Spotty confessions.

Generations: Twenty years of Mr Needlemouse.

: hazulcheet; January 7th, 17:52

In 1991, the game/console developers Sega, tired of Alex Kidd their mascot at the time went on a hunt for a mascot that would rival Nintendo's boring, fat italian plumber. Their chosen mascot, codenamed Mr Needlemouse, made his debut in the arcade racing game Rad Mobile, as little more than a car air freshener. A few months later, he arrived on the Sega Megadrive (pointlessly named Sega Genesis abroad) as the protagonist of his self titled game, and from then on Sonic the Hedgehog established himself as both Sega's mascot and as a successful gaming franchise.

Twenty years later, to celebrate Sonic's two decades on our screens, Sonic Generations, an interesting mix of new and old was released. The game combines both old school 2D and newer 3D levels, with "Two sonics" appearing in game, both a younger sonic appearing as he did in the original titles, and an older sonic, as appearing in the newer titles.
Both sonics have their own different skills and abilities, which are suited to their play styles, both 2D and 3D respectively.

The levels in this game are mirrors of levels from previous games, and are divided into three "eras" with a boss fight between them.
Each level is playable in both 2D and 3D versions, both of which must be completed in order to progress.

The eras are as follows:
  Genesis era: Levels taken from the old mega drive games.
   -Green Hill (Sonic the Hedgehog)
   -Chemical Plant (Sonic the Hedgehog 2)
   -Sky Sanctuary (Sonic and Knuckles)
   -Rival Boss fight against Metal Sonic (Sonic CD)

   -End of Era Boss - Death Egg Robot (End of game boss from Sonic the Hedgehog 2)

Chemical Plant from Sonic the Hedgehog 2, as seen as a 3D level.

A comparison of Chemical Plant from Sonic the Hedgehog 2, shown as both 2D and 3D levels.

Green Hill zone from Sonic the Hedgehog, in beautiful HD.

Dreamcast era: Levels taken from the Dreamcast.
   -Speed Highway (Sonic Adventure)
   -City Escape (Sonic Adventure 2)
   -Seaside Hill (Sonic Heroes)
   -Rival Boss fight against Shadow the Hedgehog (Sonic Adventure 2)

   -End of Era Boss - Perfect Chaos (Sonic Adventure)

Modern era: Levels from the more modern games, 360/PS3/Wii.
   -Crisis City (Sonic the Hedgehog (2006))
   -Rooftop Run (Sonic Unleashed)
   -Planet Wisp (Sonic Colours (Wii only))
   -Rival Boss fight against Silver the Hedgehog (Sonic the Hedgehog (2006))

   -End of Era Boss - Egg Dragoon (Sonic Unleashed)

The game's final boss fight takes place after completing all of the above, and involves both Sonics, in their Super Sonic form battling the Time Eater, a new boss created for this game who is fighting in league with both Dr Robotnik and Dr Eggman (The same person from the past and present).

Between the completion of the main levels of the game, a series of challenges are unlocked for each level, multiple for both types of Sonic. Some more challenging than others.

The real challenge of the game is attempting to earn an S-rank in each of the levels which involves completing the levels in a tight time limit (To earn A rank) and to do so without losing a life (To upgrade the A-rank to an S-rank). The bosses themselves having a "hard mode" which increases the difficulty, and earning an S-rank in these challenges is a feat.

The storyline is a tad cheesy, but it quite often is with sonic games, nobody plays them for the story anyway. But the revival of old sonic levels, play style and music is a fantastic homage to the two decades of the fast blue hedgehog.

This game is well worth a play just for the nostalgia, as the trips down memory lane are very rewarding.

I personally encountered a few minor glitches in the game, which were nothing majorly game threatening and were very rarely replicated, though they at times proved to be a nuisance.

That was 20 years of Mr Needlemouse, here's to another 20 more!
Get gaming!

On this, the final day of the year of the trebuchet.

: hazulcheet; December 31st, 2011

So that was it, that was twenty-eleven. I hope you're impressed, because YOU helped create it. Hang your head in shame, and don't show your face around here until you've wept for so long your face is as shriveled as a walnut, and you find yourself confronted with a likeness of Bruce Forsythe everytime you pass a mirror. (I'm genuinely amazed he's still going, he looked like an iron age relic when I was a wee nipper.)
Twenty-eleven. 2011. Whatever you wanna call it. But I shall recall it as thus: The year of the trebuchet.

My 2011 started on a balcony surrounded by friends and strangers alike. Less than five minutes into the new year some arsehole I didn't know was mouthing off because he'd had too much to drink, and fortunately I got out of there before he started looking at his reflection in the toilet bowl.

I am an angry person. I hate everything and everyone with equal measure. Or so I used to believe until this abysmal year got into full flow. This year has made me wiser by teaching me a valuable lesson. Just when you think humanity is at the lowest it can get, they surprise you by taking a steaming crap in your kitchen and standing by as your handicapped six year old uses it to repaint the walls.

This year has shown me that my anger isn't just something I exaggerate for a laugh, it's shown me that in more cases than I previously acknowledged, my anger and hatred are actually JUSTIFIED. This even surprises me, as I don't actually hate as much as I like to think I do. But THIS YEAR made me think twice.

Throughout this year I have found myself on many, many occasions seeing something occur, or seeing something on the news and remarking "Hang 'em." Although I don't genuinely believe such should be done, and after considerable thinking on the issue, I actually find myself glad that we don't have capital punishment. And as an alternative to just blindly killing every inconsiderate asshole who shafts their own society with a rock hard cock of selfishness lubricated with the blood of cherubs, I proposed what is possibly the greatest solution to the degradation of Britain's moral standing.

BUILD A MASSIVE FUCKING TREBUCHET. And by massive I mean a mile high, I don't care if it's impossible, put the whole of the UK's annual budget for 2012 into hiring Jesus H Christ as a possibility-consultant or something. Stick it right in the arse end of Devon and just fill it up with the moths of shame who are devouring Britain's moral Fabric and launch their sorry behinds into the Atlantic.

I have a long list of who belongs in the trebuchet, it is-but not limited to-the following:

   -The Monarchy. They'd survive by using their giant inbred buckteeth as oars to paddle ashore, and maybe find employment in a       Chipshop in a small Yorkshire village. Let's call it Republic Fish & Chips.
    -The August Rioters. To be honest, I think they should all be burned in a closed power station, to repay their debt to society in discounted electricity, the ashes should be used in the bottom of Hamster/Bird Cages. And finally once the ashes are soaked in bodily waste, they should be processed into paper, which can be used in the process of prosecuting the rest of you twats.
    -The Rioter's mothers. For not doing YOUR JOB and beating your little cunt senseless. If your child is a chav, you should have disciplined them into a coma with a 100kg Iron Belt. Jesus Christ. If you spent more time raising your child, instead of drinking Stella and watching I'm a talentless cunt Strictly come fucking eat my testicles in a house, they might have actually become something rather than being akin to those carbonated marks that just won't scrub off of my baking tray.
    -Rupert Murdoch. Blame this catastrophic dick head for everything wrong with society. His Greatness, the Earl of Bullshit, the Shite dishonourable Count Fucking Murdoch himself is more to blame for chavscum than their parents are.
   -George Bush Jr. Cause he's a dumb cunt.
   -Tony Blair. Cause he's a massive smug, lying cunt.
   -David "Call me Dave" Cameron. Cause he's a BIGGER smug, lying cunt.
    -Clegg. Such a boneless prick I can't even be bothered to remember his first name.
    -Maggie Thatcher. Cause she's too stubborn to die on her own.
   -That woman that put the cat in the bin. Just "WHY WOMAN?" Illogical to the bone.
      The New World Order has no need for spontaneity.
    -Oh, and Boris. I don't think I need to explain this one. I'm amazed natural selection allowed him to survive this long.

Moving on from the trebuchet, I'd like for us to take a moment to remember the countless world leaders who took their last breath in the past year. Interesting to note that the incredible majority of which were from countries who weren't on friendly terms with the west, but that's just coincidental I'm sure. Definately coincidental, Hugo Chavez survived :P

I'd like to take this moment to ask a question of our simple cousins who took the wrong turning on the evolutionary chain, in the north. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING MANCHESTER?" every single bloody day I check the news and am greeted by "Baby stabbed sixty-two billion times in the face in Manchester." or "Manchester Pensioner raped with a Wii controller" or some horrible bull like that. I thought the riots were bad, but Manchester seems to be stuck in Dante's Inferno 365 sodding days of the year. Give it six more months and we'll find the Manchester tram "Network" if you can describe it as such, has been permanently put out of service because Lucifer has taken it upon himself to shaft his penis of destruction out of hell and into Manchester City centre.

That was the year of the trebuchet. Like I said, I hope you're impressed. I'm not. We can do better.

Next year however brings lot's of hope. In my infinite wisdom I've taken it upon myself to gift you all with an insight into what to expect next year. Welcome to 2012.

Don't get your hopes up.
The Olympics, not gonna turn out as planned, definately not. All 17 people who still live in their native countries will be joining their families in London. And what with the seven billion people already here, London will crumble.
The government.....well done guys, you've lasted a year longer than I thought, but I think it's coming to an end, you'll wither away and take us with you.
The NHS, gonna be more private than the contents of my underwear drawer, they'll keep the name NHS of course, but that'd be merely to make the poor, unintellegent masses think they've still got a chance.

And finally, here's a nice list of the few things left that haven't been cut yet, which I predict will get cut before our government get burned in a wicker man.

-State schools...yes they've been cut, but they'll be cut more. Cut completely, we don't want poor people thinking for themselves now do we dear? They do as they're told.
-Council housing, all gonna be sold to Mohammad Al Mgzklhwkzklahawi in the UAE or something, I don't know, I don't care, I can't have one anyway because 1) There's none left cause cunts who don't even live there bought them all and 2) The existing ones are filled with trebuchet fodder.
-Russel Brand's hair. The only thing that'll be left to cut.

Take care folks.
Spend all your money now. Because in less than 24 hours, the year of hopelessness begins.

To the common purposes of life.

: hazulcheet; December 21st, 2011

Back in 2004/05 when my knees worked, I still had all my teeth, and I my 20 a day smoking habit wasn't plaguing my lungs, I went on a trip. I'm not talking of an amazing journey the like of which experienced by the eternal hero, nor am I talking about a great international quest in the style of Bill Bryson. Mine was a one day trip along with my college class to attend a lecture given by Prof Robert Winston. Besides the fact that it was linked to human biology, and consisted at least partly of talk of genetics, the nature of the lecture eludes me at this point. It was almost a third of my life ago.

The thing I remember the most of about it, was the building. Something about it stuck with me, although it's identity and precise location always remained somewhat of a mystery to me. Like a peculiar magic shop in some exciting work of fiction, once I'd left, I'd never been able to track it down since.
Upon explaining the place to my partner who knows the streets and landmarks of this city inside-out, they could offer no insight into where or what this building was.

The best description I could provide for it was that it was "Both exciting and plain at the same time. A modest but decorated building situated on a quiet, out of the way but large street, in the middle of nowhere surrounded by busy streets and shops. Greco-Roman pillars line the entire facade of the building, but if I had not known it was there, I doubt I would have noted it."

From the moment I arrived there, something seemed almost magical about the building, yet it faded back into obscurity almost the moment I left. But I've never stopped wondering about it.

Last night, I was watching television and there I saw it. Not the outside, but the inside. The same curved, two-tiered lecture theatre that I had been in. I remember how small it felt. And that's when it hit me. I had seen this room before, and I do not mean the time I was there. It dawned on me, that I had seen this room in a documentary on the history of electricity.

It was the Royal Institution of great Britain. The building, no, the ROOM where modern science sprung forward, spurring us from an age where scientists thought they were close to knowing everything into an age where not only did we realise our ignorance, but into an age where we almost celebrate it. Not knowing everything means there's more work to be done, and what amazing work we've done since.

No wonder the building seemed like some kind of intellectual Nirvana to me, it was. The holy grail of the modern world, almost forgotten except to the learned few. If only I had known at the time the importance of the "humble" building when first I visited.

Henry Cavendish, Michael Faraday, Max Perutz are to name but a few of the influential minds who helped reshape the world from within the RI. Fourteen Nobel prizes, ten new elements (Including sodium, hey, everything had to be discovered at some point) and almost everything we can call "Modern" were born/discovered here.

I just felt like reflecting on this here, and to say that almost everywhere you go has more history than you could possibly imagine, take the time to learn at least some of it.

And I now leave you with one sentence, the sentence used to describe this amazing building and it's purpose. Go there yourself if you haven't, it's well worth it. The Royal Institution of Great britain: "diffusing the knowledge, and facilitating the general introduction, of useful mechanical inventions and improvements; and for teaching, by courses of philosophical lectures and experiments, the application of science to the common purposes of life." [sic]

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: An old fart's guide to TES5 Skyrim.

: hazulcheet; December 18th, 2011

2011 will be remembered for a multitude of things, the deaths of Osama Bin Laden and Gadaffi, (EDIT: The Death of Kim Jong-il), the year that several religious nutjobs stopped beheading white people long enough to revolt against their dictators, and the year that the EU finally began to sweat and realise they were doomed. 2011 the year I saw the great comedian and activist Mark Thomas reduce a room to tears of laughter while doing stand up in a squat in an abandoned UBS bank office. And finally, as of the 11/11/2011 the year that the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was released.

It's been little over a month since the release of the latest title in the Elder Scrolls series, Skyrim. And now after an entire month, I have decided to put my opinions (Read: Fact) on display. I've put it off for this long because I didn't want to review it at the beginning while I was impressed purely by the fact that it was new, and I didn't want to review it for most of the period in the middle, when I was seething with rage, as in both of these cases, what I had to say on the matter would've been biased.

I'll be very honest here and say that for the first couple of days of my playing this game, I found the experience uncomfortable. I won't blame the developers Bethesda in any way for this, as I believe I was just having a little difficulty adjusting to the changes to..well....everything.
After this time, I found I greatly got into the swing of things, and discovered the ore of amazement buried in the rocks.

I'd like to point out at this point that as I am not a "[Insert generic I.T. job here] like 99% of everyone I know, I don't have 16 billion quid to spend upgrading my PC every 27 days in order to make sure I can play [Insert name of another boring FPS here] which are constantly being released. As such, like a fool, I thought it was a good idea to invest in the Playstation 3 version of the game.

And so, after much deliberation I give to you, Skyrim.

The screen fades in, and I find myself looking through the eyes of our game's protagonist. Their vision is slightly blurred as they have just gained consciousness. After looking around, I realise I am sat in the back of an open-top horse drawn cart with my hands bound, and there are three men bound in the back with me. They begin to talk, and I find out that two of them are part of a resistance movement, who have been fighting to free the realm of Skyrim from the control of "The empire", and that one of them assassinated the last king of Skyrim, thus sparking a civil war. The other man appears to not have been involved with this uprising, as is our main character. It seems all four of us were captured on the Skyrim border by agents of the Empire, and are being sent to be executed, regardless of our part in the civil war.

We arrive in a town, and disembark from our cart, ready for beheading. An imperial soldier calls out the names of my fellow prisoners. The innocent man pleads his part in the matter and attempts to flee, and as a result is immediately dispatched by an archer. It seems that despite being the friendly party in the previous game, the empire appear to be an antagonistic party in Skyrim. The imperial soldier realises my name is not on their list of prisoners, and it is here that I am prompted to chose the race and appearance of my character. I chose a male Khajit (A stealthy cat-like race), and then step forward to join the other prisoners.

One of the other prisoner's steps forward and we are treated to a somewhat gory scene where we witness his execution.
Another imperial guard orders me, "The Cat" to step forward next. Still under the control of the computer, my Khajit steps forward to the block, the executioner looming over him. A thunderous roar echoes out around me, the soldiers appear concerned, but are ordered to proceed with my execution. The executioner raises his axe, a tower standing behind him. Just as he prepares to bring his axe down, a jagged black dragon lands on the tower, and bellows causing the sky to darken, the clouds to swirl, and my captors to be thrown. At this point it seems my character passes out.

He comes to, I hear someone beckoning me to follow them. It is here that I am finally given control of my character, his hands still bound. The man calling me was one of the prisoners being sent for execution with me.
From this point onwards I work my way through the dragon-sieged town, and eventually encounter the imperial solder who was present at my execution. At this point I am given the choice of following the Imperial soldier, or my fellow prisoner, a "Stormcloak" one of the rebels fighting to free Skyrim from Imperial rule. Regardless of who you follow the remainder of this sequence remains the same, except the enemies are from the opposing party to that which you sided with. We find out that dragons are considered a myth, and nobody is sure exactly what is going on. I eventually escape from the town along with my companion and am encouraged to proceed to the town of Riverwood, to find out what is going on.

We emerge from the tunnels under the town, and are greeted by our first proper sight of the land of Skyrim stretching out before us, and see the dragon soar away into the distance. Here I am finally treated to total freedom.
From this point on, I can do as I please. I don't need to continue with the main quest, I have an entire country open before me to explore, and I certainly shall.

So, welcome to Skyrim. Here I shall begin to break it down into sections, explaining in brief what each part is all about, as well as the merits and drawbacks along the way.

There are a number of factions the player can join, which have their own series of missions to follow. They are as follows:

The Dark Brotherhood: A Secretive assassins guild, upon joining them you are gifted with some special armour which enhances your stealth abilities. The missions for them are fun, their general story line is immense and gripping. And the equipment and quest rewards are very useful if you're opting for a stealth like character. The drawbacks are few, in fact the only criticisms I can think of are that these series of quests aren't as exciting as they were in the previous game (Although still pretty damn fun) and that many of the characters in this faction are quite....generic. They're not as believable as they were in the previous game, in fact I'd go so far as to say I didn't feel that my character made much of a connection with them at all.

The College of Winterhold: Guild of Mages essentially. The quest line very quickly becomes very deep and quite dark. Again the rewards are very beneficial (If you chose to play as a magic wielding class). The other members of this guild are a lot more believable and identifiable with than those in The Dark Brotherhood. Despite me general dislike to mage-types in games, I probably found this to be one of the most enjoyable series of missions with the exception of the main quest.

The Companions: Essentially a guild of mercenaries. Their higher up members, known as "The Circle" are all in fact werewolves. You are given the option to become a werewolf at this stage, which is fun addition to your skills with only a minor sacrifice in terms of skill gain. (You cannot get experience benefits from sleeping). The members of the companions are easily identifiable with, and are quite memorable characters. The drawback to this series of quests for me was that it just seemed to consist of dull, tedious tasks which mainly consisted of "Wander this labyrinth, hack and slash your way to goal. Come back for reward."

The Thieves Guild: The name says it all. A very fun series of quests, believable characters, exciting missions, a cool villain and later on in the quest line you get what is probably the coolest set of armour in the entire game. The downside is that as this was one of the last series of missions I completed, this funky looking set of armour was worse than what I currently possessed.

The Civil War questlines: Fun but nothing special. These are just something to do. They have an interesting but minor impact on the appearance of some areas in the game, and have a slight effect on the behaviour of characters within these areas. Performing these quests early on has a little benefit later on in the main quest if you completed this series of quests first. It merely saves you having to complete a small mission toward the end of the main quest.

Finally, Skyrim itself.

The Good: NPCs (Non-player characters) are more believable than in previous titles. They have a wider range of dialogue.
The skill progression is vastly improved, and the "Perks" which you can purchase after each level up are incredibly useful and add to the experience both in and out of combat. Smithing, Restoration, and Destruction skills seem to have been improved and are now considerably more useful. The world is Beautiful and fun to explore (albeit a little difficult due to mountains all over the place, but this is as intended, so I won't count this as a negative.) And of course, a major positive...DRAGONS!

The Bad: Loading screens take too long (On PS3 at least, this appears to have been fixed by the 1.3 patch), many console crashes (This has occurred on my PS3 before with other games, but nowhere near as often as with Skyrim. I know Sony haven't exactly made development for their console easy, so for this I will place the blame with both Bethesda and Sony.) Far too many glitches and bugs, some of which can end in instant death, broken/completable quests...some of which can leave you with no other option but to restart the game. A few annoying bugs I've encountered were say one instance where an entire town turned hostile to me for no reason, and I had no way of calming them down, and another would be (A well known bug, not fixed as of patch 1.3) where after being caught committing a crime, the guards will attempt to arrest you, and regardless of what you do, run, pay your fine, go to jail, the end result is the same, the conversation merely restarts and you're given no option other than to run.

The Ugly: Major lag in places, this seems to mainly occur once your save file has exceeded 6mb (PS3 confirmed. Appears to have been fixed by patch 1.3), the textures and character skins are not that amazing for this day and age, especially when compared with the now 5 years old Half Life 2. This may just be a PS3 issue, although I have heard of textures being downscaled on the XBox 360 too. One can assume that on the PC the textures and graphic quality will be greatly enhanced, providing you have decent graphics capabilities. (As was the case with Skyrim's predecessor Oblivion).

The major issue here, which is something that greatly peeved me off, if that this product was released and sold in a state I can only describe as "Unfinished", with initial purchasers of the game essentially being treated as Beta testers. I paid for this game, and as such should be entitled to a finished product, not being treated as unpaid quality control. It seems in this case, they don't particularly care about the initial purchasers of the game, and appear to merely be using those of us who bought this game upon release as a way of identifying the issues with the game in time for all the christmas sales. Although if you consider I'm writing this on Dec 18th, I can't honestly see this being fixed in time for christmas.

I do not in any way however mean to put anybody off of playing this game. Despite all of these issues I have literally done everything there is in this game (At least I've earned all trophies/achievements, and have taken part in a few minor objectives on the side which caught my attention) and still enjoyed the experience tremendously.

My advice would be that you SHOULD play this game, and treat my words here merely as a warning of what to expect, rather than a warning to stay away. Buy it, play it, and for heaven's sake LOVE IT. Because despite the issues which I have faith will be fixed eventually, this game is tremendous fun, and for those of you who are interested in backstory and lore, there's plenty of it, in amazing detail. The game itself may be a little shaky, but the world upon which it is constructed is gargantuan in both size and detail. The history is vast, interesting, and believable.

Until the expected expansions for this title are released, I can see myself playing through this a couple more times, just to examine the various ways of playing which I have missed thusfar.

Peace out folks!

I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that a lot of people are giving bethesda a lot of crap over their quality control, and while I have done so myself, and do feel there is a lot of room for improvement on their part, the majority of the issues people mention while criticising Bethesda on this, is Fallout: New vegas. The thing I wanted to point out is that while Bethesda did make Fallout 3, they did NOT make New Vegas, and as such all criticisms citing new vegas are essentially invalid.

Riffcat considers the winter wasteland.

: hazulcheet; February 3rd, 2009

I've been walking alot these last couple of weeks, it's good for calming the mind. But I stopped walking once the snow came, until last night.
I was in dire need of a good walk, so I wrapped up warm, and then I wrapped up some more, and then added another pair of socks and stepped out into the almost knee deep snow outside my home. It wasn't really so hard to walk, in some places the snow had been trodden down into ice. In the roads it had just turned into a foot deep sludgy pool.
Now I know my area isn't exactly one of the most nice looking places, but this snow had turned it into some kind of post-apocalyptic wasteland.
The main road in and out of the area, was narrowed into a single lane, as the snow had built up too much on one side of the road, there were cars and vans just discarded in the snow, traffic islands knocked out of place and just laying there burried in the snow. A few shops had been broken into, windows smashed etc. The weather had caused delivery vans to not be able to get into the area, leaving a bread and milk shortage, as well as other things. People were practically rioting for milk.
The thing that seemed to top of this image for me, was when I passed our industrial area. There were gangs, yelling and screaming and drinking while racing around the factories in their cars and vans with music blarring. It was like something from Mad Max.
It was a nice sight to see my home looking crisp and pure under the sheets of snow, but it was also kind of heart breaking to see the effects the snow had. Well, it wasn't the effects of the snow that bothered me. It was what the effects reminded me of. Post-apocalyptic wasteland. It was like glimpsing into the future and seeing the remains of man after falling by his own hand.
And now I must go, I hear the milk dlivery van's arrived and we're gonna go tip it over and set fire to the driver :o
Okay, kidding. I just go search for milk. Coffee requires milk.

Riffcat considers Star wars: The force unleashed.

: hazulcheet; December 13th, 2008

I game.
Not as often as I used to, but I still do.
I gamed as a child, but rarely. Until reached about the age of 12, when my grandmother got me into the final fantasy series, and from then on, I gamed alot. Sometime as a child I recall playing Star wars dark forces for the ps1. At the time I hated FPSs, but I still approached it with an open mind, the game was a decent idea I guess, but it was shit. It was made shit.
And that is where my first experience of the abomination of Lucasarts began, and my gaming road has once again led me to something else made by lucas arts. The force unleashed.

From the second I heard about this game, months before it's release I was thrilled, overly excited perhaps. Many metaphorical tissues were soiled, from my orgasms of anticipation. Now finally a few months after release, I have it. And I can say, the experience has been.....varied.
The game itself is entertaining, it has a pretty decent storyline, and the graphics are pretty decent. I love the characters with the exception of the typical poorly acted woman with one of those annoying stereotyped british accents.
While overall this game is good, I must say problems with it are....many.

I do however wish to give a round of applause to the developers. They were originally just developping another game, when they got the word through from Lucasarts to "Go make a game linking the two trilogies, following the story of Vader's secret apprentice. Here's the story...go get it done."
And they did.
Now I can appreciate the challenging question they must have had at this point. "How do we make a game challening when your main character is Vader's very powerful apprentice." Their solution to this was to make every enemy force-using and almost as powerful as you are. Some of these characters can be accepted for using the force...slightly. Like the emporer's guards. One could assume he'd train his personal guard in the basics of the force, just to give them that slight advantage over any fucker's who fought their way into close proximity to him. Others, such as the force using Rodian scavengers, or even the force using AT-STs cannot be ignored or accepted in any way, they're just wrong.
At this stage I'd also like to say that within 4 hours of me turning on this game I'd encountered 4 glitched doors which I could only pass through by using a charge attack, I'd falled through several floors I could only escape by blindly walking around in the invisible floor until I fell to my death, and has also encountered several invincible purge troopers, who AFAIK should not have been immune to all damage whatsoever, despite them being powerful.
The main annoyance in this game however is the loading times. This game is short, and replay value is high. So when you're force to watch the same video sequence again and again because it won't let you skip until it's finished the long load for the next level, it can get a bit annoying. Parts of this game, have large drops, which you can end up falling down just by making one tiny escape. This is where the loading times get annoying. You die, and have a nice long wait while the game loads, just to respawn you about 3 steps away from where you died.

This is once minor bonus in it's own way. As the post-death loading times are longer than Longcat, you're given plenty of time to scuttle off, make a cup of tea, have a smoke and meditate on your strategies before resuming gameplay.

Regardless, this game is tremendous fun, I've done practically everything in it besides collecting one holocron which is very hard to reach, and beating the game on the sith master difficulty. (I've already beaten it on apprentice, sith warrior and sith lord.)

Riffcat considers bread.

: hazulcheet; November 17th, 2008

In the beginning, fictional entity did not create the world, yet the world existed. In this world, humans, who were also not created by the fictional entity invented star trek. These people were thinkers, they'd made their show and they saw this it was good. But those who possessed foresight knew that on this day, I would watch their show, and that I would get a craving for something to eat, and as a result these people invented bread.

Yes, I have just rewritten history to state that star trek existed before bread. Of course there is one fact I have not altered. Note that in my timeline and that of the real world, still does not exist.

Among these geniuses who created bread there were some who liked the idea of it but decided it was too good, and did all they could to make it shitter. These people created wholemeal bread, and eventually applied the same process of "making it shitter" to star trek, in order to create Battlestar Galactica.

As I don't deny myself tasty foods (like a vegan) or deny myself any pleasure at all (like a catholic) I am extremely insulted by the shitness that is wholemeal bread. I'm not a major fan of bread in general but there are three uses I have for it.
1) Bread and butter.
2) Toast
3) Bacon sandwiches.

However I only enjoy these things on good old fashioned "White bread" and I shall list the reasons why here.
1) Bread and butter, a simple snack, it's quick to prepare and it's good if you're starving and broke. On wholemeal bread however, there's no point putting butter on it, as the bizarre properties of wholemeal bread prevent the butter from adding any flavour or moisture to the bread whatsoever. In short....it's like what eating cardboard would be like, if cardboard lacked the ability to absorb water.
2) Toast. I like my toast not too well done, but not too raw either. With brown bread, you simply cannot tell. I also like to smother my toast in butter, it brings out the nice salty taste....or it does with white bread. As above, adding butter to toasted wholemeal bread makes little difference at all, besides making the foul brown toast taste a little less like dirt.
3) Bacon sandwiches, tasty indeed....on white bread. Wholemeal bread, in my opinion is the greatest sin against bacon sandwiched known to man. Why? Anyone who has ever had a bacon sandwich smothered in HP sauce made on wholemeal bread will understand what I am saying here. The #1 property of wholemeal bread is it's ability to destroy flavour. Bacon does not taste like bacon in wholemeal bread....it just tastes like whole meal bread. And as for the HP sauce....no difference whatsoever, in order to add enough sauce to actually taste it on wholemeal bread, you'd have to flood the thing in it.

So remember people, don't buy wholemeal bread. It's evil and is sold to fund ~~terrorists~~ battlestar galactica.

Riffcat briefly considers christmas

: hazulcheet; October 31st, 2008

I loathe christmas, the vile music alone is enough to make me want to douse myself in petrol and throw myself into a fire. No-one seems to pay any attention to what christmas if for. And I'm not talking about some fucking wood carving jew being spurted out of a teenage harlot either.
But I'm not just talking about other religious influences, I'm refering more to the fact that christmas tends to mean something different to everyone, or it should.
Nowadays it's just treated as an excuse for shops to screw everyone over by making them feel obligated to waste money on relatives they haven't even spoken to in 16 years :S

This does not explain why I hate christmas. But it does explain why christmas pisses me off.
Overall I'd like christmas if it hadn't been warped beyond recognition by greedy corporate arseholes, that and I despise religion in any form, and christmas is overly religious. This is obvious, but still.....I do not approve.

Riffcat considers markets.

: hazulcheet; October 24th, 2008

Shopping. I hate doing it, even when buying things I like and have a great interesting in.
Firstly there's the narrow aisles you and fellow shoppers must cram yourselves into while rummaging amongst alot of crap you don't want, in the minute hope that something interesting may catch your eye. Then there's the queueing. Queueing is faux organisation. It seems to be a way of people pretending they're patiently waiting their turn, when infact a queue is a very hostile place. While standing in a queue, you are in a warzone. You have to have your whits about you. In the shopper's battlefield, everyone is your enemy. While queueing even the little old lady who looks innocent enough, is there....glancing at you out of the corner of her eye, stealthily, waiting for you to drop your guard, so she can try and slip infront of you un-noticed. Women with pushchairs are master's of this. They take their child with them for no reason other than the fact that the pushchair gives them an extension of their body, something they can steer infront of you, and slip in behind it like a slinky greased with WD40. And before you know it the queue infront of you is now two people longer, and smells slightly of everything you could possibly order from an AVON catalogue, and of general purpose lubricant. Of course, this annoying thing known as queueing goes completely tits up when encountered with the strange shopping phenomenon known as argos. For those who don't know, Argos is a relatively peculiar store. It seems as if when they sat down to construct their business plan, their number one priority was taking as much away from the customer's as possible. They steal your time, by making you wait unneccessarily, and by making you queue at least twice to purchase your item. And most of all....they steal from your shopping experience by hoarding away all their stock in a secret cave of wonder's accessible only to their staff, and of course, to Aladdin.

Taking a step back from Argos, I would like to stop for a moment to think about markets. Market traders seem to have a remarkable ability to keep an amazing hoard of just about everything. The hoarding ability of a market trader is only surpassed by two things, Argos, and a jew during a famine.
On days out with the family, and on my own rather rare excursions into random places, I have visited many markets in my time. And while markets are found almost everywhere, they seem...to be staffed entirely by cockneys. Almost every time I have stopped to buy something from a market, I've been greeted by the annoyingly loud droaning of a cockney with some discount fruit.
The only exception to this cockney market trader rule, ironically seems to be in easy london, where in my experience, the markets seem to be staffed by middle-eastern folks selling rugs, rather than by an east-Londoner with some excess apples.
The local market has always been my first stop for buying everything besides food. As a child I spent my money there on toys, books, clothes, and of course Pirated films from a guy named Roy.
Roy's pirating business was hidden behind the front of an ornament stall. And by ornaments I mean 2-foot tall china gollywogs in the style of a jazz band. To the left of him was a man who's entire business seemed to consist entirely of selling bags for vaccuum cleaners, and to the right was a man who looked like he'd gotten his entire stock from the nearby dump.
Today for instance, I was wandering around the market, while waiting for my sick mother to finish seeing the doctor so I could escort her home, when I noticed a new stall. One which I hadn't seen there before. I heard it before I saw it.
While I was idly looking at jewelry I heard a sound most familiar to me. It was the sound, of someone knocking over an acoustic guitar....followed by the loud and overly cheerful sound of the expected cockney market trader picking it up.
I made my way over there, and sure enough, there it was. The stall...plain besides the assortment of guitars lining it's sides, the wall at the back decorated with boxes of strings, and tuners. And a table at the back, consisting of nothing but trays of picks. I immediately went and bought myself a set of light gague nickel strings, as I was in need of some. I'd previously broken one of my strings, and the remaining five were....more than a bit flat.

Needless to say, markets really are amazing places to find things you need, without even realising you needed them. And I, now have a guitar with a set of beautifully crisp sounding strings, of course they're not perfectly tuned, but they're tuned as best as I was able to do by ear. And to be honest, I'm actually impressed, it's not incredibly out of tune :D

Riffcat considers the stereotypical gay.

: hazulcheet; October 23rd, 2008

Humans are an interesting species, almost every lifestyle change possible has been done by at least one person. Some humans are sociable, some like to hide away in some kind of self-imposed exile, and other's like me sit somewhere in between, happy either way, but prefer to remain inside as it's cheaper. Of course I do enjoy going out, some of the happiest times of my life have involved sitting in a pub, enjoying a drink over some good laughs.

Pubs are an amazing place in my opinion. They manage to be very loud places, full of music, people laughing, drunken idiots making noise, yet pubs somehow, despite the loud noise, manage to hold an air of silence. In a pub, you can sit right next to a speaker, blasting the loudest music imaginable and still, somehow, manage to sit in silence. It's as if in a pub, the ability to hear is optional, and any sound that someone choses to not hear, is absorbed into the highly polished oak and mahoganny panelling.

Now, while pubs manage to be loud and quiet at the same time, there is one perticular flavour of person which manages the be the exact opposite. The stereotypical gay.
They seem to be able to enter an environment in complete silence, and somehow manage to have their presence immediately known to all, without so much as even uttering a breath.
There is one thing I can say about a stereotypical gay man, and that is that he, without any doubt, commands the attention of an entire room without seeming to put any effort into it.
And I respect them for that.
Now, I am aware that at the moment I have painted a picture of the stereotypical gay being a silent being. This is in no way true. Especially if you were to insult one of the three gay godesses.
The three godesses of the gay are Britney Spears, Chris Crocker, Jefree Star. If you were to insult any of these three gods, you will know what it is like to have your arse handed to you by a guy with a non-existant waist wearing a pair of girls jeans. Because despite the fact that people seem to class the stereotypical gay as being matchstick thin and weak, this is not true. The stereotypical gay has the physical and vocal powers of a middle aged Nigerian woman and we all know middle aged nigerian women have the power to stop a speeding freight train with their mind.
The only difference in battle between a stereotypical gay and a middle aged Nigerian woman, is that after the war is over, not one hair will be out of place on the gay's head.

Perhaps some day there will be an epic battle between the two, and I will be standing amongst the onlookers, thankful for the fact that while I am gay, I am not a stereotypical gay. Because I wouldn't want to be the one going head to head with an army of Nigerian women.

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hazulcheet

Spotty confessions.

Cheetahs: A spot for every sin.