Saturday 21 March 2009

Genius

I'm well aware that I could start to turn this blog into an advert for the BBC but please bear with me. It's all the fault of the wonderful iPlayer which makes it far too easy to find the jewels in the BBCs rather shitty crown. A bit like taking all the penny toffees out of a box of Quality Street.

I've been a huge fan of Dave Gorman ever since I enjoyed his very surreal show where he followed his star signs too the letter and his twin brother just did what he wanted and a team of 'experts' scored the results on a week by week basis to see what was the best way of doing things.

His new show, Genius, is, well, genius. People e.mail in there bonkers inventions and suggestions and the best ones get on the show to make their pitch. It's a bit like a comedy Dragons Den only less po-faced and without the piles of cash.

Episode one can be seen here and is hilarious. From the guy who invents the 100 meter high running shoe so you can basically win by falling over to the cabby who instead of pitching his idea trys flirting with Catherine Tate. Gorman is brilliant as the host as he's the perfect foil. Funny but never nasty to the contestants. Highly recommended.

Wednesday 18 March 2009

Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle

Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle was brought to my attention by the Culture section of this weeks Sunday Times and I was very glad it did.

It's a half hour of really old school stand up. There's Lee standing at the front of the stage in a very small 'comedy club' style set up and barring a couple of tiny sketches to illustrate his point that's it.

Fortunately that's all he needs. His humour, like his delivery, is bone dry. This weeks target is the culture of the celebrity hardback, or toilet book if you will. If, like me, you worry about the state of the nations taste in entertainment (I've got nothing against Peter Kaye but I struggle to find what's funny about garlic bread) and you've the patience to wait for a punchline I can't recommend this show highly enough. I watched it again this morning (the first ten minutes where Lee covers Chris Moyles 2nd book and Dan Brown are achingly funny) and had tears in my eyes again.

Here's a link to the first episode on the BBCs iPlayer service. For me it's worth the licence fee alone this year.

Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle. Episode One.

Credit Crunching!

So we're just over half way through March. No new or even second hand games bought yet. To be fair I'm tempted to pick up a copy of Mass Effect on the 'Classics' label now it's below £20 as it comes highly recommended but it's not been hard to resist. I've got my holiday next week.

What's getting a bit depressing is that I haven't actually finished anything yet. The last few events on Race Pro are hard and long and it's turning into a bit of a grind. I've got several more hours of enjoyment out of Everybodys Golf: World Tour, which I suppose is the point of the exercise, but I'm trying to beat the penultimate boss in a one on one battle and he can hit a birdy from practically anywhere on the course which is making it tough.

Still I've got a few days left before my holiday to make one big push to finish something.

Monday 9 March 2009

Currently Playing : Mario Kart Wii

I have something of a chequered history with Mario Kart. The original game was the one that made me sell my Mega Drive and buy a SNES. It was and I guess probably still is a classic. I missed out on the N64 (although judging by the tracks that have made it into this version didn't miss much). Picked up and returned Double Dash cos it was rubbish but really enjoyed the GBA version that seemed very true to the spirit of the original.

So on to this version for the Wii. All the classic ingredients are there. There's a good selection of new tracks and some cherry picked from all the previous games (all the N64 tracks are rubbish seemingly designed to show off the power of the system rather than race well). A large roster of characters from Nintendo (including some that unlock based on what other games you've got. I got one for having played Super Mario Galaxy.) and a wide selection of karts and motorbikes.

However it's just too fucking brutally random to be much fun once you get past the early 50cc races. All the balance of the SNES game seems to have been thrown out. There's all manner of new weapons that are just plain annoying and the AI can hit you with two or three in a row meaning that you can go from first to last in literally seconds. There's nothing worse than getting hit by a blue shell that is indefensible against, then hit by lightning and then run over while your small by the AI that are rapidly catching you while you're being bitch slapped. In the old game you had to get a top four finish to move onto the next race of four in each round. This game does away with that. Finish twelth and you're very unlikely to have enough points to get the gold but there's nothing you can do apart from start again. From race one. Very annoying.

There's also the matter of the controls. In general the wheel works quite well. There's the choice of manual or automatic drift. Manual drift gives you a little speed boost when you finish the drift successfully. Which should give you a performance advantage. Sadly it turns out while it's fun to manually drift you've got far more chance of winning leaving it on automatic. Combined with the fact that you've only got one drift bumper as oppossed to the old L + R of old games and the game occassionally gets confused which way you want to drift and sends you off in the wrong direction.

Last night I finally finished the 150cc races and unlocked the Mirror Mode. Once I've finished that I swear I'll never touch the single player again. I should say it's not all doom and gloom. The multiplayer racing is as fun as ever.

Tuesday 3 March 2009

Breaking News!

Two items of breaking news today:

1. The PS3 got switched on last night. I had intended to have another solid session on Race Pro however my trigger fingers where still sore so I gave in and dusted down the PS3 and had a bash at Everybodys Golf:WT where I made some solid progress winning an 18 hole tournament. It really is a fantastic game. Looking forward to playing some more tonight.

2. Yesterday Popjustice asked it's browsers why the new U2's single Get On Your Boots didn't crack the top ten singles chart. I e.mailed in my suggestion which they reprinted today.

Visit the page here

Mine is the 8th quote down.. Reprinted here for those too lazy to click the link: It's presumably not gone top five cos it's the worst thing they've ever recorded and I'll include that Passengers album..

Fortunately the rest of the album is pretty good.

Monday 2 March 2009

More Recession Busting

Obviouly I couldn't spend a whole month without buying a new CD. I'd probably choose music over video games if I had too. Today U2 release their first studio album for five years. Obviously I was going to get it but which version?

There was a total of four different packages on offer in HMV ranging from £42 for the deluxe pack presumably including a token for a hand job from Bono to the vanilla CD in a jewel case. I can see why they do these things (apart from just fleecing the fans) to encourage people into physical ownership of something more special than just eleven files stored on a hard drive but surely this was a bit over the top?

Last time I bought the deluxe package. It came in hard slip case that wouldn't fit in the CD rack, The hardback 'book' was rubbish containing doodles, sketches and words tossed off by Bono and the boys. Presumably while they where on the studio bog. I guess rock stars can handle more than one shit at a time. The DVD was interesting if very short and the album itself wasn't one of their better efforts.

This time I decided to play it safe and just bought the vanilla CD. I still prefer to go and buy the CD and have it in my hands. The album has had mainly average reviews (Apart from my bible Q which I trust less with five star reviews after the Be Here Now debacle) but more on what I think of it later.

Gaming Journal

I spent nearly all my gaming time over the weekend playing Race Pro. I basically completed an entire season of WTCC racing, Made some more progress on the career and then ventured onto Live with some other enthusiasts from one of my regular forums. There where four of us altogether with the last two slots being taken up by randoms at various times. Twelve player races should be possible but does make the game unstable.

With the four of us the game is rock solid and a lot of fun. Instead of a lobby you can do practice laps until you've got enough people together to do a race. Then there's a Qualifying session if you want it before the actual racing starts. Sadly there appears to be no way to change car class or indeed cars within a class without restarting a new room but hopefully that'll come in the awaited patch. I basically played until my hands where like claws.

As for Recession busting.. I'm obviously only one day in and not really missing playing Killzone 2. I'm not interested in death matches and so the campaign can be played whenever. However I hadn't realised Mad World for Wii will be released during my enforced exile. I may have to crack for this. It looks awesome.

Other than that I was put off getting back into Fable 2 because there's possibly been to bigger gap between my last session and I'm not sure I'll remember where I was up to and what powers and combos I'd got.. It would be handy if there could be some kind of dynamic 'Previously on..' feature for indepth story games like this that would refresh your memory between plays. Still my fruit stall should of made me a shed load of money when I do switch back on.

Oh and a quick update on 'PS3 Watch'.. still not switched on.