Okay, controversial statement coming up.
Brace yourself for impact..

Here goes..

I really rate Halo 3.

There, I said it. Not only have I said it, but I have blogged it for posterity so that, years from now, the evidence is still there in cyberspace that I said I rated Halo 3. So there you go, I mean it and am prepared to stand by it and everything.

I finally got through playing the single player campaign on Heroic yesterday and I can honestly say it was damn good, bloody tough in places I'll admit, but ultimately very rewarding. I think Bungie did a really good job constructing what felt like quite an epic tale (being new to the franchise, I must admit that some of the significance of some of the story threads may have been lost on me), played within a well designed and varied environment with some pretty tough opposition. And it really did feel as if I was in the middle of a huge campaign, with the events playing out having an overall effect on the whole state of the war.

Looking forward to re-visiting the game now (especially as it is ridiculously easy on Normal), and playing the amusing-sounding "Meta" game that reverts the whole single-player experience to a basic arcade game with points earned for every enemy slain. And of course, I will be playing online again soon as that's hugely cathartic after another crap day at work (when you cannot go postal at work, killing others over XBox LIVE is the next best thing).

So, thanks Bungie, for a thoroughly entertaining game. Worth every penny.

At around 11:40 there was a general panic in the world of Cranky Software Development Limited, there had been no decision on what we were doing for lunch.. As this is the single most important decision made on any given work day, and is the second highlight of the day (regular readers will know the first), realising that we had not set our minds to the task of deciding where to go for lunch certainly caused a bit of a stir. I was, as always, indecisive and beyond needing to go somewhere "near to a cash machine" I really didn't care. It took a coder with the bravado of Sir Lancelot to finally commit to a destination: McDonalds.

I rarely go to McDonalds these days as the food is undeniably shit (no matter how they dress it up, it's all pretty crappy and overpriced, but what the fuck it's within walking distance, supplies ketchup (a big plus) and comes with a free carbonated beverage) and I refuse to be one of those parents who treats McDonalds as a treat and then falls a victim to their child spotting the golden arches on every outing and demanding to eat there.

Anyway, as you approach a McDonalds you spot their advertising on the building.. "Why not try our tasty..", "The new, delicious..", yadda, yadda, yadda..

And for a second (or sometimes longer) you forget every single previous shit experience you have had at McDonalds and you actually think.. "OOh I'll try the new (insert shit burger name here)" that looks very appetising". You get to the till, speak to the shaved chimp operating it, order your meal and then - if you're very lucky- get a plastic tray with your food.

And it's just shit.

Just as shit as it always was.

Just as shit as it ever will be.

Why do I go back?
(If I was less indecisive, I guess I never would).

So the M should stand for McDisappointment, cos every time they spectaculary fail to deliver a meal that looks even 1% as appetizing as the poster.

That is all.

..And look, this is where I used to blog.

Damn, I even left a half-drunk cup of coffee here



Well, waste not, want not and all that..

Guess what, boys and girls..??

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaacck!

Okay nobody probably reads this any more, but I missed the cathartic feeling that ranting on here seemed to provide me with, something that even sites like Facebook couldn't rival (and yes I am on there, I'm just in "stealth" mode).

Anyhoo.. for those who have been wanting a return, watch this space.. blogging is back on my agenda

Labels: Hiatus

// posted by SilentBazz @ 12:43 PM 2 Comments

This weekend's Doctor Who was, quite frankly, the best episode since the new series has returned to our screens.

I was literally blown away with the reveal that an old enemy of the Doctor's has returned to the series and, despite knowing The Master would return (for the forums are littered with spoilers like this), I thought the way he was brought back was absolutely fabulous. In previous series they have left clues throughout the entire series as to how the show would end, and this series was no different. However, in previous years the "clues" have been as unsubtle as a brick to the head (with phrases like "Bad Wolf" and "Torchwood" emblazened throughout the shows leading up to the finalé). This year was so much more subtle and the final reveal, as a result, was so much more of a payoff than we've ever previously had. It was also a bit of genius casting to get Jacobi and Simm in as the Doctor's nemesis. All in all it was brilliant television and I am REALLY looking forward to the show's season finalé now.

In other news, my kids were very generous this year for Father's Day, and have bought me tickets to see the "One Man Star Wars" show at the Lowry next week, which has gone down a storm off Broadway and at the Edinburgh fringe. Cannot wait. Bit of a Sci-Fi geek triumphant weekend all in all. Marvellous.

Labels: Doctor Who, Star Wars

I have started dreaming again - yay!
Dreams have been noticeably absent (well, proper lucid ones that you can actually remember, anyway) in the last year or so mainly because of a small squeaky daughter of mine waking up in the night. It's taken her the best part of twelve months to begin sleeping the night through you see (mainly due to the fact that she has always been quite little), and so sustained periods of sleep have been few and far between (certainly without the aid of alcohol anyway).

And it's a shame that the dreams have been absent, as my imagination certainly has quite a large special-effects budget on any given night, providing photo-realistic images of everything from the surreal to the apocalyptic. My sub-consious really does pull no punches when given the opportunity to flex its imaginative muscles.

So even if they've started slow (last night's dream seemed to be concerned with the inability to get served with three pints of lager in the space of a lunchtime), I look forward to the Hollywood-esque effects-driven spectaculars that I've had in the past, as sweet dreams are made of these..

As well as being a fantastic racer, Forza 2 also allows you to add your own custom designs to your motor. Now, most likely due to copyright reasons, you cannot just upload a jpeg, but rather you must create your designs yourself, building them up from a number of basic shapes. You can apply up to a 1000 layers to each side of the car, and that will allow for some fairly groovy images (in fact if you do a search on some of the Forza forums you will see that some really talented indiciduals have already adorned their cars with images of the Simpsons, Family Guy, etc, etc).



Now, although not being abundently artistically talented or having a huge amount of time on my hands, I'd thought I'd have a go. And you can see the results, my Nine Inch Nails Golf Gti. Looks pretty cool I think..

Of course, that's not the main point of the game, and Forza is still proving to be an excellent racer (although I hate having to drive American muscle-cars, they are unwieldy beasts that cannot corner for shit!).

Saying that, even in European cars, it's still important to brake for corners..
Otherwise this happens:

Labels: Forza 2, Nine Inch Nails

I swear, this game is awesome.
Was only going to take it out for a little spin yesterday to check that the disc was ok, etc and ended up racing for three and a half hours straight. It's WAY cool.

It's also nice that the game integrates with the Forza website too so you can keep a track on your stats, photos (see above) and car auctions (for the dodgy second hand dealer in all of us).

Highly recommended

Labels: Forza 2