Planet Sillicon

Watching The Wire

By blog on Mar. 18, 2010.

It’s a new show for me, and it’s actually very good.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I’ve just gotten through watching the first season, and this is a truly underrated television show! I didn’t know what to expect before I actually started watching it, but it had been recommended by a good source so I decided to give it a shot.

I knew I had some spare time over the weekend as my computer was playing up so no LOTRO – bloody video card – which lead me to download the series off of iTunes. I was hooked in the first episode. This is seriously well done, I have to say. The characters are nicely believable, and none are caricatures, which is nice. I really enjoyed being brought along for the ride in the first season, and watching how the characters developed.

For instance, in the first few episodes, the character of Pryzbylewski was so irritating, and I thought, a terrible, terrible, cop. After getting to the end of the series, though, you see he’s a product of his environment.

It’s a bit of a shocking look into the policing system of the U.S., too, I have to say. The show is heralded as one of the most realistic portrayal of police in the US. That’s a scary thought, really. It’s so… business like, so concerned with stats and ‘clearances’ that it’s disheartening.

You see the good guys having to fight just to have a chance at the bad guys. That’s another thing, the bad-guys are also portrayed quite realistically. It’s a sad world they live in, and they take one of the most common roads in it, which is turning to violence and drug selling.

After enjoying the first season so much, I went and bought seasons two, three, and four on DVD as they were really cheap. It was odd to see them so discounted, and it’s odd to think that the show never really won many awards when it was hailed by critics as a marvel. Nonetheless, I’m just starting season three now, and it’s shaping up to be another good one. Season two was less my thing than the first, but it was still good, and I think season three will be more in keeping with the first. Off I go to watch a few episodes!

Green light for Game of Thrones

By blog on Mar. 18, 2010.

HBO’s version of A Game of Thrones has been given the green light!

I know, I know, I’m dreadfully late in reporting this, but yes, A Game of Thrones, by George R R Martin – FINISH THE NEXT BOOK, GEORGE – has been picked up by HBO after the pilot was shot late last year and earlier this year. I’m excited, I must say, to see this come to pass.

I do know that I’ve said in earlier blog posts about this that I was trepidatious, that I was concerned for the ‘corny’ factor, the clichés that could arise, but I have to say, after watching Rome recently, and having just bought three more seasons of The Wire because the first was so bloody good, I’ve got confidence in HBO. They put on some damn fine shows, I have to say. More on that story later.

So yes, the show has been given the go ahead, and the first season shall cover the first book, and will contain ten episodes in total. That seems a little on the skimpy side for such a massive book, but so much can be said without words that I suppose it should be alright. I’m just hoping to see the story play-out as faithfully as possible to what happened. No missing certain awesome characters – Tom Bombadill is noticeably missing from The Lord of the Rings! – or just altering things for the sake of making it easier to understand or some such. I hate to see that sort of thing happen, but I do look forward to seeing this play out.

Of course, I have no expectation that all the books will be made into a season of the series. I mean, seven seasons of A Song of Ice and Fire would cost quite a fortune, I believe, and HBO does have a history of cancelling shows if the cost is getting too high.

I suppose, though, that this show will have a huge following before anything is even shot. That’s the bonus of working with non-original content, I suppose. Anyway, this particular geek is most anticipating this one!

Pokemon – try a new game once in a while

By blog on Mar. 17, 2010.

The Pokemon series is about to ship two… well, not new, but two remade games for the DS.

I’m strongly of two minds about this. The Pokemon franchise is set to hit the DS again, now with Heartgold and Soulsilver. Two almost identical games – they only differ in the Legendary Pokemon that you’ll encounter at some point in the game. These ‘two’ games are set to ship later this month, and they’re also just remakes of Pokemon Gold and Silver.

The game has been updated in terms of graphics and sound, and of course the DS capability, and you’ll be able to have a Pokemon walk around with you when you’re running around, which hasn’t been done in a very, very long time, but it all just feels a little shovelware-ish.

If you go out and pick this game up, and if you’re a ‘Gotta catch ‘em all’ freak then you might even get both games, and if you’re like that, then you probably picked up both Gold and Silver, too, then you’ve just forked out a lot of cash for Game Freak – the game’s developers – and Nintendo who’re publishing the game.

I don’t know if they really deserve our money for this one, folks. I mean, sure, you get a neat little peripheral, which is essentially a pedometer that actually gives you in-game cash and XP for walking around in real life. Now, this is fabulous incentive, especially for a hobby that’s usually quite sedentary, but it feels somewhat wasted on Heartgold and Soulsilver…

I suppose, though, that each and every one of these games that I’ve played has, essentially, felt the same as every other. Perhaps if I was able to see the new changes, see my pokemon walking around with me, then I’d be more inclined to feel like I’m actually playing a new game, but yeah. I don’t know, I’m just feeling that Nintendo are the kings of shovelware, and that makes me highly sceptical about whatever they’re putting on the shelves at the moment.

Could you FAIL any harder, Ubisoft?

By blog on Mar. 17, 2010.

Ubisoft certainly ruffled some feathers on launch day of Assassin’s Creed II.

So the PC version of Assassin’s Creed II launched in the US, UK, and Australia earlier this month, and within a week of the US release, Ubisoft’s servers were attacked. Which, of course, left many new owners of the game unable to play it. At all.

Ubisoft issued the requisite apology, stating that 95% of players weren’t affected, and that if you were already playing the game you wouldn’t have been affected, but that some players did experience the inability to play as the result of the attack. One has to wonder if that attack was by pirates, just trying to show Ubisoft up for being so ham-handed with their security policies.

It’s really interesting to see the reaction from gamers to actually having the game. It’s all well and good for us to blog our hearts out about how clumsy a security measure Ubisoft’s DRM is, but once the game is actually installed and running, well that’s when game developers and producers should really be paying attention.

If you’ve got a game, reviewed on IGN for a score of 8.9, and yet you’ve got a reader average of just 1.6, well you know you’ve messed up somewhere. That’s an enourmous disparity, and that also includes the fanboys who’ve rated the game 10, and those who’ve not had any problem and rated it in the 9’s. Half of the reader reviews on the game have given it 0.0 – no, that’s not a cute little emoticon, that’s zero-point-zero.

Ubisoft, it’s time to wake up and smell the poutine. You’ve got to realise you can’t just attach any price, any condition, any must-do to your games and expect them to be well received and sell well. I bet that a surprising percentage of Assassin’s Creed II copies for the PC get taken back to stores across the globe.

For those in remote places, the connection to the master server at Ubisoft is not an accessible thing, as noted in the Wiki page for the game. It’s unfair to expect that not only do people have to have a net connection to even be able to install the game, but to even play it! This is just poor form in my opinion. Those attacks on Ubisoft’s master server are just going to get worse and worse, in my opinion, until there is a cracked version of the game. Watch that cracked version take off, too. Many gamers who’ve never downloaded a torrent in their life will probably learn for this game, just to spite Ubisoft and their sledgehammer methods.

Initial Impressions of Final Fantasy XIII

By blog on Mar. 15, 2010.

I’ve spent about two hours playing Final Fantasy XIII so far, and here’s what I think of them.

Okay so I know that two hours into an RPG is, well, hugely inadequate to get a real handle on the game, but that’s not what I’m doing here. I’m going to be doing a few posts on this game, and how I’m feeling about it, every now and then. This is one of the ‘now’ posts, so it’s early on in the game, the the ‘then’ posts will be much further into it.

Alright, let’s see, where to begin? Well, the opening cinematic was beautiful, and played out really nicely. No hitches in it on my system, and with the HDMI cable, it really is very pretty. The story is set up within this first sequence and is actually intriguing, which is nice. You first start off playing as Lightning, a typically taciturn character who’s not really letting anyone in at this stage. The other initial character you meet is Sazh, who’s quite funny in his own way, and has a Chocobo hanging out in his hair. That’s sort of disgusting, but that baby Chocobo is very cute. It’s irritating that the American voice actor says ‘cho-co-bo’ when I’ve always called them ‘Cho-cowe-bo’ as in, that centre ‘co’ rhymes with ‘owe’, but that’s just a pet peeve of mine.

Next you meet Snow and his group, who come across as all a bit silly. The characters are mildly interesting at this stage, and a little irritating, but it’s too early to tell where precisely they’ll go with them. One hopes there are some unexpected character developments, because if it’s clichéd as well as very linear then I’ll be rather disappointed.

As for all the criticism of that game? Well, that’s actually quite warranted. You really are forced down a track – a narrow one at that – at this point in the game, and whilst I do understand that the first five or so hours of a game like this you’ll often be forced down a track, I do remember Oblivion gives you freedom to roam less than an hour into the game.

I am enjoying the game, and I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes, but I’m also cautious about expecting too much from the game. I’m really hoping that this ‘accessibility’ trend in the gaming industry – read: dumbing games down so any schmo can pick it up and play without having to, oh God, don’t say the bad word, LEARN something – will die down soon. I’m not saying I want to see the complex levelling system of FFX back, but nor do I want to go backwards in terms of game content just so they can ship a few more units.

Watery Fowls

By blog on Mar. 15, 2010.

I’ve been re-watching Fawlty Towers again and I must say, it’s still as good as ever.

The title there is of course a reference to the changing sign that’s shown at the beginning of each episode. The sign is changed by the paper-boy, who’s taking out his resentment at Basil by messing with the sign. It’s cute, and one of those things that stick with you about the show. The little details.

It’d been a while since I last saw the show, but I was looking through my old – and surprisingly extensive – VHS collection the other day, and noticed that I had a few episodes that I had taped from the TV. I popped one in the old VCR and saw that these tapes had been watched a lot. The condition was pretty bad, so I took a look on iTunes and found that the two seasons of Fawlty Towers very actually pretty cheap. I mean so they should be considering there’s only six episodes per season and they’re about half an hour long, but anyway.

I bought both seasons and I’ve already watched nearly every episode twice! I love The Builders episode, as well as The Germans, Communication Problems, and others that aren’t coming to mind right now.

I know there’s been a few documentaries about Fawlty Towers in recent times, and I’d like to get a hold of those too. It’s just so much fun, and I do wish there were more, though I can see why Cleese and Booth wouldn’t write more, the intensity of the acting is enough to fear an onset of apoplexy for John when he’s playing Basil.

It’s so much fun going back and watching something you’ve not seen in a long time, and it bears up just as well as it did a decade ago. You’ve got to appreciate that, it’s certainly an amazing feat.

Can’t wait for warmer weather

By blog on Mar. 8, 2010.

Usually I hate Summer, and much prefer Winter, but this year, with all those really heavy snow storms, I’m just looking forward to the relaxation of not having to clear my front path!

Okay, okay so I know Spring is practically here, but we’re still getting intermittent snow, sleet, and rain, which causes the path in our front garden to be extremely slippery! If I don’t get out there and shovel and salt it regularly, it’s too dangerous and I hate the idea of either my SO or myself being injured because we didn’t take care of it.

Another reason I’m looking forward to warmer weather is that my SO bought me a rather awesome gift for our anniversary, she’s paid for the two of us to go ‘Zorbing’. It’s something I’ve seen a few times here and there, and always wanted to give it a go myself. Basically you get into a very large inflatable ball, and you roll down a hill. It’s much more fun looking than sounding, too.

I’m thinking at some point in the future I want to organise something like this for her, too. She has this thing about hot air balloons, so I’m considering taking her on one, or perhaps paying for us to go where she can create her own perfume or for the two of us to go jetskiing, which would also be fun but it’s hard to even consider going anywhere near water at the moment. Nonetheless, I’m enjoying considering what to surprise her with!

So, in spite of my absolute love of Winter, I’m really looking forward to Summer this year. I wish you could choose how long you wanted each season to be, because if I could, Winter and Autumn would last for four months each, and Spring and Summer would get two months each. Yes, that would suit me rather well, actually.

Kenshin – not what I remembered

By blog on Mar. 8, 2010.

I’ve just bought Kenshin and am watching it for the second time. Not exactly what I remembered…

I first watched this anime series about six or seven years ago with my SO based on a recommendation from my brother. When I first watched it, I thought it was fun and entertaining, and have always fondly remembered it. I’m sure you’ll even find me referencing it here at some point as ‘good anime’.

So about two weeks ago when I was shopping for DVDs, I noticed in the anime section and thought why the heck not, and picked up what they had in stock, which was the first two volumes. My SO was excited to be watching it again, and we were eagerly watching episode after episode most nights for the past fortnight.

We are up to the second last episode at this point, and let me give you a run down of what the last twelve episodes have been like.

Recap of what happened in the last episode
Recap of the scene where Kenshin left for Tokyo and Kaoru is sad
Sojiro quoting Shishio saying ‘If you’re strong you live, if you’re weak you die’
Sojiro quoting Shishio saying ‘If you’re strong you live, if you’re weak you die’
Sojiro quoting Shishio saying ‘If you’re strong you live, if you’re weak you die’
Tiny bit of actual fighting

Then finally when Kenshin beat the snot out of Sojiro, he finally fought Shishio and the battle went:
Recap of what happened in the last episode
Recap of the scene where Kenshin left for Tokyo and Kaoru is sad
Shishio saying ‘If you’re strong you live, if you’re weak you die’
Shishio saying ‘If you’re strong you live, if you’re weak you die’
Shishio saying ‘If you’re strong you live, if you’re weak you die’
Shishio kicking everyone’s ass really unfairly in a stupid ‘Jim the Giant Eagle who was almost as strong as God’ kind of way.

Finally Kenshin’s won, but now he’s half dead, and if I hear that stupid half-baked misunderstood Darwinism one more time I’ll be heard half way down the street swearing!

It’s really not as good as I remembered, and it feels very silly at times, and not in a good way like at other points in the series. The first meeting between Misao and Kenshin is hilarious, though.

It’s an alright introduction to anime, but Cowboy Bebop is much better!

Nintendo updates the DS

By blog on Mar. 8, 2010.

But do they really need to?

Oh I’ll get it, don’t get me wrong. I know that ol’ Ninty knows that, too, but I can’t pass up a better DS, but at what point should Nintendo bite the bullet and just work a little longer and release a brand new handheld? And… Hang on, I need to address something here, and it needs an entire paragraph of it’s own…

Ahem.

What the hell is with ‘i’ everything? Bloody iTunes and they’re stinking repugnant camel case. Yes, that’s what it’s really called, because it’s stupidly humped – no, I don’t think camels are stupid or that their humps are stupid, I just really hate crappy grammar – and all up and down. Since iTunes made it huge, every bloody thing has an ‘i’ in there somewhere! It’s ridiculous and inane!

Okay, back to Nintendo’s DSi XL. Okay so I’m still wondering about this. There have been three updates to the original DS already, DS Lite, DSi, and now the DSi XL, and now the DSi and the DSi XL are supposed to be sold together, that you’ve got the choice between the two. Does it seem to anyone else that Nintendo is now becoming not only the kings of shovel-ware but inventing shovel-hardware? Because that’s what it seems like to me!

The DSi XL will ship in the US at the end of this month, in burgundy and bronze, and is going to retail over there for US$189.99 whilst here it’s going to be £159.99 and Australians are looking at AU$349.00 and Europe is looking at €159.99. Anyone in the know about current currency conversion will know that the console is much cheaper in the US than here, cheaper than it is even in Japan. Also, the DS is not region specific, so if you’ve got a friend who can ship you one from the states it’d cost you less than buying it here when it comes out!

After that, I need a bath. Damn Nintendo, stop being so damn greedy!