DanJW

Huhn, I've been offline most of the past two weeks myself, so didn't see this. Best wishes to Mrs V and the family, I hope normality resumes itself for you shortly.

Yeah saw this in the tv listings today. Awesomeness! It was really nice seeing Rab in Screenwipe.

Here's another good'un Jedi religion founder accuses Tesco of discrimination over rules on hoods

I'm an all-round Bioware fan, so yeah I played and loved the KotOR games. I enjoyed the combat in KoTOR, but it was essentially a refinement of the rolling-turn ruleset that went all the way back to Baldur's Gate. It's a bit in-depth for some folks, plus maybe Bioware just wanted to try something a bit more realtime action based. For a first effort (disregarding Jade Empire) it's pretty good. It does get a bit same-y though. I'm sure as they get more experienced with making action games they will improve Massively (Effect).

Hahahaha it's been a while since anyone noticed that. It has been part of Thumbs for a very long time. I think "Molyneux" was censored at one point as well.

Nick Breckon is more of a concept or a state of mind, than an actual individual person.

Yes, a bit. But the video-game genres it is influenced by were in turn influenced by earlier editions of D&D.

Return of a Jedi An Omen A One

Banana sex cult leader hunted by police in Papua New Guinea

Ahahahahaah sequel to goty.cx ?

Rab Florence of Consolevania fame and friend of the Thumb, has been doing some reviews of tabletop boardgames in a video blog series called Downtime Town. Yay!

Meme is Alex Ashby

Well, they will still come in useful when you write Baboo: The Officially Unofficial Idle Thumbs Biography.

I was thinking about that while watching that Film Noir documentary. In film noir, every act of violence, every killing, is loaded with meaning and drama. Our current screen entertainment has suffered a massive creep in the number of shootings needed to be significant.

Hah, yeah that Matrix bit always bothered me too. I think they did that so as to avoid having to write anything for the blue-pills. Wickus was pretty desperate though. Perhaps he was hoping that the MNU forces would be smart enough not to fight against alien weaponry. Anyway, he is a bit of a dick when you get down to it. Other than that, it's an action movie; people gots ta get shot.

Don't try to capture the sunlight dudes! or... something.

I enjoyed District 9. Not a masterpiece but quite refreshing. Some of the things you guys have cited as problems, I see as avoidance of cliché, eg In fact that kind of captures something about the film - it never plays up to your hollywood-trained sympathies. James, I think the killing was addressed in the film: On the alien society:

It's all in the patter. Someone once told me that the National Lottery Live isn't actually live - the balls have been chosen by a much more secure machine a few minutes before. If this were true then Derren Brown would just need an agreement or an insider to tell him the result before the Lottery TV show aired. Don't forget that magic is slight of hand; making people look one way while doing the trick somewhere else. The "three possible explanations" are a wonderful example of this, as they immediately stop people from trying to think up a fourth or fifth etc.

We use both kilometres and miles don't we? It's part of our wonderful diverse melting pot bureaucratic cock-up approach to things.

I too am a big STALKER fan. I even did a brief stint as a QA tester for it during its development (before the studio nearly fell apart and scuppered our lovely contract). The survival horror parts are my favourite, although I also grew to love the careful and deliberate wasteland warfare - cite previously mentioned atmosphere (in my early teens I was in the army cadets, and so spent a fair few summers lying down in tall grass while clutching a rifle. STALKER is the closest a game has ever got to nailing that nostalgia for me). I want to upgrade my PC before replaying or moving onto Clear Sky, so I can see it in all it's glory. I had to turn off too many settings the first time. Oh, anyone that hasn't done so should read Roadside Picnic, the novella that inspired the Tarkovsky film that inspired the game. Here's a free PDF. I'm hoping they will make more of the anomalies in the next game - they are what makes The Zone, the Zone, and Roadside Picnic does a wonderful job of freaking you out with them.

Pages of thumbs spoiler tags are always a good sign for a film. "I give this film out of " - IGN.com

Hail Chris!

It was called The Rules of Film Noir, and was written and presented by a guy named Matthew Sweet.

Hah! That and the stolen art used to promote Mirrorsa game fromEDGE makes me think that Edge Games are a natural fit to republish Limbo of the Lost.

Sorry, fixed. As only a casual reader of superhero comics, the Final Crisis (and also the marvel equivalent whatever it was called) seemed like superhero continuity wankery at its height - although I appreciate they were actually trying to fix the continuity wankery at the time. Also lol at Captain America rebirth vis a vis the same thing with Superman that quite possibly 'killed comics'