Wrestlevania

Mrs V. and I watched The Fountain [2006] this weekend (when I managed to crawl out of my death bed for a couple of hours). The basic story is about the love between Hugh Jackman's and Rachel Weisz's characters, through three distinct ages; Middleages Spain, modern day and far-flung future (which is incredibly disorientating the first few times you see it). The purpose of the film is to explore whether man can truly influence destiny, or whether everything is already written and we are just acting out the parts. It's an odd film, not very accessible and something you need to watch very intently to follow with any success. You also need to be able to fill in a lot of gaps and fit what few pieces you're given together, too. My wife initally described it as "very religeous" upon it ending, but I'd say it's much more about spirituality. The overall story arch is touching and meaningful, as is the accompanying theme of the film. But you certainly have to work hard to get to the end. For example, there were perhaps a half-dozen occasions in the first 45mins where we repeatedly asked each other if it was just rubbish and we should switch it off. Definitely a rental, but only if you want something to completely absorb yourself in.

The last two cats we had were the biggest in the litter (male) and the smallest in the litter (female). Female was stand-off-ish and dominated, obviously; male was a huge softy and very affectionate. My sister named the female cat Holly, for no particularly reason. I'm much more methodical though, me: because the male cat was a serious beefcake - and loads bigger than Holly - I called him Max. As in this Max: He was hit and killed by a car just before his third birthday, though -- not long after I went to University. I cried like a girl - and I'm not ashamed to admit it. :\

Very cute - lovely name, too.

Another Thumber's birthday?! Happy birthday, Dan!

I was only poking fun.

Right, that's something that makes much more sense than just relying on scores of some sort. It's perhaps more demanding of the reader, but, with a decent spread of "tastes" amongst the editorial team, a publication can embellish the Do/Don't decision-making with alternative viewpoints. This is somewhat counter-point to my first reply, because it requires those lazy readers to work harder in making their minds up. They can't just glance at one arbitrary score and decide; they'll need to understand what makes one reviewer rate a game differently to another reviewer. What this doesn't do, however, is debase the simplicity of a Do/Don't rating system. As long as the reader makes the effort to read why. - - - - Since writing my initial response, I've been studying how I rate stuff on a regular basis to meet my own needs. Typically this is organising my music in iTunes, and I've noticed I actually only use a 3-tiered system -- instead of iTunes' implied 1-5 system. It essentially equates as follows: ***-- Passable / Very Niche ****- Great ***** Classic What this equates to in the real world is that anything under three stars never gets listened to again after I've heard it once. (I don't delete them for historical reasons, however.) Four star tracks I listen to all day long. Five star tracks I save for when I really want something very particular or special to listen to. This sytem has stood up over time, in that allows for a modicum of grey without being at all complex, or - at the other end of the spectrum - completely meaningless. It's simple enough to allow for quick decision-making, to find something in particular. A ratings system along these lines for games would suit my own personal needs. But then I'm the one doing the scoring, so it's completely biased and therefore still not that accessible, without first understanding my particular tastes. Which is where the "read the damn review!" bit comes in. Still, I suppose a rough translation of my iTunes example applied to gaming would be: --- Avoid *-- Playable (very niche; dedicated genre/series fans only) **- Great (most people should enjoy it) *** Outstanding (a genuine classic) I agree that this is a complicated subject, but it remains hugely subjective. Given the benefit of hindsight, I also agree that offering 100 degrees of seperation when scoring anything is fucking stupid, especially as it's never apparent what 100% would tangibly equate to. But I also concede that you do need some grey. My point about Do/Don't decision making was that, taking the "alternate viewpoint" review process into account, you only need only two things in order to make a decision: Empathise with one of reviewer's tastes A yes/no response from this reviewer I can't see it needing to be any more complicated than that. If everyone reviewing the game is howling "buy it!" it's pretty obvious it's a good game.

I thoughts you wuz being all clever and "writery", as I had no idea what you meant either...

The problem I have with the whole "review scores" in main stream media is the same problem pretty much every publisher has; the slathering masses demand it. Let's not beat around the bush here. It's been stated over and over again that an embarassingly high number of "readers" don't actually bother reading reviews at all. The first thing they'll do is flip to the last page and check the score. If it's favourable to them, maybe they'll read the last paragraph -- which, if the reviewer is evenly remotely competant, should be a pithy summing up of the whole review anyway. As a percentage, very few people read reviews from beginning to end. Which is why review scores were invented and why they inevitably appear in big garish boxes using (comparatively) huge fonts. I also don't like the way so many people criticise a very commonly used form of scoring, just to substitute it for another. You've suggested 1.5 alternatives, but they equate, basically, to the same thing as I've mentioned above; perceived bracketing of scores plus a simple summation of what the reviewer thinks of the game. This isn't a personal attack, but your suggestion is arguably irrelevant in the wider context. Take, for example, your citation of Halliwell's film rating scheme: What exactly is the distinction between 2 and 3 stars here? Descision-making, in the majority of occurances, has to come down to one of two things, either: it's worth doing something, or; it's not worth doing something Having two ratings for "it's worth doing something" (i.e. 2 stars or 3 stars) is making grey when things should be black and white. What it comes down to, at a very fundamental level, is readership. If you think your readers would be happy with a 0-4 star(s) rating system, go with that. If percentages get you more readers, rate things that way instead. I mean, fuck it; I can vaguely recall one reasonably successful publication using a different rating system every issue -- one of which was based entirely on fruit.

Um, did anyone else spot who Destructoid cited as their news "source"..? Yay, sarcastic me!

Natural evolution of the recently-revealed Surface technology, which is able to recognise objects placed upon it via each object's unique "tag" (barcode). Or, with the "digital painting" example Microsoft showed, the unique characteristics of the contact being made (i.e. an artist's brush). For Gate's "real space" example all you'd need is a nominal number of cameras (3?) to track elevation, distance, etc. Connect those to a PC, which is equipped with a broadband connection and an RFID scanner. And, seeing as pretty much everything is going to have a unique RFID chip embedded in it before long, all the computer needs to do is query some international product RFID database and it'll know everything about what you've just picked up. You could probably do all this right now to be honest. Just have the operator wear some funky RFID-enabled wristbands, slap some little RFID stickers on your favourite sports equipment, bind those to the controller PC and off you go. I'm just surprised - not to mention a little disgusted - at GI.biz basically "doing a CVG" with this, though. Sensationalist trash ftw!

Sad, but not much of a surprise. At least we won't get some drawn out Lost debacle of a finale. Having said that, I've still not been able to muster the enthusiasm to catch-up from episode 16 onwards in the current/last season...

I'm not saying I didn't appreciate it, but that it was all starting to get a little ridiculous by then. The slapstick "BOOM!!! ...splat-splat-splat" just confirmed it.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - The Arcade Game would also be one to nominate I think.

Given the recent trauma of playing the Double Dragon demo on Xbox Live Arcade, I'd say that has to be a pretty strong contender. Not quite sure I get your point, though. Care to embellish?

I switched off after the school teacher blew up. And I certainly have no desire to wade back in, given the disparate story threads I've heard talk of since.

To me, that pretty much confirms they'll be going balls-out for the final season. I'm determined to catch up on the rest of season two now, in preparation.

I'll be honest; I was extremely skeptical about Anniversary when I first heard about it. The idea of a new developer rebuilding the original game suggested that they - Crystal Dynamics - wanted to rewrite the history of the franchise and claim complete ownership of it. Which in a way I guess they have with Legends anyway. Something else that made be doubtful is that I've not played Legends (and likely won't). But then you have to consider that Crystal Dynamics have made some superb 3D platformers in the past, particularly the Soul Reaver series. So I guess Anniversary will likely turn out to be a fun and worthwhile reimagining of the original Tomb Raider game. I played the first TR back when it was released and had fun with it, so I may just give Anniversary a try. I don't recall the T-Rex fight sucking though; I found that quite neat.

The point of BioShock is that Rapture, the underwater city where the game is set, was originally populated by hyper-rich ego maniacs. The city was maintained and expanded by the Big Daddies, as the populance demanded more and more facilities. You'll notice, in the example footage I originally linked to, that there's a lot of propaganda indemnifying people with regards to cosmetic surgery, wealth and the like. So it seems that Rapture is in fact one huge cult of socially elite fuck-ups. Now imagine that place suffering a mysterious catastrophe, that wipes out most of the population, and leaves Rapture running basically on back-up systems--with no external supplies or help. Allow the remaining survivors to scratch out an ever-more desperate existence for several years, then insert player. Personally, I can't wait to explore that; it's going to be fucking incredible.

I'm such a tool; I completely forgot to mention Too Human! ...eh? GameSpot itself sucks? Or are we picking one of the games already mentioned at random and applying vacuous suckage?

As opposed to playing Hide the Sausage? Toughy...

Some good names. I'm definitely excited about seeing how Team Fortress 2 turns out, but I suspect I'll need to either a) buy a new PC to get the most out of it, or wait for the Xbox 360 version, which will seem somewhat perverse after playing Team Fortress Classic for years with a mouse. Fallout 3 is certainly intriguing, but there are a couple of factors that are holding my enthusiasm in check--namely the long lead time until it's released, and the fact we've no idea (until next week at the very earliest) what Bethesda have done with the franchise. I'm hopeful they've made something interesting out of it, but I'm also worried they'll have just nailed a post-apocalyptic skin over the top of Oblivion. I'll feel robbed if they've done that.

That's certainly a birthday present to remember. Alternatively: struggle to forget.

...ya think?

HB, etc.