Rispon Avenue

Yeah, Heartgold and Soulsilver are remakes of the original Gold and Silver, so it’ll be familiar to many, many players.

I’m strongly of two minds about this. The Pokemon franchise is set to hit the DS again, now with Heartgold and Soulsilver. Two almost identical games – they only differ in the Legendary Pokemon that you’ll encounter at some point in the game. These ‘two’ games are set to ship later this month, and they’re also just remakes of Pokemon Gold and Silver.

The game has been updated in terms of graphics and sound, and of course the DS capability, and you’ll be able to have a Pokemon walk around with you when you’re running around, which hasn’t been done in a very, very long time, but it all just feels a little shovelware-ish.

If you go out and pick this game up, and if you’re a ‘Gotta catch ‘em all’ freak then you might even get both games, and if you’re like that, then you probably picked up both Gold and Silver, too, then you’ve just forked out a lot of cash for Game Freak – the game’s developers – and Nintendo who’re publishing the game.

I don’t know if they really deserve our money for this one, folks. I mean, sure, you get a neat little peripheral, which is essentially a pedometer that actually gives you in-game cash and XP for walking around in real life. Now, this is fabulous incentive, especially for a hobby that’s usually quite sedentary, but it feels somewhat wasted on Heartgold and Soulsilver…

I suppose, though, that each and every one of these games that I’ve played has, essentially, felt the same as every other. Perhaps if I was able to see the new changes, see my pokemon walking around with me, then I’d be more inclined to feel like I’m actually playing a new game, but yeah. I don’t know, I’m just feeling that Nintendo are the kings of shovelware, and that makes me highly sceptical about whatever they’re putting on the shelves at the moment.

Tags: Heartgold, Pokemon, shovelware, SoulSilver

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Ubisoft certainly failed, but at least it wasn’t quite epic fail.

So the PC version of Assassin’s Creed II launched in the US, UK, and Australia earlier this month, and within a week of the US release, Ubisoft’s servers were attacked. Which, of course, left many new owners of the game unable to play it. At all.

Ubisoft issued the requisite apology, stating that 95% of players weren’t affected, and that if you were already playing the game you wouldn’t have been affected, but that some players did experience the inability to play as the result of the attack. One has to wonder if that attack was by pirates, just trying to show Ubisoft up for being so ham-handed with their security policies.

It’s really interesting to see the reaction from gamers to actually having the game. It’s all well and good for us to blog our hearts out about how clumsy a security measure Ubisoft’s DRM is, but once the game is actually installed and running, well that’s when game developers and producers should really be paying attention.

If you’ve got a game, reviewed on IGN for a score of 8.9, and yet you’ve got a reader average of just 1.6, well you know you’ve messed up somewhere. That’s an enourmous disparity, and that also includes the fanboys who’ve rated the game 10, and those who’ve not had any problem and rated it in the 9’s. Half of the reader reviews on the game have given it 0.0 – no, that’s not a cute little emoticon, that’s zero-point-zero.

Ubisoft, it’s time to wake up and smell the poutine. You’ve got to realise you can’t just attach any price, any condition, any must-do to your games and expect them to be well received and sell well. I bet that a surprising percentage of Assassin’s Creed II copies for the PC get taken back to stores across the globe.

For those in remote places, the connection to the master server at Ubisoft is not an accessible thing, as noted in the Wiki page for the game. It’s unfair to expect that not only do people have to have a net connection to even be able to install the game, but to even play it! This is just poor form in my opinion. Those attacks on Ubisoft’s master server are just going to get worse and worse, in my opinion, until there is a cracked version of the game. Watch that cracked version take off, too. Many gamers who’ve never downloaded a torrent in their life will probably learn for this game, just to spite Ubisoft and their sledgehammer methods.

Tags: Assassin's Creed II, Piracy, Server Down, Ubisoft

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It’s really nice to see hard work paying off.

In the last few months I’ve been trying especially hard to save a lot. My SO and I pool our finances, which does make a difference, and she’s just as committed as I am to saving for our future. We’re both of the mind to retire early in life, but that means putting a lot of effort into it now rather than later.

Since I was able to start working from home, I’ve been amazed at how much I’ve been able to save. As any savings news website can tell you, it’s often the little things that you waste the bulk of your expendable money on without realising it. For me, it wasn’t only things like fares for public transport, it was often food or coffee or tea on the go. Being able to grab a cup of tea whilst waiting for your bus, and not worrying about the few bob you spent on it: after a week or so you’ve started to spend some serious cash on little items.

My SO loves packing a good lunch for work – and doing the same for me before she leaves for work in the morning – and has even gotten us nice bento-box styled containers so that there’s no throw-away packaging either.

So, knowing that I would be spending less, when I did start working from home, I committed to saving more. It’s been fantastic to get my monthly statements and see our cash ISA savings account really start to pick up pace in the last few months.

Also, another word of advice, never be afraid to swap savings accounts! If you’re not in a fixed term account – and many good savings accounts are more about having a certain amount to deposit when you open the account, rather than having the funds in there for a certain amount of time – you can always shop around for the best savings deals. If I thought Nationwide Savings and Investments had a better account for me, I’d not hesitate to open an account and swap the savings over. It’s your money, and you’ve a right to put it where it will best earn you more!

Tags: savings

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Here’s my impression of the game so far, based on about two hours of play.

Okay so I know that two hours into an RPG is, well, hugely inadequate to get a real handle on the game, but that’s not what I’m doing here. I’m going to be doing a few posts on this game, and how I’m feeling about it, every now and then. This is one of the ‘now’ posts, so it’s early on in the game, the the ‘then’ posts will be much further into it. :D

Alright, let’s see, where to begin? Well, the opening cinematic was beautiful, and played out really nicely. No hitches in it on my system, and with the HDMI cable, it really is very pretty. The story is set up within this first sequence and is actually intriguing, which is nice. You first start off playing as Lightning, a typically taciturn character who’s not really letting anyone in at this stage. The other initial character you meet is Sazh, who’s quite funny in his own way, and has a Chocobo hanging out in his hair. That’s sort of disgusting, but that baby Chocobo is very cute. It’s irritating that the American voice actor says ‘cho-co-bo’ when I’ve always called them ‘Cho-cowe-bo’ as in, that centre ‘co’ rhymes with ‘owe’, but that’s just a pet peeve of mine.

Next you meet Snow and his group, who come across as all a bit silly. The characters are mildly interesting at this stage, and a little irritating, but it’s too early to tell where precisely they’ll go with them. One hopes there are some unexpected character developments, because if it’s clichéd as well as very linear then I’ll be rather disappointed.

As for all the criticism of that game? Well, that’s actually quite warranted. You really are forced down a track – a narrow one at that – at this point in the game, and whilst I do understand that the first five or so hours of a game like this you’ll often be forced down a track, I do remember Oblivion gives you freedom to roam less than an hour into the game.

I am enjoying the game, and I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes, but I’m also cautious about expecting too much from the game. I’m really hoping that this ‘accessibility’ trend in the gaming industry – read: dumbing games down so any schmo can pick it up and play without having to, oh God, don’t say the bad word, LEARN something – will die down soon. I’m not saying I want to see the complex levelling system of FFX back, but nor do I want to go backwards in terms of game content just so they can ship a few more units.

Tags: Final Fantasy XIII

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I bought the Fawlty Towers series off iTunes the other day, and I’ve already watched both seasons twice through!

The title there is of course a reference to the changing sign that’s shown at the beginning of each episode. The sign is changed by the paper-boy, who’s taking out his resentment at Basil by messing with the sign. It’s cute, and one of those things that stick with you about the show. The little details.

It’d been a while since I last saw the show, but I was looking through my old – and surprisingly extensive – VHS collection the other day, and noticed that I had a few episodes that I had taped from the TV. I popped one in the old VCR and saw that these tapes had been watched a lot. The condition was pretty bad, so I took a look on iTunes and found that the two seasons of Fawlty Towers very actually pretty cheap. I mean so they should be considering there’s only six episodes per season and they’re about half an hour long, but anyway.

I bought both seasons and I’ve already watched nearly every episode twice! I love The Builders episode, as well as The Germans, Communication Problems, and others that aren’t coming to mind right now.

I know there’s been a few documentaries about Fawlty Towers in recent times, and I’d like to get a hold of those too. It’s just so much fun, and I do wish there were more, though I can see why Cleese and Booth wouldn’t write more, the intensity of the acting is enough to fear an onset of apoplexy for John when he’s playing Basil.

It’s so much fun going back and watching something you’ve not seen in a long time, and it bears up just as well as it did a decade ago. You’ve got to appreciate that, it’s certainly an amazing feat.

Tags: Fawlty Towers, iTunes, TV Series

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For once I’m actually glad to see the end of Winter, which is usually my favourite season! This year, though, it’s been a very long and cold one, and I’m looking forward to the relative ease of warmer seasons.

Okay, okay so I know Spring is practically here, but we’re still getting intermittent snow, sleet, and rain, which causes the path in our front garden to be extremely slippery! If I don’t get out there and shovel and salt it regularly, it’s too dangerous and I hate the idea of either my SO or myself being injured because we didn’t take care of it.

Another reason I’m looking forward to warmer weather is that my SO bought me a rather awesome gift for our anniversary, she’s paid for the two of us to go ‘Zorbing’. It’s something I’ve seen a few times here and there, and always wanted to give it a go myself. Basically you get into a very large inflatable ball, and you roll down a hill. It’s much more fun looking than sounding, too. :D

I’m thinking at some point in the future I want to organise something like this for her, too. She has this thing about hot air balloons, so I’m considering taking her on one, or perhaps paying for us to go where she can create her own perfume or for the two of us to go jetskiing, which would also be fun but it’s hard to even consider going anywhere near water at the moment. Nonetheless, I’m enjoying considering what to surprise her with!

So, in spite of my absolute love of Winter, I’m really looking forward to Summer this year. I wish you could choose how long you wanted each season to be, because if I could, Winter and Autumn would last for four months each, and Spring and Summer would get two months each. Yes, that would suit me rather well, actually. :D

Tags: Fun, Snow, Summer, Winter

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I’m re-watching Rurouni Kenshin at the moment… Yep, nearly done.

I first watched this anime series about six or seven years ago with my SO based on a recommendation from my brother. When I first watched it, I thought it was fun and entertaining, and have always fondly remembered it. I’m sure you’ll even find me referencing it here at some point as ‘good anime’.

So about two weeks ago when I was shopping for DVDs, I noticed in the anime section and thought why the heck not, and picked up what they had in stock, which was the first two volumes. My SO was excited to be watching it again, and we were eagerly watching episode after episode most nights for the past fortnight.

We are up to the second last episode at this point, and let me give you a run down of what the last twelve episodes have been like.

Recap of what happened in the last episode
Recap of the scene where Kenshin left for Tokyo and Kaoru is sad
Sojiro quoting Shishio saying ‘If you’re strong you live, if you’re weak you die’
Sojiro quoting Shishio saying ‘If you’re strong you live, if you’re weak you die’
Sojiro quoting Shishio saying ‘If you’re strong you live, if you’re weak you die’
Tiny bit of actual fighting

Then finally when Kenshin beat the snot out of Sojiro, he finally fought Shishio and the battle went:
Recap of what happened in the last episode
Recap of the scene where Kenshin left for Tokyo and Kaoru is sad
Shishio saying ‘If you’re strong you live, if you’re weak you die’
Shishio saying ‘If you’re strong you live, if you’re weak you die’
Shishio saying ‘If you’re strong you live, if you’re weak you die’
Shishio kicking everyone’s ass really unfairly in a stupid ‘Jim the Giant Eagle who was almost as strong as God’ kind of way.

Finally Kenshin’s won, but now he’s half dead, and if I hear that stupid half-baked misunderstood Darwinism one more time I’ll be heard half way down the street swearing!

It’s really not as good as I remembered, and it feels very silly at times, and not in a good way like at other points in the series. The first meeting between Misao and Kenshin is hilarious, though.

It’s an alright introduction to anime, but Cowboy Bebop is much better!

Tags: Anime, Rurouni Kenshin

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It seemed so recent that the DSi hit our stores, and already we’re being hit with a new update to Nintendo’s handheld.

Oh I’ll get it, don’t get me wrong. I know that ol’ Ninty knows that, too, but I can’t pass up a better DS, but at what point should Nintendo bite the bullet and just work a little longer and release a brand new handheld? And… Hang on, I need to address something here, and it needs an entire paragraph of it’s own…

Ahem.

What the hell is with ‘i’ everything? Bloody iTunes and they’re stinking repugnant camel case. Yes, that’s what it’s really called, because it’s stupidly humped – no, I don’t think camels are stupid or that their humps are stupid, I just really hate crappy grammar – and all up and down. Since iTunes made it huge, every bloody thing has an ‘i’ in there somewhere! It’s ridiculous and inane!

Okay, back to Nintendo’s DSi XL. Okay so I’m still wondering about this. There have been three updates to the original DS already, DS Lite, DSi, and now the DSi XL, and now the DSi and the DSi XL are supposed to be sold together, that you’ve got the choice between the two. Does it seem to anyone else that Nintendo is now becoming not only the kings of shovel-ware but inventing shovel-hardware? Because that’s what it seems like to me!

The DSi XL will ship in the US at the end of this month, in burgundy and bronze, and is going to retail over there for US$189.99 whilst here it’s going to be £159.99 and Australians are looking at AU$349.00 and Europe is looking at €159.99. Anyone in the know about current currency conversion will know that the console is much cheaper in the US than here, cheaper than it is even in Japan. Also, the DS is not region specific, so if you’ve got a friend who can ship you one from the states it’d cost you less than buying it here when it comes out!

After that, I need a bath. Damn Nintendo, stop being so damn greedy!

Tags: DS, DSi XL, prices, update

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It shouldn’t be a shock that the housing market is still unstable, but I suppose I had expected that by now it would be on firmer ground.

My last post on UK’s debt issues put me in mind of this. My SO told me the other day – after chatting with one of the neighbourhood’s friendly gossips – that two more houses in the nearby streets had been repossessed. We were shocked, as we live in a fairly well off area, so the idea of people in our situation losing their house is pretty surprising and a little scary.

We’re very comfortable in that sense, with no chance whatsoever of losing our house, but still, it pays to be cautious with how things are. Perhaps I”m just dour after talking about all this financial crap, but nonetheless, I’ll devote one more post to giving the small amount of advice I can for those out there possibly facing repossession.

There are some mind boggling mortgage deals out there at the moment, with up to 90% loans for houses, but those sorts of loans are what caused the financial crisis in the first place and shouldn’t be entered into without a heck of a lot of prior knowledge and a very, very stable income. But with housing prices still falling, they are very tempting for many, many Brits. I think those same people who are interested in these types of loans should perhaps do some investigation into repossession news, though those sorts of sites are great for anyone hoping to avoid or stop repossessions.

I’m not saying that for sure if you get a large mortgage loan you’re sure to lose your house, but what I am saying is that many Brits are looking at serious repossession problems at the moment, and that could be avoided with more insight into the current market, and more information on what to expect from the market in the coming months.

It’s not a situation for leaps of faith, but more a studied search over the edge of the cliff to see just how far you’ve got to go before you can land on solid ground again.

Tags: Finance, housing, UK housing market

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Yes, it’s official, you’ll need a constant net connection to be able to play Assassin’s Creed 2 on the PC.

Many fans of Assassin’s Creed will be excitedly waiting for the sequel to come out in a little over a fortnight, but some recent news from Ubisoft has fans somewhat up in arms. Ubisoft has announced a brand new Digital Rights Manager – DRM – for all their games that have online capabilities. This system is supposed to ensure that their games are no longer being pirated, but of course, there’s a price.

If you want to play Assassin’s Creed II on the PC, you’ve got to have a constant net connection. If your connection drops out, you’re kicked out of the game, and are faced with a screen telling you that you can either wait for the connection to re-establish itself, or quit. You’ll lose your progress since your last save point if that happens, too. Oh and if Ubisoft’s servers go down? Well, Ubisoft stated that “The idea is to avoid that point as much as possible, but we have been clear from the beginning that the game does need an internet connection for you to play. So if it goes down for real for a little while, then yeah, you can’t play.

”

Notice the way they said that? “…Avoid that point as much as possible…” You know, that sort of sounds like they’re trying to avoid saying it outright and owning this nasty flaw in their plan.

So, what to gamers get out of this irritating new anti-piracy tactic? Well, you’ll get to be able to install the game on as many PCs as you like, you’ll have cloud-based save data – fancy words for ‘on the internet’ – and you’ll not need a disc to play. So if you happen to play PC games at two different locations, you’ll be able to access the save file from both, which is the only real benefit that I see here. Most games allow for at least a couple of installs, and as for the disc not being necessary, that’s only an issue if you’re not careful with the disc and allow it to become scratched.

It feels a lot like Ubisoft is ransoming their games to us, and I really don’t think it’s a good idea. I think that hackers are going to find a way around the system, and the only one who’ll suffer for it are gamers who do the right thing and pay for the games. Bad show, Ubisoft, bad show.

Tags: Assassin's Creed II, game security, Gaming, Ubisoft

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Whenever one picks up a paper or watches the news there are still stories about people suffering because of the economic crisis, and it’d be nice if that wasn’t the case.

It’s frustrating to me that the selfish actions of a few are still having dramatic effect on so many, and on such an international scale. Many countries have suffered because of the sub-prime crisis, and many of those that were hit are still feeling the effects. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s noticed that everything in the supermarket still seems to be going up.

Many Brits got into debt over the last few months, probably just trying to stay afloat with personal loans, but it’s having quite an adverse effect now as people are being pinched more and more by debt repayments. I’m always surprised when I get letters in the post from my bank asking me if I’d like to take out any loans, or that this credit card would be just right for me. What worries me is that, if you’re not currently up to date on money advice from people who won’t profit off of you, then you might just think these offers from your bank are good ones.

But they’re not. My strong suggestion to those in debt is to get some good advice on how to get out of it taking into consideration the budget you’ve got to work with now, and after that, making sure you regularly check sites like ‘This is Money’ for news and information before you take out any more loans.

My SO and I both work, quite a bit, and we are both paid well, yet even for us things have gotten a lot tighter than they used to be. It’s alright for us, but we are also very proactive about looking into the current financial climes before doing anything with our money, be that saving with a different account or purchasing a game… Basically, I think we need to play for the long game, not just for right now like many banks and so forth are pushing us to do.

Tags: debt, finances

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The game ships in around a fortnight, and already they’ve caused some uproar amongst their fans.

Fans of the series are eagerly snapping up any piece of info they can about the soon to be released Final Fantasy XIII, but not everything they’ve read has sat well with them. On the game’s official website, one of the creators has talked about the linearity of the first half of the game, saying that it’s largely story-driven and you don’t get to run around exploring until you’re in the second half. It’s an attempt to get players invested in the story and very familiar with the new game mechanics.

I’ll say right now that I’m no stranger to having a go at a game before I’ve played it. I panned the crap out of Fable 3 just the other day, but I’m a little less inclined to do that with the Final Fantasy series. One major difference is that the Final Fantasy series has really established itself, there have been no failures in the series so far, no games that just weren’t up to par, though sure, some people favour certain iterations over others, but none of the games have been bad or poor.

Okay so what am I thinking about this? Well, one of the major issues that fans are angry about – I’m speaking based on comments on sites like IGN – is that there aren’t any towns to explore, and whilst I understand that, those extra towns just wouldn’t fit in with this story line. The first half of the game takes place in Cocoon, a paradise city built for humans that floats in sky above the planet Pulse. Now, the people of Cocoon don’t visit the surface of the planet, ever. Heck, most of them have never even seen it! So how would it make sense to have extra towns for people to explore?

Well, you could argue that the story could have been structured differently so that there were towns to explore, but I think that if you’ve got a good story, go with it. Changing things like this could be the inspiration the creators needed to make an especially good Final Fantasy game.

Another issue many are having with this particular Final Fantasy is the linearity, the fact that players are driven by storyline for the first half of the game before they’re given free reign. Now, I can understand that that’s a long time, but on the other hand Japanese RPGs are usually like this to some extent, you’re guided for longer, but the story line is usually quite in depth, so it’s worth it. I do like that it will give players a long time to get used to the new Paradigm mechanic, but mostly I am just trusting in the franchise at this point on this particular point, and I’m fine with that, Square Enix has earned it.

Oh, and how funny is it that we are now up the thirteenth ‘Final Fantasy? :D

Tags: Final Fantasy XIII, Gaming

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Considering I’ve been playing the game for close to a fortnight, I thought I should put my thoughts down on the game.

Where to start… Okay so after I finished the first Mass Effect, I waited a day before starting the next one. Upon starting I could see straight away that there were indeed massive improvements to the graphics, which was nice. The game opened up with a scene of the Normandy being destroyed by some unidentified massive space craft that looked half like a rock, and Shepard being ’spaced’ and dying.

Great start! Then a group from Cerberus – yeah, remember that crazy black ops group? – picks you up and fixes you better than you were before! Yay! But then you’ve got to run around with a group of Cerberus people for pretty much the rest of the game, and deal with the irritating ‘Illusive Man’ – voiced by Martin Sheen, and seems to be an homage to ‘The Smoking Man’ of X-Files fame – to figure out why whole colonies of humans have gone missing.

You get only two of your previous crew members, Tali and Garrus, though Joker is still your pilot. You do, however, get a bunch of new people to run around with, many of whom are irritating in one way or another. Miranda is your link to Cerberus, and comes off as mean and frosty, though you can make her less so by completing her ‘loyalty mission’. Then there’s Jacob, who’s strangely brusque with you considering you’re his commanding officer. You get a very strong biotic named Jack who’s kind of insane – understandably so – but who is also very rude and foul mouthed. You get a Salarian doctor named Mordin, who’s actually pretty funny, and a Krogan named Grunt, who I like quite a bit, even if he’s violent as all heck. Samara is quite nice, an Asari Justicar, so at least she’s fighting the good fight. Thane is a Drell assassin, and in spite of his profession, is a stand up guy. Haven’t gotten to know Legion all that much yet, but it’s interesting having a Geth on board. Then there’s Zaeed, a human bounty hunter, who’s an irritating old ass, in my opinion.

You’re no longer with the Alliance, who’ve tried to say that all your warnings about the Reapers where silliness, and that really it was just the Geth and Saren that were the issue, and you’re on a bigger, better Normandy supplied by Cerberus.

Personally I am enjoying this game more, but the storyline is far, far less appealing than the previous game. I don’t really dig fighting on the side of Cerberus, especially with the Illusive Man being all creepy and ‘end justifying any means’ kind of thing. I personally think he’s some remnant from the Protheans, perhaps an AI or some such, but either way, I don’t like him and I don’t like working for him.

I’m also irritated by the new HUD, and think that it would actually be, oh, I don’t know, a good thing to be able to see your damn health and shields bars!

Yeah, mixed feelings on this one. I liked a heck of a lot about the first game, and I am enjoying the sequel a lot, but I am not as happy with the over-all game as I was with the first one.

Tags: Gaming, Mass Effect 2, Xbox 360

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It’s sort of irritating, and that irritation is only increased when you are well aware that you don’t deserve it.

Every now and then I go and check George R R Martin’s ‘Not A Blog’ to see how much longer I’ll be waiting for a book that he said would be done within a year, five years ago! In perusing his previous posts, I noticed an irritated mini rant at his blog readers, and I had to investigate.

It turned out that back on the 29th of January, Martin posted a very brief, and rather vague in my opinion, blog post that was titled ‘A Good Day, With Snow‘ and the only contents of said post was ”nuff said’ and the mood listed at the bottom was ‘accomplished’. Now, I took this to mean he’d finished a Jon Snow chapter, but many others didn’t. Comments poured in on the post congratulating Martin for finishing the book, and excitement rose to see when the book would hit the stores. There were also many others like myself who took this post to mean that George had just finished a chapter, but it was easy to see where some had gotten the wrong idea.

The following day, George posted another blog entry, but this one had a lot more in it. This mini rant, entitled ‘No, No, No‘ – as if admonishing a naughty child or disobedient dog – was having a go at his blog readers for trying to ‘decode’ his previous post and assuming that it meant that A Dance With Dragons was done. He made a comment about this being why he hated to make updates, and that all he was saying was that he’d had a particularly good day of writing. To that I say, for a person who makes their livelihood off of communication, he should be able to readily understand why his ambiguous post got the hopes up of many readers.

Quite frankly, the idea of Martin being aggravated with us, his readers, for the understandable assumption that that terribly obscure post meant that the next ASoIaF book was finished is quite preposterous. Sure, I thought it was quite clearly about Jon Snow, but it’s much like an optical illusion, it’s easy to see two different images contained in the small amount of information given in that post.

The fact that fans of this series have had to wait five years for the second half of the last book is bloody ridiculous. The first in the series was released back in 1996, and at that point it was set to be a trilogy. Book two was released in 1999, book three in 2000, and book four in 2005. We are now to expect seven books in the series, but if Martin keeps this writing pace up – and lack of focus, in my opinion – we’ll be waiting on the final instillation till 2020!

Tags: A Dance with Dragons, A Song of Ice and Fire, George R R Martin

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I don’t mind paying for good insurance, but I don’t like paying extra fees for undue purposes.

I was wandering around the web viewing all sorts of finance news articles. It’s amazing how much you can learn by reading an article, following a link to a related article, then reading that, then following a link to a related article, and so on and so forth. Anyway, during one of these meanderings I came across this news article about why our car insurance premiums keep going up here in the UK.

Surprisingly it’s because of the greater amount of money each insurance company is having to spend in order to cover their clients against lawsuits. This surge in personal injury claims comes directly from insurance companies sending their clients onto lawyers who specialise in this field, who then try to extract money from the opposing insurance company representing the other person involved in the initial car accident. The reason the insurance companies are sending their clients onto the lawyers – and the same deal applies with car rental companies – is because then those companies will pay the insurance company a referral fee, which can be up to £900.

Ironically, what started out as yet another way for insurance companies to try to get more money for themselves has actually ended up costing them more per year than it nets them, because of all the injury claims made against them. What this does me, though, is that the clients of these insurance companies are paying more every year to try to cover the cost of how much insurance companies are spending on pay-outs each year. Daft, I know.

I think people need to settle down a little here. If you are actually injured by the negligence of another driver, and you can’t work for a while, then sure, you’ve a right to be compensated. If it’s more serious than that, you’ve a right to be greatly compensated. But if you’ve got a bit of a sore neck and use it as an excuse to take three days off work, don’t try to take the person who gave you a tiny bump due to slippery conditions to court just because you checked some bloody personal injury calculator and figured out you might be able to get some cash.

That’s not what the legal profession is there for, so stop abusing the system and perhaps your next car insurance quote won’t turn quite as many of your hairs grey.

Tags: car accident claims, car insurance

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There are times when I wonder if Mr Peter Molyneux suffers from delusions of grandeur, and in reading the preview on IGN for Fable III, I’m reminded of my concern for the man’s mental state.

To me, the only thing that the Fable franchise really had going for it was that it was an RPG on the Xbox 360, which doesn’t have a heck of a lot of games in that genre. There are more and more coming out, which is fantastic, and I seriously can’t wait to play Final Fantasy XIII, but when Fable first appeared, it was definitely part of a limited group of not-completely-crap RPGs.

So, where is Fable III going now? Well, it places the Hero in the throne of Albion at about half way through the game, and from there you’ve got to make the big decisions, and supposedly feel the weight of all those who are counting on you. Molyneaux actually said in an interview with IGN that this would allow gamers to know how Barack Obama felt when he received criticism for not closing Guantanamo Bay as he had intended to do. Let me just reiterate that. Fable III will make players feel the weight of their in-game decisions, as strongly as the U.S. President feels the weight of his. Are you kidding me Mr Molyneux? Are you alright? Do you need to lie down, take a cup of tea? Perhaps a cold compress could help you with those delusions of grandeur!

The HUD is completely gone from the game, there’s no health bar, in fact Molyneaux swore during the interview about why they would need an ‘****ing’ heath bar. There are no more augments or levelling up in the game, rather your weapons will get larger with more use – how daft is that! – and the power of them will be based in some way on your Gamer Point score. Yep, how utterly ridiculous. Your weapons will also change depending on what you use them for. Cut down a slew of innocents and your sword will constantly drip blood. Fight the good fight and it’ll start to glow.

All in all this game sounds like a complete and total train wreck that I’m very happy to not play. If you care to read more about it, here’s a link to the IGN article.

Tags: Fable II, Fable III, Peter Molyneux

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I suppose that rainy day has already happened, but I wasn’t personally too affected by the whole thing, but I’m saving like a squirrel in Autumn just in case it does come closer to home.

It’s a good idea to have some sort of financial protection in place at the moment, because in spite of the initial onslaught of the financial crisis being past, the lingering effects will remain for quite some time. I’ve also made very, very sure that all my insurance premiums are up to date and the best that I can get in terms of cost and cover.

I hate investigating which premium would be best for my SO and I, but I did put in the effort whilst I was recovering from the swine flu – body was still weak but my mind was fine and very bored – to work it all out and I even picked up a mortgage life insurance cover plan, because being that sick just made me want to be safe rather than sorry if anything untoward should happen. Sure it’s morbid as hell, but I’d rather my SO not have to worry about losing our home should anything happen to me. Having what turned out to be a critical illness made me think heavily about all of this, and I’m glad it’s all taken care of now!

If you’re home insurance is coming up for renewal, it’s really not a bad idea to consider some reviews on the subject, because honestly the best way to figure out if any institution is a good one is to take it straight from the mouths who’ve bought from them/dealt with them, not who’ve worked for them! I found a good comparison site in the ‘money supermarket’ and though their name is quite silly, it’s nice to have that much information at hand on the same site.

I prefer to do all my financial planning myself, it seems somehow counter productive to have someone else do it, and pay them for it!

Tags: Finance, savings

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It’s amazing, but Tekken 6 really does suck. I really tried to like it, but I just couldn’t.

So, wow. Just wow. How hard can this game possibly lose? I’ve played the Tekken series for a long time now, I think I first began on Tekken 2, then owned 3, and 4, though I don’t think I played the fifth version. I really enjoyed those games, so very, very much. My SO and I bonded whilst playing Tekken 3 on the PS One; ahh, fond memories. That was a good decade ago, and now here we are with a sad, sad, version of a much loved series.

Tekken, for those who’ve managed to not hear of the game, is a fighting game which came out in ‘94 as an arcade game, but then was moved over the the Playstation for the next four iterations, and then finally was ported to the Xbox 360 for Tekken 6 as well as the Playstation 3. It’s been one of the best fighting games for the past fifteen years, and I was sure that it would continue to be so. However, the sixth sequel is just… just awful.

Okay so I played it for two days, on and off, so I gave it a fair chance. My SO and I happily placed the disc into the 360 and started the game up. We knew the music was going to be less than great because of the IGN review, and they also mentioned the lack-lustre sound effects. We said we could deal with that and away we went.

We picked some of our favourite characters straight up, and it was nice to see so many characters available for use straight away. I fought as Bryan Fury, and my SO fought as Ling Xiaoyu. Okay, here we were, and yeah, the music wasn’t great, but I could deal with that. My SO absolutely hated the poor fight sound effects, saying she never felt like she landed a proper attack because the sounds were so muted.

The controls of the game were poor to say the least. I’m a good fighter, but it felt like the only way to play this game was to button mash, and then we actually tried the single-player modes; up until this point, we’d only been fighting each other.

So I tried arcade mode, hoping to unlock more content. I got to the third fight and was then faced with ‘*Oops*’ the bear. A blue version of Kuma with gold wrist braces and paw-pads. This ridiculously difficult opponent took me thirteen attempts to beat, in spite of being able to get through every other arcade/single-player mode in a fighting game pretty straight forwardly in the past. There was no learning curve, the AI went from complete dunce that will allow you to throw them over and over, to nigh-on unstoppable knows every attack in the catalogue kind of opponent in only three rounds. I mean, what the hell’s with that?

Then we tried the ‘Scenario’ mode as a cursory glance online suggested this was the way to unlock content. It was terrible. A strange strolling along a path fight were you were stuck with an annoying android who’s trying to explain the abstract defunct story-line. I couldn’t stand this style, it was very unintuitive.

Combine all of this with some seriously ugly character models and the worst fractured storyline you could imagine, we ended up taking it back and trading it for Soul Calibur IV. Sheesh.

Tags: bad games, Epic Fail, Gaming, Tekken 6, Xbox 360

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My copy of Mass Effect 2 is sitting sealed and ready to go on my shelf there, neatly hidden amongst the other games – which I keep in alphabetical order – but there it shall stay until I’ve finished Mass Effect 1!

I went and found it the day after release, all nicely sealed and ready to be played, but I want to go into the game with a full file intact. For most games that wouldn’t matter. I mean, if I hadn’t finished Gears of War 1 and just wanted to play the second game, that wouldn’t be an issue. I’d just read through the storyline on a website somewhere and set to.

But in Mass Effect 2 you can actually import your character from the first game. Now, you don’t go in at the same level, or even have to play as the same class, but what does go in is a record of all the choices you’ve made in the first game. Did you resolve this issue peacefully, or did you become violent, did you try to help these people, or ignore their problem. All these choices will affect how the characters in Mass Effect 2 react to you, which is an aspect of the game I’m highly anticipating.

So now I just have to really get stuck into the first game. I’m a moderate way in, gotten my specialization and running around the galaxy saving everyone’s ass. That’s always fun. Who doesn’t want to be the hero of the entire universe?

Still enjoying the game, and I have to say, it is a lot more enjoyable to play on the 360 than it was on the PC. The control system on the 360 is a lot more intuitive, and the game is so much less buggy. I’ve just realised that I’d not downloaded the two add-ons, so I’m currently getting those cracking.

More on Mass Effect once I’ve finished the first game and embarking on the second!

Tags: Gaming, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2

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None of the current gen consoles are perfect – though the 360 is the best of them – but the Wii is one that I won’t be buying.

Now, I know I’m going to anger quite a few Nintendo fans here, but I’m going ahead with this anyway. I’ve extremely fond memories of the SNES, which is still one of my all time favourite consoles, I mean, Super Mario Bros. 3 was one of the best games of all time, there’s no doubt about that! But the Wii, the latest console from Nintendo, just falls dramatically short from where the other current gen consoles are sitting.

Okay so let’s talk tech here, there’s no doubting that the Wii is by far the weakest system of the 7th generation in gaming. Both the 360 and the PS3 support far better graphics, processing, and memory capabilities, and whilst I can understand the Wii was aiming at a different audience, there’s still issues with charging that much for a console that is as limited as the Wii is.

I’ve used the console, and sure it’s fun for a while, but another thing that really, really, and is the clincher as to why I won’t purchase the Wii, is the complete lack of quality gaming on the console. You’ve got about four good games on the entire platform, and yet the game library for the Wii is enourmous, with around 600 titles, but just over 37% of those have been reviewed at or below 60… See where I’m going with this?

Nintendo should learn from what happened with Atari. Crappy games for the Atari flooded the market, and it sent the console under, yet for some reason, the unenlightened are still purchasing this shovelware for the Wii, and there’s tons and tons to be had. There are probably four good titles on this console, but I’ll not be paying the price of the console just to have a go at Mario Galaxy 2, and I don’t like party titles, so all the other Mario titles for the Wii hold absolutely no interest.

So please, Nintendo, please bring us a console in the next generation that’s worthy of the money we spend on it, don’t put out a whole heap of ultra crap games, and stop with the gimmick gaming!

Tags: Gaming, Miyamoto, Nintendo, Wii

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