DanJW

Ah, here we go. Seems she thought it again deviated too much from the source - although she understands that movies and books are different, she rightly gets pissed off when film-makers change the message of the novels and replace it with one of their own. As she told Goro Miyazaki "Yes. It is not my book. It is your movie. It is a good movie." So she doesn't blast it as much as the scifi channel's attempt and seems to like it well enough as a stand-alone film. Although not as much as thoise made by Miyazaki Senior (you were right about that). edit: LeGuin is a great voice for telling hollywood et al why it is that fans get so pissed off about movie adaptations of books and games. She talks about they way in which they take the names and sometimes appearance of characters and apply them to essentially a compeltely different character with "entirely different temperaments, histories, and destinies" I hope at least someone in Hollywood listens.

Are you sure brkl? I know that she was majorly pissed off with the Sci-Fi Channel's two-part adaptation (and so was I; it was abysmal and bore only the faintest relation to the source material). Maybe you're thinking of that. I'll have a look and see if she's published a reaction to this new one.

Holy Crap! I just saw that Tales of Earthsea is out today! It may have got mixed reviews (mixed as in "awesome, but not as awsome as papa Miyazaki's") but it combines two things I love: Ghibli Studios and LeGuin's Earthsea series. Anyone else going to see this?

It's so fuzzy! Oh wait, that's the photographic quality. edit: egad that lens makes your hands look HUGE!

Yeah, insinuating that people are killers simply because they disagree with you - that's not very nice. Admittedly some of the commentors were arseholes, but killers? I doubt it. Looks like JT et al have been fairly succesful in making a connection in peoples brains between "gamer" and "high-school shooting". That sucks.

Well, there's the matt black version. What are the specs going to be on that?

Hahah good episode. I thought the reviews were OK, just inherently dull games. Also, I can't believe they did a spoof on Pob!

Hehehe the site now has a welcome message from Ziggy Springsteen. He's not evil.

There's a short story by Arthur C. Clarke called "Reunion". It's about the aliens from which humanity is descended returning to take us "home" - humans having been abandoned on Earth due to a strange plague. It's told in the form of a transmission from the said aliens as they approach orbit and ends with the sentence "If any of you are still white, we can cure you".

You're in luck, Vimes. The Kingdom Hearts gameplay is actually real-time RPG-lite. Kind of like Crystal Chronicles I guess. You have a melee atack button, a magic attack button, a context-sensitive reaction button. some special move buttons and a button that changes depending on which abilities you have equipped. There's a little bit of depth there in the way you equip different abilities, but unless you choose the hardest difficulty mode you can get through most of the game by hammering the melee button (it is a kid's game afterall). Still, it's better than the normal FF menus rubbish. Oh, and the bosses are particularly great examples of the current trend in "Quick Time Events" (who the hell named them that? it's bloody confusing).

I'd be surprised if the game did not also contain black protagonists and white antagonists. What is more, I suspect that the game may well contain at least a subtle political message about poverty in Africa. You don't choose African slums as a setting unless you have a reason to.

This already camer up in the RE4 thread. Well done though. Oh and reading through the comments is pretty funny, as after a few it becomes clear that the original poster has, in the words of the Bluthe family "made a huge mistake".

Shithead = Best card game ever. I'm campaigning to get it introduced to my local casinos.

Just like sex, drugs and rock n roll!

So what are the stats for Dr Who cards anyway? Extermination: 5? Number of sofas needed to hide behind: 2? Ratio of inner space to outer area: 40? You may like this fact lobo; I know a guy who writes occasional scripts for Dr Who and Torchwood (although he will rarely admit it). Funny man on stage, too.

Top Trumps (the card game) have been around for about 30 years mind you. Pretty much the basis of all other CCGs

A Heroes game was also anounced, but it's going to be a rather uninspired-sounding "3D action adventure"

Wow. I guess the gummi ships in the second game were much improved then. Several sessions I sat down and ignored the main game, just concentrating on getting an 'S' score on all the gummi ship missions.

You mean like Resident Evil? And Final Fantasy? And the rumours about MGS?

Yeah, the parlimentary cake issue got Morris into a bit of trouble with the government

My favourite Morrisism is "Quadraspazzed on a lifeplug".

What? Why? I loved the gummi ships in the second game (although I've heard they were a bit naff in the first one). The building system took me a while to figure out, but honestly the insane 'ahhhg-everything-is-exploding-around-me' gameplay of the space sections was more fun than the single button mashing of the main game. Also yes, Lego Batman is cute, and the Lego Joker looks really friendly!

Can we have his name so that we may remember him?

In some areas of the country, that sentence would get you some very funny looks

The Gummi Ships in Kingdom Hearts 2 might be a good starting point. You find various blocks with various powers, then you can build your ship with the powers that you want, limited by a points cost.