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  • in reply to: Dr Who Series 6 #112117
    Nick R
    Participant

    River’s comment about how the more she gets to know The Doctor the less he knows her is slightly odd since we already know that time isn’t linear. Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey!

    Maybe she just means that it seems that way to her, but her reaction to The Doctor saying they’d never kissed before is a little extreme – just because it’s his first kiss with her doesn’t automatically make it her last kiss with him.

    Yes, IIRC in Silence in the library/Forest of the Dead the implication was that they were meeting each other randomly. But now that seems to be have been changed to “strictly linear, but in opposite directions”.

    Someone (from Something Awful, apparently) came up with this timeline of what we know of their meetings:
    http://i.imgur.com/RAbmS.png

    in reply to: Redhead85 and FluffyWok have spawned #111997
    Nick R
    Participant

    Congratulations!

    If I didn’t know better I’d swear (s)he was trying to moon us.

    in reply to: Portal 2 #111943
    Nick R
    Participant

    First-person games should not be played with anything other than mouse and keyboard.

    Strongly disagree with this. All the arguments about mice being more precise and practical for aiming are perfectly valid, and there are certain FPSs that I’d never dream of playing on consoles (the PS2 port of Deus Ex for example).

    However, I always find pads more fun to use, because to me some of the appeal of videogames is the sort of motions your hands go through. If you take the action of simultaneously strafing, aiming, and pulling off a headshot, I just find its motion on consoles (one thumb held in position + other thumb quickly flicking + index finger pulling trigger all the way) more satisfying than its PC gaming equivalent (holding down keys + twitching the whole wrist + index finger clicking mouse button a very slight distance).

    But only if the pad controls have been well-calibrated! Sometimes you get games where no matter how you mess with the analogue sensitivity, it still feels awkward on a pad – usually only in older, lazy PC-to-console ports, but it applies to certain console-exclusive games too.

    Shamus Young once pointed out a distinction between the two control schemes that I’ve never seen anyone else mention:

    Those old PC shooters were all about aiming. Being “good” at the game meant being able to snap your wrist and headshot a guy the moment he came into view. It meant circle-strafing: orbiting a foe while keeping their vulnerable bits in the center of the screen. Mice, being pointing devices, are really handy for this. There was never any reason to take cover in those games because hiding would just delay the inevitable. Gameplay was about diving head first into the sea of bullets and dogfighting your way out.

    But if you watch someone play a console shooter you’ll see the game is less about precision aiming and more about precision timing. Instead of trying to line someone up with the stick, a player will get close with the stick and then run sideways, pulling the trigger during that split-second when the enemy’s head passes through the reticule.

    The latter is the type of FPSing that appeals most to me. But then again I also find Hadoukens more fun to pull off on a decent D-pad than an arcade stick, so what do I know? :P

    Anyway, none of the above really applies to Portal 2 because firing a portal is appealing in a very different way from getting a headshot! And no matter how good the 360/PS3 ports Portal 2 might be, Valve games are among those that just instinctively seem more at home on the PC. Plus, Portal’s the sort of game that really benefits from fan made levels (even though most of the ones I tried on Portal 1 had nowhere near Valve’s wonderful level of difficulty-balancing – ever try Ren Test 2? A really impressive design, being based in a giant rotating room, but pure evil to solve!) About the only thing that the 360 version of Portal 2 has over the PC version is that I care more about Live Achievements than I do about Steam Achievements.

    So when I get Portal 2 it’ll be the PC version. Unfortunately that won’t be for a while yet because I’m poor and unemployed and years of buying games years after their release dates has impressed upon me certain habits about how much I’m prepared to pay for even the very best games. So the next Steam sale can’t come soon enough!

    in reply to: Red Dwarf is good #111704
    Nick R
    Participant

    Jape of the decade!

    in reply to: Great TV mistakes #111541
    Nick R
    Participant

    Jean Michel Jarre is a fraaaaaaauuuuuuud.

    in reply to: New Dwarf DVDs #111304
    Nick R
    Participant

    Danny Stephenson:

    Has it really been about 8 years since the first DVD was out? Holy shit, I remember those days of finding out what the buggers were going to have on them.

    Yes, I remember one comment from Andrew Ellard in a series 1 DVD preview article particularly well: “I can actually read what Rimmer’s writing on his limbs, for smeg’s sake!”

    Now that line turned out to be a slight exaggeration. But it did contribute to Red Dwarf series 1 being – along with The Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition – one of the first DVDs I ever bought.

    in reply to: Father Ted Night – new documentaries! #111235
    Nick R
    Participant

    Christmassy Ted is brilliant. In my opinion, the worst episode of Ted is the very first one.

    I could never call the first episode the worst, when it features the Dreams/Reality diagram.

    Assuming they get clearance for showing Simpsons clips, I guarantee that the AA/pub/ambulance bit in “The Mainland” will be shown back-to-back with Homer getting the “free shrimp” from the Kwik-E-Mart. GUARANTEE.

    … and on the subject of Simpsons comparisons, having just re-watched said Diagram scene, I’d forgotten how similar “it’s got the body of a spider… but it’s actually a baby!” is to Chief Wiggum’s legendary esquilax: “A horse with the head of a rabbit… and the body of a rabbit!”

    (That’s the second time “Lisa’s Wedding” has come to mind recently… I couldn’t watch the Christmas Dr Who without thinking of this!)

    in reply to: Upcoming Rob Grant radio interview #110917
    Nick R
    Participant

    Here’s the interview’s page on the BBC website:
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vhkv2

    It’s a good interview. Next one in the series will be Neil Innes, which should also be worth a listen!

    in reply to: Sonic 2 fan remake in the style of Sonic 4 #110809
    Nick R
    Participant

    I very much doubt it’s a playable game – it’s probably rotoscoped animation based mostly on footage of the original game, like this video. Along with these screenshots, they make for very different, but very impressive, interpretations of what a HD Sonic game should look like.

    in reply to: This is going to be the best film of 2010 #110802
    Nick R
    Participant

    Trailer of the year? I think so.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uco41pOKeJg

    in reply to: Dr Who Christmas Special 2010 Teaser Trailer #110604
    Nick R
    Participant

    Oh – duh.

    Reminds me of this Sky advert and certain shots in the Watchmen title sequence.

    I always like seeing those layer-by-layer breakdowns of special effects shots – this bus crash clip is probably my favourite example.

    in reply to: Red Dwarf in games #110489
    Nick R
    Participant

    I don’t believe in xbox

    I just believe in me
    PC and me
    And that’s reality

    in reply to: Red Dwarf in games #110465
    Nick R
    Participant

    A few days ago I bought one of those fancy new, hopefully-slightly-less-unreliable-than-before Xbox 360 Esses. (My Gamertag’s VariedVarieties, if anyone else here is on Live.) I spotted this in Halo 3’s multiplayer armour menu (apologies for the crap photo of a crap 4:3 SDTV):

    in reply to: Sherlock #110369
    Nick R
    Participant

    SPOILERS

    > I thought it was clever that we’d already met Moriaty earlier in the episode but didn’t suspect him.

    Yes, by episode 3 the viewer had been conditioned to expect that the scenes involving the woman who worked in the morgue would be there largely as comic relief, and that anyone we met there would be a pretty inconsequential character. (Well, I had, at least.) Nice bit of misdirection!

    in reply to: I’ve just bought Look Around You on DVD from Play.com #110357
    Nick R
    Participant
    in reply to: Sherlock #110347
    Nick R
    Participant

    Pete Part Three:
    > Moriaty didn’t need to be linked to this case at all.

    That was definitely the case in this second episode. Moriarty (whether that’s one person, or a SPECTRE/Quantum-type organisation as suggested earlier in the thread) seems to be the “season arc” of these three episodes, and the mention of M__ right at at the end seemed tagged on just for the sake of sustaining it.

    I suppose it wasn’t essential to link Moriarty to the first episode’s case either, but the Mycroft red herring helped give the illusion that his presence could be felt throughout the story, so the mention of him in the last few minutes didn’t feel tagged on like it did this time.

    in reply to: Sherlock #110311
    Nick R
    Participant

    May have been me, but I think Moffat sometimes wrote Sherlock like the new Doctor….I got these strange moments of deja vu whilst watching it…

    Definitely. I suppose the big difference (well, y’know, apart from all that time travel) is that the Eleventh Doctor’s a little less blunt and more tactful than Holmes!

    In terms of specific moments reminiscent of the last series of Doctor Who, both The Eleventh Hour and A Study In Pink used ultra-slow-mo/bullet-time-esque/time-slice effects to illustrate the superhuman observation abilities of their lead character.

    in reply to: Sherlock #110305
    Nick R
    Participant

    Miles better than Jekyll, so far!

    SPIOLIERY BELOW

    .
    .
    .
    .
    .

    I’d been wondering all the way through if they were going to introduce Mycroft, and when that umbrella-leaning fellow first appeared, I thought for a moment that it might be him. But I quickly dismissed that and bought into their red herring that that was Moriarty. Shoulda stuck with my instincts!

    in reply to: IT Crowd Series 4 #110288
    Nick R
    Participant

    And why the hell didn’t we get a proper balloon payoff with Roy? Instead we got it explained with a title…not remotely funny.

    “Gave Roy a little fright” was an amusing phrase!

    I thought that was a great episode. It also contained at least the second reference to “Are We Not Men?” this series.

    I did guess the reveal of who Bad Boy Moss would be talking to right at the start of the episode. Lots of comedies have featured “Scared Straight” scenes were kids get shouted at by a prisoner/cop/soldier, and I’m sure at least one of them has done the same gag where the kids turn out to be toddlers, and I spent ages after the episode trying to remember which. (Simpsons? Malcolm in the Middle? Maybe I’m getting mixed up with the school assembly scene in Hot Fuzz…)

    in reply to: IT Crowd Series 4 #110140
    Nick R
    Participant

    I loved the subplot about Moss and Douglas’ rivalry to acquire a robot hand. And Moss’ insistence that no-one except Jen could possibly find being kissed on the bottom funny (and then being proved right). And “Jen’s going out with a geek!” And the technical term “cleftal horizon”. And the keyboardist’s static poses in the romantic spinning-round-in-the-playground shots. And the quoting of “Did you see that ludicrous display last night?”

    And even though Scientology parodies have been a dime a dozen online since South Park’s Trapped in the Closet/Return of Chef and the Project Chanology protests, Douglas’ infomercial the start of this episode was a pretty fun one. (It was only after the episode aired that I was told that it was more of a spoof of “cosmic ordering” than Scientology – something that, luckily, I’d never heard of before.)

    So for me individual gags like those made up for any problems with the plot. Not the best episode, but far from performingmonkey’s description of it as “dire”!

    in reply to: IT Crowd Series 4 #110099
    Nick R
    Participant

    The bits in the club were good, but the Fight Club-style Street Countdown reminded me a little too much of Spaced’s Robot Wars pisstake.

    The idea of a spelling competition being taken outside reminded me of the ending of the spelling bee episode of Frasier:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yucudEjrqE

    I didn’t think it was as good as that Frasier episode, or as good as the first episode of this series. It had its moments though, such as the reveal of what was really going on in those meetings (but did the camera really need to linger that long on Douglas’ lycra-clad body?)

    Nick R
    Participant

    Pete Part Three:

    The Eleventh Hour : 4/5
    The Beast Below : 3/5
    Victory of the Daleks : 2/5
    The Time of Angels : 3/5
    Flesh and Stone : 3/5
    Vampires in Venice : 2/5
    Amy’s Choice : 4/5
    The Hungry Earth P1 : 1/5
    Cold Blood : 2/5
    Vincent and the Doctor : 3/5
    The Lodger : 4/5

    My scores would generally be a point or two higher than yours: I’d give 5s to The Eleventh Hour and the Angels two-parter, and The Beast Below and Vincent and the Doctor would both get 4. And The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood would only be 1’s relative to the rest of this series – neither of them came close to “Fear Her” levels of badness.

    in reply to: This is going to be the best film of 2010 #109964
    Nick R
    Participant
    in reply to: 24: Now THAT’s how you do a final! #109947
    Nick R
    Participant

    > Seasons 1-5 are all very good, especially the first one.

    First half of season 1 is very good, before the amnesia bit. Then it picks up again at the end when Dennis Hopper (RIP :( ) arrives. Season 2 is better overall (not sure why everyone complains about the Kim Bauer/cougars bit; it only goes on in the background for about one episode and there were far sillier bits of her storyline that season).

    Those are the only two seasons I’ve seen all the way through – though I did see the beginning of the one with Sean Astin (S5 was it?).

    Nick R
    Participant
    in reply to: This is going to be the best film of 2010 #109896
    Nick R
    Participant

    New trailer!

    Almost makes up for the news about Guillermo del Toro is stepping down as director of The Hobbit. :( Though he’ll still be working on the scripts for now, and presumably much of his influence on the production design will be retained by whoever takes over.

    in reply to: Ashes to Ashes Series 3 #109834
    Nick R
    Participant

    I don’t entirely buy what is being mentioned on other sites either. That everyone else and the world is a fabrication of Gene’s mind. (For example I’ve seen comments like “If he died in the 50s why didn’t is he dreaming of the 70 and 80s rather than a time in which he’d be more comfortable.”)

    I assumed the idea was that as new cops arrive, they gradually contribute their own knowledge to the limbo reality. (Maybe childhood memories? That definitely works for the dates of Sam and Alex’s arrivals.) So time does flow there, but the dates there lag behind those in the living world.

    in reply to: Ashes to Ashes Series 3 #109829
    Nick R
    Participant

    SFX’s interview with Matthew Graham is well worth a read.

    So when you created Life On Mars did you have a long-term gameplan in mind? And is this the ending you always had planned?

    “Bits of it are. When we got to the end of Mars we planned to do a third series, as you know. In the third series of Mars we would see Sam realising that he was dead – he knows he’s dead at the end of series two, but in series three he would start to believe that he could cheat a final death. He thinks that’s Heaven, and gradually it would dawn on him that this wasn’t Heaven. So it was going to be all the back story that we have in Ashes, of Sam saying ‘I don’t want to leave here’, and we would learn more about Gene, that Gene was actually this young copper. Because we were never able to do that third series, when we came to Ashes we thought let’s start again, let’s not rush to get to that conclusion. Obviously the BBC didn’t want just one series of Ashes, so we said right upfront to the Beeb we’d like to do three series – we’d like to start frivolous, and get darker as we go. And, amazingly, they said ok, let’s give it a go. And luckily the first series did well enough to get a second series and so on, so we were able to do that.

    This comment reflects something I’d wondered about:

    And I also imagine that if you had two more episodes after the end of Ashes, by the end of that second episode he’d talk about Alex, and Ray and Chris, he’d refer to them, but he would almost have forgotten that last scene in Ashes outside the Railway Arms ever took place.”

    In the scene at the end when the guy comes in looking for his iPhone, I’d wondered (only for a moment!) whether Gene would break the cycle by explaining to this guy right from the start what was going on. When he didn’t, it brought up the question of how much he would remember about the revelations of where he came from, what his role was, and what had happened to Sam, Alex, Chris, Shaz and Ray.

    Also in that interview, he mentions how much he knows of David Bowie’s opinions of the shows – and points out a line in the series that I’d missed but which could be taken to be them specifically working Bowie into the series’ mythology. And there’s a bit right at the end of the interview where he mentions the title of another of his songs that they jokingly proposed to make into a series! Now that I’d like to see…

    in reply to: Ashes to Ashes Series 3 #109819
    Nick R
    Participant

    Incidentally – given how many people were concerned that the “seeing stars” thing was a hint that we were heading for a retread of the US LOM’s ending… do you think that was a deliberate tease on the part of the writers?

    I do – especially given that a few episodes ago there was a line that specifically mentioned astronauts.

    in reply to: Ashes to Ashes Series 3 #109811
    Nick R
    Participant

    It was a brilliant conclusion. I’m guessing that in the next few days there’ll be a lot of TV bloggers writing posts comparing how well the two shows Lost and Ashes to Ashes went about concluding their mysteries…

    How great was Keats’ raving as he smashed up the police station, and his cackling as he staggered away from Gene at the end?

    The post-credit clip… I was expecting the test card girl to appear again. But what was actually shown was better!

    I was only half-joking when I wondered whether David Bowie would appear to deliver a Vanilla Sky-style infodump explaining what was going on…

    Regarding the expected appearance from John Simm – I’m aware of Jonathan and Seb’s comments on Twitter about it, and I agree that even though it would have been a cool fan-pleasing moment, it wouldn’t have made sense within the story to have him appear again (he’d already passed on). Matthew Graham has done a post-series Guardian piece (similar to the one he did after LOM), in which he comments on how far they considered having Simm appear.

    One bit of nitpicking – I can’t help but question the way the dates when coppers die (or are near-death) correspond to the dates they arrive in Gene’s reality:

    Shaz: 1995 (judging by Wonderwall) -> 1980ish?
    Sam: 2005 -> 1973
    Alex: 2008 -> 1981

    So Sam died at a later date than Shaz, but appeared in Gene’s reality before her. This could be viewed in one of two ways:

    – It’s consistent because it means Shaz would have gone back to a time in her childhood, like Sam and Alex.
    – It’s inconsistent because it means that Shaz should already have been in Gene’s police station when Sam arrived, and yet she wasn’t.

    But I suppose there is a way for it all to make sense – as Matthew Graham says in that Guardian TV blog post:

    “When we discussed the philosophy behind it we decided that, seeing as how the cosmos was infinite, everybody who dies can afford to go to some kind of purgatory plane that is relevant and significant to them.”

    So in an infinite universe/heaven/hell/purgatory, all times in Gene’s fantasy reality can take place simultaneously. (Woah.) So it doesn’t matter when a copper dies, or how old they are, they can always slot neatly into Gene’s world.

    in reply to: Ashes to Ashes Series 3 #109797
    Nick R
    Participant
    in reply to: New Doctor Who Spoof Series I’m Working On… #109772
    Nick R
    Participant

    Because I watched Hush for the first time a couple of weeks ago:

    in reply to: Ashes to Ashes Series 3 #109661
    Nick R
    Participant

    > and if there’s no Sam Tyler appearance in the finale I will be most surprised.

    That’s a given. The real question is whether David Bowie’ll appear. :)

    in reply to: New Doctor Who Spoof Series I’m Working On… #109603
    Nick R
    Participant

    Up-to-the-minute satire!!!

    in reply to: Blur release new song for free #109560
    Nick R
    Participant

    Yes, I really like it. But a quick word of warning: when I downloaded it from their website the other day, the wav download was fine, but the MP3 file cut off abruptly a minute too early, missing off the outro solo (which is possibly the best bit of the song!). Maybe their webmasters have corrected that by now.

    in reply to: New Doctor Who Spoof Series I’m Working On… #109540
    Nick R
    Participant

    Nick R
    Participant

    Steven Moffat BBC blog post talking about the next two episodes, with a short clip that’s just as good as the other one that’s been released so far. Spoilers! ;)

    Eurogamer and Guardian previews of the adventure games. The Doctor and Amy talking about the Beatles? A trip to Skaro? I’m in! Instant-death stealth sections where you use a point-and-click interface to negotiate the Doctor around Daleks with Commandoes-style vision cones? Uh-oh…

    Nick R
    Participant
    Nick R
    Participant

    14-minute Steven Moffat video interview:

    http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/features/steven-moffat-interview-doctor-who.php

    Very interesting – but I was a bit surprised by how many hints he gave about certain things (including something about the 2-parter coming up), so don’t watch it if you don’t want any hints at all about what’s in store.

    The interviewer does mention the 1990 date on Rory’s hospital badge, and Moffat gives a surprisingly definite answer about that… BUT DO WE BELIEVE HIM…?

    When asked about the scale of the series finales (“season finales – now more intimate than ever!”), he gives some vague-ish hints about how grand the scale might be for both this series and what he’s sort-of got in mind for series 6 – another thing I was surprised he said anything about at all! But this line will be very promising to those who thought that RTD’s finales were undermined by their universe-in-peril ambition:

    “It’s dramatic if you’re threatening the universe – it’s equally dramatic if you threaten one person. It has to be huge for the characters.”

    He’s also asked about the possibility of companions from other time periods, and mentions that RTD was very close to introducing a Victorian companion. I’m not sure if that’s ever been revealed before (haven’t read The Writer’s Tale).

    Nick R
    Participant

    > We got a bunch of goodbyes and another crack in space/time (and this, sadly, is getting so repetitive it’s becoming redundant…Bad Wolf, it aint).

    The crack patterns are far more blatant than Bad Wolf’s early appearances, but there seems to be another, more subtle mystery building up around the date discrepancies. It’s not just the hospital name badge and Amy’s memories of the Daleks – if I can quote a couple of other people’s posts from over on the xkcd forums:

    The Doctor has been landing in the wrong time on every Tardis trip so far. Twice with Amy (12 and 2 year errors), and 1 month late for Churchill. And now I decided to check The Beast Below, and the years don’t add up there either. At the beginning the Doctor says the Earth was fried in the 29th century (800 years in the future), and later estimates that Liz 10 is 300 years old. So he thinks he’s 1100 years in the future, but the computer in the voting booth says Amy is 1306 years old. 200-year error.

    You know, it seems like the Tardis is being drawn to the cracks in time rather than the other way around? I mean, that’s why it keeps missing I think. Like trying to throw darts with a big magnet a few inches to the side

    I like that theory…

    in reply to: Game Journalists Are Incompetent Fuckwits #109419
    Nick R
    Participant

    Your link “shit articles and editorials, like this one” link doesn’t work either…

    I’m of the opinion that the last decent game journalism outlet was Amiga Power

    Not quite the last decent outlet: Ed Lomas’s contributions to C&VG, Sega Saturn Mag and Official Dreamcast Mag are more recent than that! :)

    I think there’s lots of good games writing out there, although the ratio of good stuff to nonsense-rumours-and-reworded-press-releases is probably worse than it is for films and music.

    Edge magazine’s “Time Extend” retrospectives are consistently great – because they have the benefit of hindsight, they’re far more insightful analyses of what a given game got right and wrong than almost any release-day review. The Escapist’s themed issues can also be very good. And there’s the occasional good bit of games writing that doesn’t fit into the standard news/previews/reviews categories, by publications that aren’t solely videogame-focused – like this Duke Nukem Forever postmortem from Wired, for example.

    Also, I’m going to mention Kieron Gillen before Seb does. :)

    in reply to: Ashes to Ashes Series 3 #109353
    Nick R
    Participant

    As well as the weird shot of Shaz with the background turning black, I was also intrigued by the final moments of the episode – another shot of the disfigured police officer, followed by a quick flash of a weather vane that looked a bit like either a hunchback or a man carrying a heavy pack.

    in reply to: No Distance Left to Run #109314
    Nick R
    Participant

    Blur have been in the studio recording new material!

    …But it’s only one new track, released on vinyl and limited to 1000 copies.

    in reply to: Spoilers! Doctor Who – New Series. New Thread #109268
    Nick R
    Participant

    I get the distinct impression that the Doctor did notice it, and he?s making a sort-of mental catalogue of such cracks following the Multiform?s criticism of his ignorance on the matter.

    In addition to the shot of the monitor in the episode itself, in the “Tardis Tour” video on the website you can see that when the set designer shows off the monitor, the crack pattern stretches all across the screen (rather than just appearing within the oscilloscope bit):

    http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/5396/tardistourmonitor.jpg

    in reply to: Spoilers! Doctor Who – New Series. New Thread #109250
    Nick R
    Participant

    Kissagrams and internet porn? erm?

    Bow chicka wow wow.

    in reply to: Spoilers! Doctor Who – New Series. New Thread #109225
    Nick R
    Participant

    It was very good!

    Though I think Mr Miles will find a few more things to add to his “Moffat Times Table”. :)

    Complaints? Ummm… the “Cribs” thing in Confidential went on a bit too long?

    Dr Who, Ashes to Ashes, Goldfinger on Radio 4, Jonathan Creek… almost as good a lineup as the stuff that was on last Easter weekend. ;)

    EDIT:
    > and the middle eight sounds like it?s gone from the closing theme.

    I just checked iPlayer, and it wasn’t in the credits, but it’s there in the “Hear the new theme tune!” box at the bottom of this page:
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rs6t7

    in reply to: Sonic 4 #109210
    Nick R
    Participant

    Just noticed that the latest PS3 software update has disabled multi OS boot too, so no lovely linux anymore, good old Sony.

    You can blame this guy for that.

    Anyway, Sonic 4! It’s not looking good:

    http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/2885/4042.mp4
    http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/5511/1111.mp4
    http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/58/622.mp4

    The core physics of the way Sonic handles seem quite off, something that, if anything, should be more important than the level design. (The fan-made Sonic: Project Mettrix engine seems a more accurate recreation of the way Sonic 3 felt to play.) Also, they’ve gone for the Sonic Adventure 2 system of having Sonic uncurl in midair, meaning he becomes vulnerable so you need to use the homing attack on further enemies instead of just landing on them. Nothing against that system in principle, but it does kinda go against their stated intention of going back to the series’ 16-bit roots.

    Then there’s this: a whole act based on racking up a high score in a tiny little pinball table. Unless this video clip is of an optional “challenge” mode, it doesn’t look a very fun section to play:
    http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/955/25547673.mp4

    But worst of all, there’s this mine cart level. It sounds an interesting idea at first glance, but looks really awkward (in this player’s hands, at least):
    http://tinypic.com/usermedia.php?uo=4AtXI6JI7G%2Fu9zpA5xz3d4h4l5k2TGxc

    in reply to: This is going to be the best film of 2010 #109160
    Nick R
    Participant

    I know that Scott Pilgrim’s overlaying of videogame graphics is taken from the comics, I just meant it ties in nicely to the “Daisy Steiner wins” that Wright had done previously. And the Street Fighter KO reference was to the sound effect.

    What am I missing? :-/

    Edgar Wright’s also reposted this frame-by-frame analysis done by Gamervision. Seems a little bit spoilery, in its listing of exes’ names and the origin of Scott’s sword…
    http://www.edgarwrighthere.com/2010/03/frame-by-frame-scott-pilgrim-vs-the-world/

    in reply to: This is going to be the best film of 2010 #109154
    Nick R
    Participant

    The best film of 2010? I dunno, this is the year that Kick-Ass, Four Lions and Inception come out…

    I read the first volume of the comic earlier this week. (I’d actually only requested an inter-library loan of it, but they decided to buy it to add to their stock. Which was nice.) Really enjoyed it, and I hear the comic only gets better after that…

    Also, remember this? In the same way that Shaun of the Dead was an expanded version of Spaced’s Resident Evil scene, maybe Scott Pilgrim’s fights could be seen as the logical conclusion of that scene’s use of videogame iconography? (The “KO!” is straight from Street Fighter Alpha 3!)

    Can’t comment on the casting of Cera as I haven’t seen any of his other films. In fact I haven’t seen any of this recent batch of post-Juno movies (the likes of (500) Days of Summer) which cause people to derisively throw around terms like “quirky” and “hipster” and “Sonic Youth”… ;)

    in reply to: Spaced flash mob #109131
    Nick R
    Participant

    Speaking of Spaced, this was on last night: Lizzie and Sarah, a comedy pilot written by and starring Jessica Hynes and Julia Davis, with Mark Heap and Kevin Eldon in it too. I haven’t watched it yet, but here’s a Guardian TV blog post about the bizarre time it was scheduled.

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