Thursday 27 March 2008

Contains intense bloody violence



I've worked in the computer games industry for a long time now, it's actually over 15 years, so a real long time. And for as long as I can remember there have been warnings on the back of games clearly giving an age rating and some info on what is contained.

And example from a recent game I worked was this subtle piece of text placed next to the 18 logo:

"Contains intense bloody violence"


Now you would have to be pretty stupid not to understand what that means.

But it seems that the government thinks that some people find this a little too complicated to understand so are looking into making it more obvious. You can read some of that here BBC News.

It makes me really angry when things like this happen. When I was a child I wasn't allowed to watch movies that had 18 ratings, so what has changed. If it says 18 on it, the shops shouldn't sell it to the kids, and the parents shouldn't buy or let them play them. It's just lazy parents not paying attention to what there kids are doing. It does my nut!

Saturday 22 March 2008

Demise of Grievous



The entertainer have been selling these off pretty cheap for a while so I picked up a couple. They come in a plastic case (the main reason I bought them as I needed one for another figure) and are a limited edition figure.

I've taken one off the card just to see what it was like. It's a fairly cheap figure overall. But the paint job is quite good. The orange effect works pretty well with the plastic flames.

The downside of this figure is the badly sculpted hands. They are just to small that both the gun and stick he comes with easily fall out of his hands. You just have to tap the figure and they drop out. You would have though it would have been easy to get this right as they do with most of the other figures.

Otherwise, I think this is a nice figure. But don't pay much for it as they seem to be easily found at this moment in time.

Poll Results - Are you enjoying The Sarah Conner Chronicles?

And the results are:

Yes - It's a good show 50%
Sort of - but it's not really got going yet 33%
No - they shouldn't have bothered! 16%

Total votes cast 6

Check back soon for our new poll.

Monday 10 March 2008

Transformers - Deluxe Brawl



I finally found this figure. Picked it up in Sainsburys of all places for a good price of £9.99.

I really liked the look of this figure both in the film and from the shots I have seen of it. I'm not really sure why they have called it Brawl as and action figure when he is clearly called Devastator in the film.

The figure looks great in vehicle mode, nice amounts of detail and a reasonable paint job. The trans formation is pretty straight forward until you get to the arms which have possibly the worst shoulder joint I have ever seen. It's really un-clear in the instructions how you are supposed to lock it in place, and it seems no matter what you do it just won't stay put. Any amount of movement causes the shoulders to pop out which is pretty poor.

Maybe I have not set it up properly, let me know if you have worked it out. But this is aimed at kids so I think I should be able to master it.

The only other downsides to this figure are the really silly bright red missile, and the cheap plastic they have used (which could be the cause of the shoulder problem). This is the same kind of hard plastic they have used on the Rescue version of Ratchet. It just feels very brittle.

If you can get him into Robot mode he does look really great. Loads of details and really mean looking. I'd say it was worth getting if you want him on display, but if you plan playing with him he'll just keeping falling apart.

Wednesday 5 March 2008

Who buys this crap????

Whilst doing a search around ebay I can across this seller:

Atlantic trading

They sell prints of home made CGi images based on Star Wars, Star trek, etc. And they are really bad. I know they are only 4 or 5 quid a print, but who on earth would buy one of these images. They are very badly done using some really basic models. The backgrounds look like they have been created by a novice in Bryce 3D or similar.



Good luck to the seller. I would love to know if they have actually sold any.

Transformers - Ratchet Voyager



I've now managed to pick up both version of the Voyager version of Ratchet. And there are big differences between the two. The original version is a really nice figure, looks great in both Robot and vehicle mode and is built really well. There is a nice amount of detail overall, better than some of the other figures. I know the green colour is not to everyones liking, but I don't mind it.

Now, the rescue version. I got this as in my mind it has a more traditional paint job that matches the G1 version of the figure. But I was a little disappointed when I got it out of the box. The have used mainly white for all the plastic parts so it just looks very dull compared to the green version which has black areas all over the arms and legs. I'm not really sure why they have done this, except I guess to save money.

The plastic that has been used also seems a lot cheaper than the green version. It looks very brittle and is easily marked, especially stress marks. because the plastic is cheap the arms keep popping out of there sockets which is not good. This can be fixed by loosening the screw on the elbow joint, but it shouldn't happen at all.

Both these figures are on sale (if you can find them) for £19.99. But in my mind the rescue version should be cheaper as it really isn't that well made.

Shame.

RIP - Gary Gygax



Gary Gygax one of the founders of the RPG Dungeons and Dragons has died.

I never really got into the whole RPG thing, but I did love the cartoon that was a spin off from this scene.

Trash Gordon



I was quite excited that there was a new Sci-fi show starting this week. But what a disappointment. I didn't even make it to the end of the first show. The acting was very poor, as was the script. There was no chemistry between Dale and Flash, they just had a glazed look to there faces.

The effects I saw in the first part were some of the worst I have seen in years, bad CGi, or worse still men in very cheap alien outfits. It's a shame as they could have done a lot with this show.

And there was no hot hail to be seen anywhere.

Let's hope that the Bionic Woman (which starts next week) is better.

Monday 3 March 2008

Poll Results - Which is better?

And the results are, Dr who 13% - Primeval 86%

Total votes cast 15

Check back soon for our new poll.