Uncharted, Salt, Woking and a new bed fellow

[lathany]

It's the TIGJam weekend, so bateleur is in Cambridge. This means that, because I'm a bit of a wuse about sleeping on my own, Reeve was invited into the bedroom. Despite my concerns that I'd be woken up at some unearthly hour (like 6:30 - the weekday get-up time), Reeve was very well-behaved. He settled down on the other side of the bed and didn't once wake me (he might be ruder about me - I got up several times in the night). The absence of bateleur has also meant I'm on my own with problems - my black necklace has broken (but might be fixable), the downstairs boiler has broken and Ryan is ill.

Another consequence is that I've spent the last couple of evenings re-watching Heroes season 4 (my first rewatch - I've just seen Hysterical Blindness).

Second time around - I'm finding Matt/Sylar practically unwatchable (despite Matt being one of my favourite characters) and I feel there is too much Claire (particularly in dull scenes like the entire curry sequence and the "Should Noah sell lumber?" sequence). However, it turns out that there's a fair number of missing scenes - such as a whole bunch of Noah/Tracey (including when she calls Sandra to take over looking after Noah because she's going back to work and Sandra and Mr Muggles show up). I think it was pulled because Ali Larter was doing Resident Evil and thus missing most of the season; therefore, they didn't want to start this sequence off - it's clear from the missing scenes that this was a romance set-up - and instead brought in Lauren and came up with a different romance led-in to the same plot (starting a few episodes later with the flashback in Once Upon A Time In Texas). I guess pulling these left a gap which needed covering by that awful lumber salesman sequence. I would have far rather the nice also-cut Peter-Hesam paramedics scene (following the Samuel's lawsuit stuff) where Peter apologises for always running off and Hesam tells him he never really believed that Peter created the accidents. Besides, in the Noah/Tracey set they pulled Mr Muggles being cute with Noah - they really should have left that in as well.

What else?

• Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - I'm not sure whether to describe this as a computer game or an interactive movie. A mix of First Person Shooter and some very easy Tomb Raider puzzle sequences. It's very pretty (awesome water effects), hard work for us non-FPS people, but mostly worth it for Claudia Black (Aeryn Sun of Farscape) and Steve Valentine (Alistair of Dragon Age Origins) playing the voices of Chloe Frazer and Harry Flynn. Oh, and maybe for a bit of the game play as well.
• Salt - Probably best described as a female Bourne/Bond. The story's not bad and Jolie is good in the title role, but ultimately not likely to be my film of the year because the plot isn't brilliant (and, despite some better reasoning, the bad guys still hit that "because we're evil" button).
• Woking Festival of Dance - My experiences of Woking are that it's easy to find and horrific to navigate around either by car or on foot. We got there in the end; Bea danced and was disappointed not to make the top three (actually top four - they told the boy he got fourth). However, there were seven dancers and she's the youngest in that category. She scored a respectable 81 (we got the score sheet on Friday). And I might take her again, given enough time to get over the panic of this one.
• Meteor - The two parties have finally gone off in different directions, so this may be the end of bateleur's two characters visiting the same places. The parties are also carving rather different roles for themselves with very different attitudes to the gods - although I think the most hated god is the same in both parties.

I’m also continuing with Recettear (I’m in the Obsidian Tower and have more heroes) and I may have a crack at continuing with Crisis Core later on today; I've already had the whole Nibelheim Reactor sequence so I reckon I'm near the end.

Comments

[condign.livejournal.com]

I'm not quite sure who Uncharted is for. It's an OK, but not good, FPS, and as you said, the puzzles are incredibly easy. And as a movie, I didn't think the storyline was that original.

[lathany.livejournal.com]

I agree, the storyline isn't particularly original.

I'm not quite sure who Uncharted is for.

I know what you mean. I wonder if it's a sort of one-game-fits-all. It's not too difficult an FPS (we managed it) and it certainly doesn't have hard puzzles. It sold well, so something must be going right. Therefore, my best guess is that it's a game most people can pick up, but because it's not specialised, it's unlikely to be anyone's favourite whatever.

I think there's also something of the "look at the pretty" appeal.

[condign.livejournal.com]

Indeed, I bought it because my two previous purchases had been (a) a PS3 and (b) a very large HD television, and I wanted to put them through their paces.