I love it when shots from Ogre just show up in funny places. This time, it’s from a comic strip called Stolen Pixels on the Escapist, where Ogre-powered games Torchlight and Zombie Driver have been used for comedic purposes:
Thanks to BuschnicK for the heads-up on the Torchlight one, I was surprised to see Zombie Driver just days earlier too!
Zero Punctuation reviewed Torchlight yesterday!
Of course he was both inaccurate (you don’t have to keep clicking at all, you can hold the button down) and overly harsh, but still very funny. It’s odd to enjoy watching something you had a hand in (albeit in a background technology way in my case) being ripped to shreds, but when it’s done in such an amusing way somehow it’s ok. I guess this is why Yahtzee hasn’t had his teeth kicked in by disgruntled game developers yet 
As Runic’s Twitter said: “We’ve arrived!”.
I really enjoyed the original Professor Layton, and was glad to get the sequel (Professor Layton and Pandora’s Box – for some cultural reason ‘Diabolical Box’ on the web site, I assume internationally some people haven’t heard of Pandora’s Box) from a friend as an early Christmas present. So far it seems like more of the same “puzzles embedded in slightly hokey but nonetheless enjoyable story, set in a whimsical Victorian era”, which is precisely what fans of the original (which includes me) wanted. In many ways it reminds me of reading The Famous Five books as a child, to the extent that I’m expecting someone to propose the consumption of ‘lashings and lashings of ginger beer’ and for Timmy to say ‘woof’ in his traditional enigmatic fashion, at any moment.
There’s only one problem. They seem to have decided to increase the amount of voice acting this time around (at least in the introductary sections), and Luke – the Professor’s constant companion and apprentice mystery solver – has an absolutely terrible mockney accent. I actually had the US version of the original (because EU distribution was terrible), where Luke’s accent was fairly standard ‘public school received pronunciation’ style, but in the EU version they mocnkeyfied him it seems. Here’s a comparisoin of the two Curious Village versions:
This time I’ve got the EU edition and they seem to have decided to let it all hang out and compete with Dick van Dyke for the oscar of Worst Cockney Accent Ever. And you know, I think they’d win. It’s that bad. I can’t find any videos online of the EU version, but this basically sums it up:
“Bloimey Prowfesha, wot’s that?”
NNNnnggg. As heart-warming as the rest of the game is, and as trivial as this issue is (and in no way does it detract from the game’s enjoyment), when this boy chimes in it’s like nails down a blackboard for me and probably anyone else in the country; I hate to think how Londoners would take it.
I know the game is taking an incredibly whimsical view of the world, that’s part of its charm, but how did anyone not notice how grating that accent was? My only conclusion is that it was acted and organised by people who have watched Mary Poppins several hundred times over until they are slightly unhinged.
My broadband connection was on the blink this morning, which affected me less than it would usually would have because I had a dentist appointment, so I didn’t think too much of it. I heard on the radio when driving to said appointment that the whole island was affected so that made me feel a little better, and everything came back about an hour after I returned.
However a friend of mine works at one of the local telecoms companies (and which is also the broadband wholesaler to the others – kind of like our local version of BT) phoned me at lunchtime to ask if my connection was back, since he hadn’t seen me on Skype (I’d actually just forgotten to turn it back on). He informed me that the reason for the technical difficulties was a massive spike in internet traffic caused by everyone playing Call of Duty : Modern Warfare 2
Yes, it seems lots of people decided to take the day off today to play the new release; even in our small juristiction over 100 people queued outside the local HMV at midnight to get their copy early, so it seems that many more people bought it at 9am and went home to fire it up. Given that the game had a day 1 patch (at least for PS3 for a trophy bug, I don’t know about 360) I presume that plus lots of people jumping online all at once was a bit much for the system to handle.
It appears I’m the only person in the world who isn’t obsessed with COD:MW2 
It’s nice when software reflects a programmer’s sense of humour and humility. This message appeared when I restarted Firefox 3.5.3 after an XP crash:
Bravo – thanks for making me chuckle, and thus forgive you instantly for any error (and it might not even have been yours). Bless.
For those of you who grew up in the late 70′s / early 80′s and were into games (particularly in Britain), you’ll like this:
Via NimbleBit – thanks!
Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire hit BBC2 last night, having been previously aired in the US via Comedy Central (this was a joint BBC and CC production). As a spoof of a fantasy genre, it was pretty much required watching by yours truly, being as I am torn between indulging my inherent sci-fi/fantasy geekdom, and being cynical about the general derivativeness of most of the genre.
It was a strange beast – a real melting pot of some genuinely funny moments mixed in with some predictable gags; occasional comic gems mixed with a smattering of naff, crude humour. I can see why many of the critical reviewers hated it, but I’m not ashamed to say that I enjoyed it. I can happily ignore the duff bits, because the good bits were fun, and the subject matter is right down my alley – how often do you actually get to enjoy a spoof fantasy story written deliberately for comedy effect (rather than being accidentally hilarious, which is sometimes good too)? Ok, so this wasn’t exactly The Princess Bride, but at times it was channelling elements of it, even if it was erratically.
The stars of the show were Sean Maguire (Krod), as the delightfully insecure hero, and Matt Lucas (Dongalore) as a public-school educated, fantasy version of Dr Evil. Lucas was the more consistent, being almost 100% funny for his entire screen time; even though I’m personally not much of a Little Britain fan, I think he was very good in this. Maguire definitely had his moments though as a post-modern male hero.
I’ll definitely be watching the next episode: if you’re willing to not be too critical about the weaker parts and just want some fantasy-oriented laughs, it’s on Thursdays at 9pm, BBC2.
Ok, this is very, very bizarre. Having bought tickets for the last 2 years, I got an email letting me know that the local summer-time comedy festival was returning this year, so I went to take a look at the lineup. The stand-up lineup looks pretty good, I recognise a couple of the names, and in any case it’s good to see people you haven’t come across before.
But, the main thing that gave me a “WTF?” moment was the banner in the middle, claiming that Spinal Tap were coming over on the 7th June, as part of their tour for the 25th anniversary of their 1984 spoof rockumentary This Is Spinal Tap. Dude, no way! I’m looking for the catch here, but it would seem that in fact, the appropriate response is “Way”.
I’m in two minds about this though. On the one hand, it would be very cool to see these guys in person – This Is Spinal Tap is a cult classic. On the other hand, it has been 25 years (wow), I’m not sure if seeing them now might be a bit disappointing, and they’re holding it in what is essentially a tiny venue, for only £5 a head. Maybe that’s part of the joke (given that TIST is all about a band with delusions of rock stardom that never quite make it), I don’t know. I guess it can’t hurt to go and see since it’s that cheap!
Since the ticket office doesn’t open until Friday, for now there’s nothing to do but celebrate the classic scene:
Remakes and comebacks are always in vogue, but unfortunately they almost always disappoint. Whether it’s that a brand new take on an idea just doesn’t quite work as well, or whether it’s an original team getting back together after a decade or more apart and the spark has gone, too often there just seems to be something wrong or missing. I suggest that this tendency should be called ‘George Lucas Syndrome’, in homage of he who epitomised how far you can fall from the heady heights of bygone triumphs.
Red Dwarf was the latest casualty last night, returning after many years away for a one-off 3-parter. It ran for 8 series originally, and whilst the last 2 tailed off really badly it was regularly a really great show. Last night’s return though was pretty disappointing – the lines were far less snappy, the acting pretty wooden and lacking chemistry, many of the gags are recycled and pretty weak, the episode is shorter (to fit into a 30 minute slot with commercials since the return is on commercial channel Dave, instead of a full 30 minute slot like it was when it was on the BBC), and seemed obsessed with special effects and trying to shoehorn a plot in there instead of just focussing on quality comedy. I wonder whether in this case it’s just age, or whether the absence of Rob Grant (this time it’s just Doug Naylor of the duo writing it) that makes it fall a bit flat. I think the lack of a live studio audience detracts too.
All in all, it reminds me of the attrocious millennium edition of Blackadder (Back and Forth) which suffered from the same problems and should never have been created. I was hoping that this return might be like Blackadders Christmas Carol, which was an excellent addition, but sadly it was not to be. It was only made worse by the fact that they showed some of the classic Red Dwarf episodes afterwards – the contrast really was quite stark.
I’ll watch the other 2 just incase, but really this is the way to remember Red Dwarf:
Home