarantee that 100% of the time you'll look back and be glad you didn't send it.
The internet makes me laugh.
The best thing about the internet is other people.
And the worst thing about the internet is other people.
Funny old world, innit?
I know someone out there will be very excited about this movie, coming February 2008.
The Spiderwick Chronicles is an excellent set of books; wonderfully illustrated and lots of fun. Starring the truly awesome child-actor Freddie Highmore (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), it's going to be a fun movie.
See the website at: http://www.spiderwickchronicles.com/ - there's even a large trailer to whet your appetite.
Who needs Harry Potter?
OK. OK! I take that back about Harry Potter!
I didn't mean it and I'm very sorry...
The spin-off to Doctor Who, the Sarah Jane Adventures started on BBC today at 5:00pm.
If you missed it, it was great fun. The Revenge of the Slitheen was slickly made, funny, and all round highly enjoyable entertainment. Elisabeth Sladen is enchanting as Sarah Jane with just the right amount of baggage to make her interesting, while being both tough and vulnerable in just the right combination.
Episode Two of The Revenge of the Slitheen is better still, and the teaser for Episode Three looks to be better again.
What more can we ask for while we wait for Doctor Who to return to our screens in 2008?
Apart from a much longer series of Doctor Who, of course.
A fantastic start to the series.
If you're tired of all those annoying scripts that pop up in Firefox when you're browing. The dumb adverts, the pop up pages, or the annoying imagery, download FireFox Script Blocker.
It allows you to choose which scripts you accept and which to ignore. Brilliant.
If you're a massive geek, like so many who read my column is, err, are, you'll appreciate this list of the worst-designed monsters in history.
Of particular favourites are the Duckbunny and the Flail Snail.
But there's NOTHING FUNNY about a Giant Beaver!
OK, now we've established that, it's On to the Monsters
Here are some Wicked games from the musical Wicked. Just in case you'd seen the show and were pining for Elphaba.
Or even Chistery* - whatever floats your boat!
* It takes all sorts...
Wicked tells the story of the warring witches of The Wizard of Oz. It opened in London last year, and, on reflection, doesn't deserve to be called "A New Musical" at all!
Anyway, Wicked tells the story of Galinda and Elphaba, two young witches who meet at Shiz Academy. Elphaba eventually becomes the Wicked Witch of the West, while Galinda becomes Glinda the Good. Their story has been told in the Wizard of Oz, but this story focuses on how the Wicked Witch of the West became evil.
Being green ain't easy; just ask the Hulk. And for Elpheba, life at Shiz is hard. Tormented and teased for the colour of her skin, the self absorbed and selfish Galinda is the ringleader of the hate campaign against our emerald heroine.
But as time progresses, Galinda and Elpheba grow to become firm friends, proving (at least in theatreland) that it's not the colour of your skin that makes a person, but what's inside.
And what's inside Elphaba is that she wants desperately to feel validated and to be treated as a human (instead of a green freak). She believes (like all the idiots in Oz) that this will happen when she meets the Wizard of Oz. And when her magical powers surface, they become her ticket to the wizard.
Only there's a price to having magical powers: when you have them. Everyone wants them - as Elphaba discovers to her ruin.
With great songs, an even greater story, Wicked is probably the best musical in London at the moment. The theatre is packed every night. It's very funny, charming, sentimental, and exciting.
Go see it at once before I set my flying monkeys on to you.
When people speak to Uwe Boll's upcoming movie, Postal, they do one of two things.
1. They speak of it as though they've seen it.
2. They slag it off (because it's a Boll movie).
They usually do both, in fact, and the words "Boll" and "Crap" are usually mentioned somewhere in the sentence dismissively slagging off the movie because, well, because it's fun to slag off Uwe Boll!
BUT dismiss this movie at your peril, for if you can look past the Boll Bashing that's oh-so-very-popular in the world today, you'll find there's an irreverent, witty, cleverly written, and funny movie here.
Postal is based on the 1997 computer game of the same name, and features the Postal Dude (Zack Ward), an out of work and out of luck guy in the inappropriately named town of Paradise. Desperate to make a living, he reluctantly schemes with his Uncle Dave to steal the latest shipment of Krotchy Dolls (the latest craze sweeping the nation: a doll in the shape of a penis). Armed with a bunch of Dave's bimbos, they scheme to obtain the plush willies from the heavily guarded store before the dolls go on sale.
Only the Taliban has set up shop in Paradise, and they want to destroy the town. Their leader, Osama bin Laden features, making calls to President Bush as though they're old school pals.
The movie starts with the destruction of the World Trade Centre; pretty shocking stuff to be sure. But it's the undertones of the movie that are important. Because there's a message running throughout! It's an ironic, irreverent, and amusing movie and I've not seen anyone yet speak of the moral message which runs through the end of this movie (that we have the power to do make great changes to our lives yet we choose to do nothing and to ignore all the injustice that's happening around us).
Sadly, most people won't get that message. They won't understand how the World Trade Centre scene could be anything other than offensive (rather than it being a sad indictment on our society); they'll just see a rubbish movie.
But as I said before: Postal is an intelligent movie; there's a lot going on under the hood. You just have to be open-minded enough to look for it.
Overall: 8/10 - of a similar vein to Borat (but much funnier).Very funny and oh-so-controversial. Guaranteed to offend the small-minded who just see a movie trying to offend.
Bit of a pointless rant really, but having just travelled down from Sheffield to London and stopped off at two service stations, I realised: how much do service stations rip people off?
They do it unashamedly. A bottle of water was £2.00 - that's far more expensive than a nightclub! And a packet of sweets was £2.10, when they're what - 79 pence in a supermarket.
It's quite disgraceful, really.
And I thought that highwaymen were long gone, but nope - they've alive and well and ripping us off on the motorways.
Were he still alive, Roald Dahl would be 91 today. Recently voted the World's Greatest Children's Book Writer - even above the lofty heights of J. K. Rowling - Dahl's books have entertained us all with their wonderful stories, made up words, and fantastical locations.
James and the Giant Peach was one of the very first books I ever read, and it will have a special place in my heart until the day I die.
Happy Birthday, Roald. Wherever you are!
It's September 11th again, and with birthdays always comes memories of the 911 World Trade Centre disaster.
Six years on and it's gone, and almost forgotten. But I'll never forget. How can I?
I remember the day it happened so very clearly. It was September 11th 2001. We were at a work training event and I remember the sunshine being amazingly bright that day. Unnaturally bright. It was a team building event and we had to paint something to represent how we felt about our place in the world. I remember drawing a flaming feather (don't laugh - I know it sounds lame) to represent the disharmony of the world. It sounds almost portentous now, as we came downstairs to see the huge LCD TV in the hotel lobby showing pictures of the two towers smoking.
And then everything kicked off, the truth came out and the world was transformed. My birthday would be remembered as the day the World Trade Centre was destroyed by religious fanatics.
So, while it's six years on and the media has grown bored of 911, I still remember it and the fact that our world is so screwed up. Things just aren't right in the world. We have people willing to die for their beliefs, willing to harm innocents for what they believe is right. We are pumping toxins into the atmosphere, and filling our bodies with chemicals. We have politicians starting fake wars for oil, and no one ever says what they really mean. People live in fear and it's all pretty rubbish.
So, I take time on my birthday to consider all these things. It's as good a time as any to remember the past, but also look to the future. I believe we humans are capable of so much more, that we can be better - DO better - and that one day, our world will be a much kinder and healthier place in which to live.
I don't think it will come any time soon, and that it won't be in my lifetime, but I have to believe that one day, in generations to come, the world will drop all our petty fears and squabbles and become a place of peace.
And it's MY birthday, so I'll fantasize if I want to.
If you don't like something, isn't it common sense just to avoid it?
If someone didn't like classical Vagnerian opera, I wouldn't expect to have them make a website dedicated to how much they hate it.
So, isn't this: http://www.petitiononline.com/RRH53888/petition.html just the latest in a long time of examples of internet mindlessness: a petition to stop Uwe Boll from making any more movies?
If you don't like his movies, don't watch them. It's as simple as that. Nearly seventeen thousand idiots have shown their utter lack of maturity / objectiveness / respect by signing their names to this document.
But this attitude is everywhere in today's society. People are forever judging things without first seeing them.
I was in HMV yesterday and there were two guys in front of me. "They've remade the Halloween movie," the short and stupid one said. "By Rob Zombie."
"I can't believe it," came the reply from the taller and even more closed-minded one. "No way did that movie need remaking."
They then proceeded to dissect the new movie and how terrible it was going to be because Rob Zombie had completely 'remade' it (presumably by telling the story of how Michael Myers escaped from the sanitarium).
As for signing a petition against Uwe Boll, either way you look at it, it's just a personal attack on Mr Boll himself.
I think this is all just a little bit sad.
Paramount have finally put up an Iron Man trailer. You can see it in all its glory by clicking here.
Enjoy.
Isn't it weird how superheroes and comic book characters have alliterative names? Peter Parker, J. Jonah Jameson, Susan Storm, Reed Richards, Lois Lane, Lex Luthor. There's even one in Iron Man: Pepper Potts.
Strange, innit?
It's probably one of those weird naming policies we'll never understand.
Anyway, Iron Man is released in May 2008.
Jane Tomlinson died this week after almost a decade of dealing with breast cancer. She increased cancer awareness across the world and raised more than one and a half million pounds for charity.
She was diagnosed with advanced metastatic breast cancer in August 2000. This is pretty much incurable, and Jane fought it for seven years before passing away on September 3rd 2007.
One of Jane’s motives was to show that people with a terminal prognosis
can still lead an active and fruitful life. Death doesn’t arrive with
the prognosis. That applies to countless illnesses and not just cancer.
If you want to donate to Jane's charity, click on this link: Jane's Charity.
Breast cancer has touched pretty much everyone. We all know someone directly, or know of someone who's been touched by it.
My own personal breast cancer charity in the UK is Breakthrough (http://www.breakthrough.org.uk/). If you can spare any cash at all, please consider making a donation. It will help women across the UK to receive the vital counselling and treatment they need for this most crippling illness.
Jane Tomlinson will be sadly missed.
I recently did an interview for Shivers Magazine with Uwe Boll, and another with singer-songwriter Alan Connor.
Of the two, by FAR the hardest interview was not with the wealthy and powerful movie director Boll, but with Alan, quite simply because I realised how hard it is to interview someone you already know really well.
A learning experience, and you'll be able to see the full interview here very soon.
It's one part promotional material about Alan, and another on explaining the difficulties of breaking into the music industry.
I hope it will be both interesting and informative.
