The Walking Dead (the game) season 2 finale

Spoilers are coming, so I'll drop in a picture so you don't accidentally see it without scrolling down

   There, aren't I nice, don't let any bastards tell you otherwise. So, Oh My God, I killed Kenny!? Apparently I could've not done so, but he had become a jerk anyway, just because he lost his son, woman and eye, sheesh, get over it.
   Lets cover what had already happened in the season then. After Lee's death, you meet a new group who are trying to get away from some evil leader guy named Carver. You find Kenny and co, then get Captured by Carver. You kill him and escape, shoot some Russian and lots of people die in the process.
   So, this episode starts with the slaughter of the Russians, helped by Jane's timely return to knife one in the neck. That leaves just the Russian bait left. Needless to say I wanted to kill the dick, as did Kenny but everyone else was too nice, and he said he had shelter to take us to, so yeah, let's just go with the guy who tried to have us all killed why not? So they do, but Kenny is pissed, rightly so, because I am too. So, we find it's really far away and have to stop a night at a power station (as you do) where we see that Jane and Luke are in love just cause they had sex 1 time for 10 minutes, because that's definitely how love works. Jane is a bad ass though so won't admit her feelings while Bonnie tells Luke how hot he is, and You (as Clem) have an option to say this too, but even with my own warped mind I couldn't go down some paedophilia route, no siree, I'll just stick to getting the small child drunk and smoking thank you very much. Meanwhile, Kenn is looking after the baby, named 'Alvin Junior' after who may have been his Dad (can't remember if it was ever confirmed or not) seeing as he had to shoot it's zombie Mum. He's getting far to protective of 'AJ' (what a cliched name, urgh) due to the stuff I mentioned earlier and it gets a bit creeps that he seems to protect this kid like his own while simultaneously hating everyone else and losing his marbles. Meanwhile, Arvo (the Russian knob (BTW, I'm not saying all Russians are knobs (I'm not WWE), I'm sure the overwhelming majority are nice, but this one is) doesn't want anything to do with the group. \probably has something to do with us slaughtering his group, but they started it.
   So, next day we carry on to this house, but oh no! It's across a frozen lake. So, instead of walking around it like a sensible person would do, they decide to go slowly, one at a time. However, by slowly one at a time, they mean slowly, 2 feet away from each other (idiots). That's when some zombie scum start coming after you, an those fools don't know to walk carefully, and they keep falling in like the bunch of mugs they are. But then the ice cracks underneath Luke (Also, he got shot earlier, so his walking isn't so great), so he looks pretty screwed, but I go to rescue him anyway, fall in, he saves me but wounds up getting drowned while Clem escapes (thankfully this all happened under the ice so no one knows it's your fault, as ever) for the first of many sad moments in the game.
   Anyway, forget him, he's dead, he's hardly the first, despite the fact Clem had a childhood crush on him. So, you make it in to the cabin, which turns out to be a dump with 2 tins of chili in it (hardly the bounty promised), which, combined with Luke's death pushes Kenny over the edge and he lays a smackdown on Arvo (that's the Russian kids name) that everyone is disgusted at, except me, I wanted to kill him right off the bat. So, he sees the mercilessness in my eyes and decides to hate me, so the feeling mutual now.

   Kenny decides to fix up some truck now, and being the only person who is still his friend (apart from a 2 day old baby) and doesn't think he's crazy for wanting to kill the kid who wanted us dead (even though there are mounting other reasons that he's becoming a nutter)  I have to go and help him. After a while it's fixed, an after some calming him down, Kenny agrees to wait until morning to leave, and they can argue about the location then.
   Shocker though, Bonnie, Arvo and that other guy who's so unimportant I can't even be bothered to look up his name get up in the night an go to steal the truck and escape, Arvo shoots Clem in the shoulder an she blacks out. Sad moment number 2 now as there's a flashback to season 1 when you're having a nice chat with Lee about how to kill Kenny's zombie infested son (I guess you have to play it yourself to make it sad). You awake in the back of the car with Kenny, Jane and the Baby speeding off down the highway. God I hope they killed those back-stabbing arseholes. Of course argument ensues, Kenny being a mentalist and Jane being a bad ass no-shit taker there was always going to be a clash of personalities and Kenny's weird love for this baby isn't helping. So, they argue over where to go but as they're about to come to blows (sensible while driving) they come to a bunch of cars, which Kenny decides to look for some gas in. It's filled with Zombies though, and there's lots of snow, and you all get split up. After you wander around aimlessly for a while, headshotting some zombie scum you come to a rest stop and find Kenny. Then Jane arrives, baby less (she had the baby last). Kenny loses it, blaming her, and they begin their always inevitable fight to the death.
   Now, I've read that there are 3 multiple endings from here, so I'm not even sure how season 3 is going to work, but I'm just going to go through what I chose. So, I shoot Kenny because he's insane, and, sad moment number 3, he thanks you for doing it as he'd gone nuts. Then Jane shows you she'd hid AJ to prove that Kenny was crazy, so basically you'd just shot your oldest living friend cause this bitch wanted to prove a point. So, do you shun her or forgive her? Under most circumstances I'd shun her, but, as she's a badass I thought it best to forgive her as she could protect me from the horrors whereas what choice are you going to have alone? So, we head to Carver's now abandoned camp full of bodies and set up home there, an start to build a new community and invite some dodgy looking other survivors to join us.
   So yeah, it was a really good ending. This season was obviously a step down from season 1, but it was still good and had a great final part with tears all over the shop, If you haven't played any of it, play it (though I will have just ruined it for you).

Something for you all to look forward to then. It's that time of the year again when all the games come out (bloody Christmas) so I'll be trying to get through them at some speed (or at least give them a go) so that I can tell all you super interested people just what tiny gripes I have with them and, if you're lucky I might tell you if they're any good to. The question is, which one am I looking forward to the most, hmm?

 

Strike suit zero review

   It's free on Xbox one (or Xbone if you will) on games with gold this month (although there's only a handful of days left, but it's taken a lot longer than I planned for reasons I'll explain later) and this is advice as to whether to give it a go or not.
   The answer is no. Good god this is the most outdated and boring game I've played in so long. It seems like a PS1 game (though to be fair it's got PS2 level graphics) and one of those bad copies of X-Wing vs. Tie-Fighter. Yes, it's one of those space battle games where you fly around shooting enemy spaceships and boss type bigger space ships. This need not be necessarily bad that is a space Battle game (well, that's what I thought going in) however this type of game's time is gone. It's on top a more 2D style of space battle now, Like geometry wars or Stardust. If you look back at the Mega Drive/ SNES era you may remember games like Defender and Truxton and even further back the likes of Asteroids and Galaga and I have to ask why anyone decided they needed to make this type if game 3D. I imagine it's probably got something to do with the jump to PS1 when games could start to handle 3D games, so of course everything had to be in 3D from then on (for a while anyway). Unfortunately they should have given up by now and jumped back to the 2D style like so many other great games that have arrived in the last few years but they decided to give a shot at this old type game and it was a terrible decision.

   The added hook on this game is that you can transform in to some type of Space mech and float around with the ability to shoot more missiles and better powered laser guns than when you're in normal flying around mode. What I don't understand is as it is the same ship (and as you can see from the picture above, it just looks like a mech lying forward) why when it's in mech mode would the weapons be better? It's a question to make even Michael Bay scratch his head.
   So, the story as well is not necessarily bad but told extremely slowly. Basically Earth has spread colonies across the galaxy, and these colonies got angry with Earth for trying to control them and not letting them take care of themselves (or is that from Babylon 5?), some debate was had, people got mad and war were declared. You fight on the side of Earth to take down these damn freedom fighters who want to be free, but screw 'em ay? Damn lousy colonists wanting to get their own ideas, do what we say arseholes. The story is also dragged out for ages with stops about every 10 minutes in the game for 2 or 3 minutes of talking about how enemies are coming, then after being told they're coming eventually they do. Thanks for that.
   I may not be the best person to review it as I have actually only played 3 levels of 12 in one of 2 game modes but it seemed like enough. I played the first couple of levels and it was obvious it was boring, but they were short, so I kind of thought if I did about 15 minutes every few days I could force my way through it. Then I got to level 3, and it took about an hour! I wish I could get my time back, hell, I died about 10 minutes in and had to restart back at the last checkpoint or quit and start it again later and i figured that I'd already nearly finished it so I may as well push on but I was left with egg on my face (actually, I was alone so there was no one to see my foolish error so I guess there wasn't really any egg after all).
   Never mind, I have decided not to go back to it now and I'll be happier for it (though it may irk me that I couldn't get through it). So I guess as a score probably 2/10. It got a 2 rather than a 1 or 0 (a debate whether a lowest score can actually be a 0 or if it's a 1 will be saved for another time) is that there is nothing broken with it and it works, it's just boring as all hell.

The Island

   Part 2 in the films watched while drunk is a film that I've watched based on IGN's recommendation that Scar-Jo (a pet name that I've adopted for Scalett Johansonn (yet far from innovated) in the highly likely event that I'll meet her and she'll be so enamoured by it that she'll fall in love with me) wears a sexy cat suit (it's a bit of a let down as she changes after an hour (BTW, this s an action film that clocks in at 2:10, a bit much perhaps?). Now, I'll be the first to admit this is hardly the 'film of our age' that Spiceworld was and will probably not garner as much positive feedback but I anticipate it being stupid enough with enough references to other things, ruined jokes and stupid comments to be just as entertaining as my review of Spiceworld. A second thing I'd like to point out is that I'm considerably less alchohol infused right now as when I watched/ wrote about Spiceworld as even though I'm six pints deep, they were all consumed before hand (a story Pete-Roth (the same goes for Peter Rothery as Scarlett Johansonn) and I've been drinking tea throughout the films (excessively long) duration. Also, this isn't so much of a review as a run through of the plot with comments on the film throughout.

   Yes, as you can see, this film also starts Obi-Wan Kenobi himself, Ewan Mcgregor as the lead playing Lincoln Echo Six wile Scar-Jo portrays Jordan two Alpha. It starts off innocently enough (if you ignore Obi-Wan's nightmare) as a group of survivors of some plague that has wiped out the human race being looked after in a facility, all waiting to win a lottery to be led to the only non-contaminated place left on Earth, 'the island' (I think this maybe where the film got it's name). Flashing in product placement from Puma and Xbox, the first problem in the film is when Obi-One doesn't get bacon for breakfast (shocking) while his BFF Rebbecca gets it after being nice (bitch!). They're led in a living style that reminds me of that episode of black mirror with the guy in the complex who lives in a complex having to do exercise and stuff while the fatties are forced to look after them and they're all trying to get on X Factor to to spice up they're boring lives (you know the one I mean) by (shockingly) having to do exercises, eating healthy and doing readings from the script of third rock from the sun (well, the 2 characters in the reading are called Dick and Sally and off the top of my head I can't think of another literary work that they're both leads in (not that I'm an expert on literature (plus the nature of 3rd rock from the sun that could easily be that they got those names from a well known book))). They're also forced to do some lame job studying chemicals or something.
   Obi-Juan's crazy nightmare's lead him to have to meet with the institute overlord (a guy whose name I can't remember and actor I don't know and can't be bothered to look up but he reminds me of William Regal and therefore will be refereed to throughout) who puts some bugs in his eye to give him a brain scan that comes out in his urine somehow and shows the first tech of the future (it's made in 2005 and set in 2019) by having some giant tablet computer for a desk and touch-screen sliding a virtual writing pad over to him and handing his a DS stylus to draw a nice picture of a boat on it for him.
   So back to work he goes and he endures the boring work whilst being sheered up by his friend (Neelix!) and later going to meet one of the institute scientists Steve Buscemi for a secret chat (not about anything important mind (though it's still super secret)) and sharing his secret stash of booze that he accumulated before the contamination. Hmm, something smells fishy (and it's not just my underwear). That's when he catches a moth, and a big one at that (not the monster we recently had in this flat mind, that thing was crazy big), and how would a moth get in when the world outside was contaminated.
   When they're out at the local institute nightclub later Charlotte gets her lucky lottery call, but while Obi-wan Shinobi sleeps and has the nightmare again he suspects something is going on and decides to climb a random ladder an finds out the truth when he sees some of the former lottery winners not in fact delivered to an island but being harvested to for organs. William Regal has screwed them over more that he did with Paul Burchill when he became a pirate. Anyway, he waits until the morning when everyone wakes up (as you do in these situations) and goes to rescue the big winner from her certain organ harvesting fate, breaking out of the complex, through the conveniently dilapidated barbed wire fence and into the safety of a desert where (as if he hadn't already figured) he sees a snake living freely, which tells him that anything can live out there. I suppose you could call it a 'snake on a plain' (ha ha ha).
   Steve Buscemi conveniently drives past on his 'hog; then and conveniently drops one of those match packs you only ever see in American movies that tells him excatly where he'll be. This leads him to some biker dive bar ('cause they'd have their own branded matches of course) where the 'holarious' show that they don't understand the real world comes in force, what's a 'can' and why's he taking a 'dump' in it, haha John-Obi-Won Mikel (it should be pointed out that Regal had mentioned in passing that when he learned of their escape (BTW, he learned of it and sent a special group of mercenaries led by a black (not the A-Team) Frenchman after them. Who'd trust a mercenary group led by a cheese eating surrender monkey (that's not a racist joke, it's a Black Adder joke (also not racist but the name of a show)) is beyond me, but Regal did). Anyway, Buscemi, besides the fact his job, and probably life is on the line by helping them handily takes him back to his house, explains that they're clones made to harvest organs or give birth or whatever for their rich creators and are being told a pack of lies to stop them going nuts. That's when Nola Rice unfortunately takes off her skimpy cat suit (that part isn't shown) and replaces it with some less conspicuous clothes unknowingly given to her by Buscemi's stupid hick girlfriend (more hilarious 'doesn't understand the world gags as Anna marks wants to put on nurses outfit lingerie (hahaha again)). Meanwhile we see Regal showing off the company to potential investors and/or clients (this is never made clear, not that it really matters) that they in fact make weird organ sacks for them and not living breathing clones as that would be a bit of a turnoff to them (apparently that didn't work in RL (movie RL) though, and employing hundreds of supervisors and other staff to loo after thousands of clones was easier (I should also point out that Obi-wan (I ran out of silly alternative names for him) discovered (well, we discovered by way of him as I'm not really sure he figured it out as he's have had to have x-ray vision to do so) that his menial mineral job was actually keeping the pod people alive and well (clones to be kept in waiting and being brainwashed while they wait for the population of the clone centre to die down (convenient no-one questions how they keep finding more 'survivors of the contamination and no-one really questions it (well, Gandu 3-echo does (as portrayed by Brian Stepanek (apparently best known for his role in 'the suite life of Zack and Cody) but he's swiftly put t death by Regal (hang on a minute, Regal is Sean Bean! (interesting fact, Sean Bean has the exact birthday as my Dad, same year as him and everything (or is that interesting?)). Christ how many brackets is this, I'll just put 3 to close and if it's wrong it's wrong))).
   What was I talking about again, oh yeah, The Island (I actually knew that all along but it seemed like a chance to insert an hilarious gag whilst also making you think that I'd lost my train of thought when really I'm way too smart for that). So, Buscemi discovers that \Obi-Won's (again, ran out of funny alterior names) client lives in LA, so he gets them a couple of train tickets to go there and meet their (well, his) literal maker, but Buscemi makes the foolish error of going off to a map. That's when the French army roll in (they're not really the French army, just led by a Frenchman. Also, as previously mentioned, just a gang of mercenaries (or 'soldiers of fortune if you will)), shoot up the place, kill Buscemi but miss out on Obi-Won )again, no more gags) and Natasha Romanov as they hop on the excessively giant future train (keeping with the Star Wars motif, it kind of reminds me of one of those Jawa trucks) that, although is a hover train, still run of tracks (no pictures on Google to show you sadly (well, not near the top and I'll be damned if I'm scrolling down the page for 5 minutes to show you some terrible quality thumb nail to the handful of people who will get the Jawa reference, look it up your damned selves)).
   Just went for a cigarette break there (no mum, I promise I don't smoke, it's just that I went out with my friends last night so if I smell of fags it's all their fault) so I may have lost my train of thought. Right, they get to L.A. (where we see that this film has predicted that MSN search, and not in fact Google will be that main Internet search engine in 2019 (though we still have 5 years, so i guess you'll never know (though I'll hazard a guess you'll get pretty good odds at the bookies))) when the French brigade hires the help of the infamous LA PD to track them down for the murder of Steve Buscemi (liars, it was them!), the LAPD grabs them ans arrests them, when suddenly old Frenchie realises that in fact they don't want them arrested but killed so the truth doesn't come out so wipes out the cop car in his armoured van (why even enlist the bloody police then?) and begins a pig shoot out with the coppers wile Obi-Wan (again, ran out of gags there) and The Black Widow sneak out the side and escape (it should be mentioned that Obi-Wan (remember, I ran put of gags) sneakily managed to see where his unwitting Creator lived while in the cop car) but not for long! They hop on the back of the truck and begin a high speed chase throwing dumbbell like big metal things at the Frenchies off the back of the truck while they're being shot at. This bit kind of reminds me of the only good bit in The Matrix 2 (or whatever it's subtitle was) with the chase on the motorway and it's a fun action sequence (both of them that is (but I'm more talking about the island, not The Matrix reloaded (I looked it up on Wikipedia now))).

Oh yeah, take that Frenchie (actually, i think this pictures from the wrong scene and is from  (spoilers!) a scene yet to come.

      So, they get to the real Ewan Mcgregors house (though that's not his name in this film, missing a fun moment of potential meta filming) where he speaks in a Scottish accent (and says 'wanker' (I love how this is just a quaint British word over in the US but over here it's actually quite offensive, if Trainspotting taught Obi-wan (no more jokes here remember)  anything it should be to avoid it (actually, I don't remember that film as I watched it so long ago, hell, the moral of the film may have been to call everyone wankers)). So, he hits on Barbara Sugarman (good man, I would too (though far less successfully than him (not that he gets anywhere, it's just that I'd no doubt lose her interest after about 2 seconds)) while Obi=Wan gets changed (again, no gags, also, I'll refer to Lincoln Six echo as Obi-Wan (no gags) and the real Lincoln (see, they give them the same first names in the institute so it's easy to remember) as Ewan McGregor. So, the McGregor twins hatch a plot to go on NBC news and tell the world (well, the ones that watch that particular news broadcast at that particular moment) the truth. But secretly, Ewan rings the institute and is all like 'WTF' and he grasses them up and sets a trap so the Frenchies can catch them. Laura though figures out McGregors lying eyes (as she got so used to them after knowing Obi-Wan (out of funny names remember) for so long in the institute, and as they're clones have the same mannerisms (is that a real thing? I guess you'd have to ask the hilariously named 'Gene' the cow (not that you could because cows don't speak (though who knows with clones, it's already a crime against God Dammit!))). So Obi-wan (no jokes here) smartly leaves Lucy in the house while he and Ewan go on a fun car ride to NBC news (ha, sucker). Ashley Parker (i was going in chronological order with the Scar-Jo movie character names but used her name too many times and ran out of the films I've actually seen so had to refer to her Eight legged freaks character name (or have i seen that?). I considered not mentioning her by name again but she seemed too integral to the plot for that). So, Ewan pulls the gun while the Frenchies try to take Obi-Wan (gagless) out, shooting Ewan's super pricey car in the process (ooh, he's mad), but Obi-Wan (you know the drill by now surely) reveres it on him and drives them into a car park for the inevitable face off (no Travolta or Nicholson here though) (BTW, Ewan conveniently wears glasses so you can tell them apart (the same reason Nikki Bella got breast implants)). This of course leads to the old confusion moment where Ewan loses his glasses and they both have to convince ol' Frenchie that they're the the real Eawn McGregor and not the terrible Obi-Wan (burn on Star Wars (also, not name joke)). Naturally, he shoots the wrong Wan (haha) but he's convinced by some fine Obi-Wan (you get the joke now, right?) acting that he made the right choice (or maybe it was a Jedi mind trick, hmm... (wait, 'Jedi' isn't in this spell check dictionary? what kind of spell check is this anyway!?).
   So, he goes back to Ewan's house to steal his life, boat and run escape with the girl, but is contacted by the institute to tell him he needs to come in for a new clone (remember, they think Obi-wan (nothing) is the real Ewan McGregor), but also tell him that generations of clone are being wiped out (oh yeah, after doing those scans on Obi-Wan (nope), The father birthday matcher (inevitably the bad guy 'cause he's English (did I mention that already, God knows by this pin))  finds out that the Echo series of clones, and all since get some kind of memories from their client (or are the clones the clients, which way round would that work?) and is causing them to figure out some stuff, hence the nightmare Ob-Wan (-) was having at the starts. How they got his urine from the Biker bar urinal I'll never know) so he knows they have to do something about it.
   So, Obi-wan (nada) goes back to get cloned while Mindy hands herself over to get harvested so they can get back in the facility. Frenchie picks her up while Obi-wan (let' not bother) gets a private helicopter, door to door service (nice). Meanwhile, at the facility, Neelix and crew all conveniently win the lottery and head in to a massive success/slaughter in high spirits

   So, Obi-wan (non (that was supposed to be a Latin translation of 'no' but turned out pretty disappointing if you ask me (I guess the impact was 'Lost in Translation'...)) gets told his re-clone will be free of charge (you'd flippin' well hope so as his clone escaped, by no fault of his own and tried to kill him! (actually, he did kill him but remember, the institute currently thinks he's the real Ewan) and gets led by some loud mouth knobber to the big photocopier while various voices is taken to be harvested like a field of beets. At the same time, Beany Tell Froggy that the real Scar-Jo will probably die anyway by now as he was too slow and her brain is screwed, but she'll get harvested anyway because 'that's what their clients pay for'. Needless to sat Frenchie isn't impressed, and he's already been paid, so inevitably he twists the plot upside down to save Mary Boleyn and save the rescue the other clones from the Nazi style gas chamber by gunning all the real humans down. You could say it's an Attack of the Clones...
   Meanwhile, Obi-Wan (NO) goes off to rescue the pod people and comes face to face with the Beanster, and of course, kills him, all the clones escape, the heroes and the Frenchie save Neelix, and the day and everyone goes home happy. You could say Obi-Won (I've been saving that!).






   Oh wait, this is supposed to be a review! I'll give it like a 6.5/10. It's a fun movie but don't go out of your way to watch. But if you do you'll enjoy it enough to not turn it off (as long at you ignore the crazy 2:10 running time).

WWE SuperCard Review

May I have your attention please? I have just received a free game from the anonymous Google play store (I say 'received' when what I actually mean is searched for, couldn't find, had to go on my computer and find it on the play store on there, plug my phone in to my computer and wait for it to transfer shortly (about an hour) for it to go on my phone, but for the purposes of the joke I thought I'd leave this part out) (also available on IOS).
   Basically, it's a card game not unlike top trumps but with very slightly more strategy as you have to train up your cards (by removing your other rubbish cards and using them as xp), there's certain bonuses for certain cards when one of the particular stats is what's challenged on, there are certain people that work better as a tag team and there are bonus cards you can use once per match (eg. chair, ladder, table, sword, power drill, dinosaur, flamethrower, all the wrestling tropes). There are also different rarities of cards, and the more rare they are, the better they are (obv.), and you get more of these as you get better.
   There are 2 modes, exhibition, where you just take one person at a time and King of the ring which seems to be some kind of league system that takes days and you can't change the first 10 cards you picked despite the fact you've gotten your group about 5 times, 5 times, 5 times, 5 times better by this point. Plus, if you really want to win, you keep having to look back in it and checking on their stamina and swapping them out for fitter, far worse people while the original persons stamina slowly recharges on the bench. Of course the big problem there is that there's about 45 games in a season, 1 happening every hour (the happen bu themselves so it's not like you always have to watch them) and as people generally have to sleep and work and other wastes of time they can;t always be checking on the fitness after each game! That said, it seems like no one else does either.
   Exhibition is far simpler and easier, you play a quick 5 on 5 top trumps style game against your opponent with the things I mentioned earlier taken in to account. You get 2 cards for a win and 1 for a loss. Not all matches are the same though, as I said you have a team of 5 but only have 3 (I'm going to call them 'battles') battles per match, but these can be a mix of tag, solo and diva's matches, sometimes with all single matches and sometimes with just 1, but it's all based on the top trumps style stats. Just in case you were wondering I've played 100 games (they take like, 20 seconds each) and won 88, losing 12, the product of a night well spent).

   There are other problems too, menu's could be simpler and not have to back all the way back out to select someone not starting to train or set your champion (though I don't really know what that does) and I often find myself having to wait for the network to connect.

   Being a freemium game you don't have to pay, although there can be a pay to win aspect as you can buy card packs with actual money, and even though when it comes to playing console or indie games I'm all for supporting developers I'll never, EVER! put money in to a free game (EA should know that from me by now)

   Of course, it is based on wrestling so that's a massive turn off to many, but it's a pretty fun and simple way of spending a few minutes when you're on the bus or whatever, and I always struggle to put it down as I always want one more match. Of course everyone has been saying how good Hearthstone is recently, but without playing that myself and therefore having no basis on it's quality I think I can biasedly say Hearthstone's time is up WWE SuperCard's time is now! Obviously it's no snake 2, but what'cha gonna do, brother?        In summary then as it's free and is it worth a try? Yes Yes Yes etc. Just try not to get addicted to it like I did last night. And thats the bottom line cause i said so (break glass).

Spiceworld

People of the world!

16 years in the waiting, the review that you've all been waiting for. This is the film that invented the word 'meta'. It's a film within a film, as the film is being pitched throughout the film and created on the fly, and who'd of thought the future would be made by the Spice girls. Obviously anyone who grew up in the 90's (like myself) wont be shocked that the Spice girls created the future of pop culture, but the filthy youngsters out there (who think the Spice girls are some cheese band because they're too young to appreciate fine pop) probably wouldn't expect this.
   So, what's it about? Basically, it's the simplest plot ever as they've got to get to the Royal Albert Hall to perform a live gig. I'm going to stop at this moment to say I watched it fairly drunk (and I'm writing it straight after so you can blame grammatical errors on alcohol) which made it far better than it really is. We see the girls struggling to live up to the celebrity status they've got themselves in to an living in a double decker Union flag bus when all they want to do is get six coffee's for £1.50! and chips (BTW, there's a sixth spice girl who never made it in the band but her pregnancy throughout the film is a major plot point (but that's who the sixth coffee was for)). It certainly plays up to some of the characters as sporty is constantly talking about football and on a training bike while posh is always going on about clothes but they have a more tough time making character jokes about the others (what defines being a baby though really asides from screaming).
   It's also a film filled with Britishisms (is that a word (this spell check doesn't think so)) such as a James Bond style introduction and plenty of British actors. For example Richard E Grant channels his inside Withnail (I had so hoped he was I so I could say 'Richard E grant channelled his inner I' so I could have pulled it off all cocky and most people wouldn't have got it and I'd have looked well cool but alas the Doctor ruined it) as he plays the Spice girls stressed out manager who has to deal with all the stress of celebrity while the girls go on speedboats and drown their fans and he's not helped by a documentary crew headed up by Alan Cummings trying to get something interested and his own boss, Roger Moore (to continue to the Britishness) who does such things as stroll around in a dressing gown and feed a pig with a baby's bottle. We also see Meatloaf play the Girls bus driver and make the best joke not just in this film, but perhaps all films (I don't want to spoil it as you should watch it yourself for that.

      Of course, all this Spice girls talk brings up the ultimate question of the 90's, what's the order of the Spice girls hottest? Ask most boys in the 90's and they'd put ginger top and sporty bottom with a mixed order in between but now I'm not so sure. I have to give props to posh in this film, before she became skinny as a rake she had a lot going for her (come on becks, sue me, my resounding memory of you will always be of seeing Julian Joachim scoring a 25 yarder against you lot) and when Sport wasn't in all the sports gear (as was her gimmick) she was pretty fine looking (if you can get past the accent). Not to take anything away from baby or scary either, but then they're not going to put a girl band of meh lookers together anyway.
   Back to the film. After going on an Italian chat show they have to get some dancing lessons so they thaw out Michael Barrymore as some kind of army general dance instructor to teach the girls how to march not sure what this has to do with dancing). It should be pointed out at this point that while some Americans are trying to make a film out of the girls (which becomes the running eta part of the film) an evil Aussie paper editor is trying to make the girls look terrible by employing Richard O'Brien to catch them at their worse moments including crawling crawling out of the toilet at Micheal Barrymore's dance internment camp and taking pictures of the walls (what would mumsy say?).
   After this they have a Falling out with Clifford (Withnail (who crawls into the arms of Claire Ruchbrook (whoever she is (though I do recognise her from somewhere)))) they go on the run to have chips and flashbacks (obviously inspiring Family Guy in the process), the attempted drowning of competition winners and going clubbing. That's when the not sixth member goes in to labour (though it has to be questioned what 1 week overdue mother would go in to a club) very nearly making them late for the gig the whole film is based on building towards and nearly giving Daphne's brother a heart attack. Of course they make it and tear the house down, Richard O'Brien is foiled and the film is set to be made and Dr. Jack Steward, the film producers and James Bond go crazy. This sets up the post credits sequence (take that Marvel) that goes crazy meta with Richard O'Brien and Richard E Grant questioning the film they are going to be in while Mel C references that they've already made the film (this stuff is crazy).
  Other notes in this film are that Scary doesn't get Chess, Elvis Costello tops his Frasier appearance and Gerri loves facts.
 
 

   So a final score then. If you're sober probably about 3/10. If however you've had a few drinks, grew up in the 90's and are in the mood, 8/10!

Spice up your life (I bought it back)!

Wave Defence

   Okay, so I've just started Bioshock 2 (yeah yeah, 4 years late, but it was like £2.50 so give me a break) and I've gotten pretty ticked off early on that they've added in wave defence when your little sister is gathering ADAM. Now,I've touched upon my dislike of wave defence before when talking about Metro: Last light, but the difference here is that it occurred only a couple of times in that, but it looks like it's going to be happening dozens of times in Bioshock 2, every time you need to get some ADAM infact. I've been distinctly put off this game now (that I was thoroughly enjoying) as wave defences annoy me so much. (I just want to point out now that this is nothing about tower defence games as that's their own thing, this is for when they turn up in FPS' or TPS' (third person shooters))
   Now, what do I mean by wave defence? For the uninitiated it's basically where you're tasked with holding and/ or protecting something/ someone while they do something or you're waiting for rescue or something like that. It happens in basically every war movie that's ever existed.
   The question to ask here though is why? It's well known that other people love this stuff, Apparently horde mode in Gears of War online is really popular for instance, but you wouldn't catch me playing it.Now, I don't think I'm especially bad at them (though it's certainly not my forte), but having to stand in a corner shooting things and slowly running out of ammo/ life just annoys me and I don't find it a fun challenge and the second I have to do one of them more than once I get close to controller through the screen time (there was one instance in Metro: Last light that took me 30 or so goes and I had to take a couple of breaks in that to calm myself down (I'm so mature...)). When you end up repeating it (as I inevitably do) you end up having to learn where everyone comes from an in what order and so on, so you can develop a strategy to defeat them and in my case I normally make it through these bits because I've done them so many damn times that I could do it with my eyes closed by the end (but that's I'd inevitably run out of ammo, have to make a mad dash to get some, get shot to pieces, have to do it all again, kick my desk, stub my toe, bleed everywhere, spend 10 minutes getting a load of blood up from the carpet and so on). It's not like it's improving my ability at the game, just to learn patterns.

Hurry up!

   I can't decide whether it's just lazy game developing as a way to flesh out their game a bit or if enough people really enjoy this stuff in their game (feels like the former though), but I know I don't! I've had enough of having to do these wave defence sections shoehorned without warning in to games I'm enjoying and ruin my fun time. I'm going to push on through Bioshock 2 some more and see how much of a problem it's going to be for me, but if it turns up in Wolfenstein: the new order (the next game I've got lined up) then something's getting broken.

Max: the curse of brotherhood

   So, I was going to write 'Watchdogs diary: week 2' (one short month after week 1), however, as I finished the game about a month ago and can barely read my own handwriting, I can co longer equate any of the notes I've made to what happened in the plot (as I can hardly remember any of it (You save Nicole, everyone else dies)) so it seems pretty impossible for me to write anything more on it. I would say however it's definitely worth a play with plenty to do (though it can get a little repetitive).

   What I can remember though is Max: the curse of brotherhood which I picked up as it was free on games with gold (a deal on Xbox where you get free games every month (which is getting better as of late but I'm not getting in to that right now)) which I would never have played otherwise as reviews were mediocre, it looked like a kids game and the first level was pants. However, how very wrong I was.
   So, the plot is you're some kid named Max (the title gives that bit away) who doesn't like his brother, so he wishes him away. The TV then steals him and you have to follow him in to rescue him (it seems to me like Max got what he wanted and I dunno what he's chasing him down for) but he is caught by the games baddy known as Lord Mustacho and so you have to rescue him from there in order to get home for tea (I made that last bit up).
   So, what kind of game is it? Well, it's a 2D platformer (kind of 2.5D in fact) with the hook being that you have a marker pen that allows you to create stone plinths, vines, branches, water chutes and fireballs in certain places and leads to some great puzzle solving and timing challenges that are rarely frustrating and often challenging in an unusual way where usual videogame puzzle tropes are ignored and things are solved in a not perfect way that you may not expect to be the real solution as videogames usually have perfect solutions to them but with the 'draw your own solution' nature of the game, the shapes that you're using are never likely to be perfect.

   What's wrong with the first level then? Well, you don't meet the old lady who powers up your marker until level 2, so the first level is just normal platforming, and frankly, it's a boring example. later on in the game you get parts where you're sliding down slopes, timing jumps to the millisecond, drawing vines in mid jump, grabbing on, jumping off immediately before something happens to said vine and catching yourself with a water stream just before you fall out of the level (something along those lines and that's a very simple example, there's some terrific set pieces later in the game), but in the first level it's just jump from platform to platform, crawl through a space and simple boring stuff. I know it's harsh to criticise a game based on it's first level as they're traditionally easy and used for tutorial purposes but it's not a good way to start it off, if I had anything else to play I probably wouldn't have gone back to it, and I hear Wolfenstein: The new order (which I bought yesterday) is the same (so there's something to look forward to).
   I should probably mention the big monster that's constantly chasing you throughout the game as well (well, more like a quarter of the time) that sets up the faster elements of the game (as well as the cliched lava chase) where there's more thinking on your feet style puzzles where they're basically simple but it's all in the timing as opposed to many of the other puzzles that are more classic stop and think about them moments, it was a nice in game way to give the game 2 different tempos that it switched between throughout.

   Sure, there are other enemies too that you tend to spend the time tricking as they're pretty stupid, like shaping branches that will deliver the bombs they've just thrown at you straight back to their feet or creating platforms for them to run on to before removing them and trapping them below. You don't get a way to fight back until right near the end though when the fire balls are introduced (each use is introduced slowly in a way that kind of reminds me of the slow introductions of the paint in Portal 2, and much like Portal 2, perhaps they could have gone further with mixing all the elements together, I can't remember a puzzle in Max where you had to use all of the elements (is that the word for them? (it is now))).
   Of course, there's a final boss as you eventually face off against Mustacho when he transforms your little brother in to a giant puppet that he controls, and it's a nice combination of things you've learned across the last few levels and it's fairly challenging but without being impossible. It's not exactly metal sonic and Death Egg Jr. at the end of Sonic the hedgehog 2 (no rings!) as there are checkpoints throughout the battle. At times the game can be hard to judge on what age range it's based at because it very much looks like a kids game, but there's a few tough puzzles in there (I had to consult Google a couple of times) and there's some elements of unforgiving platforming that were much more regular in the late 80's/ early 90's and if you hadn't played through the golden era of 2D platforming then this game would probably have been very tough. But then, as I just mentioned the boss battle has checkpoints, come on...
   I just want to mention that many of the other reviews I read there was much criticism over the control of the marker and that it didn't respond fast enough when you needed to use it quick, but I didn't really find this an issue, sure it would show back up where you left it last time, but it pretty much locked on to where you wanted it if you moved it in that general direction.
 
   So, in summary, if you like puzzle platformers then this one is definitely worth your time (especially if you can get it for free like me (BTW it's £10.99 on Steam, that's crazy!)), it's a slow starter but take it from me, you'll happily look back and reflect positively after you've finished it, just like I am now, and it's a good job after the Watchdogs diary fell apart.