Lathany

These aren't New Year resolutions, but the games and things I'm looking forward to (or hoping will be good) in 2016.

Computer games

• Blackenrock - This is the second installment of the Lost Crown adventure horror game tetralogy/quadrilogy (which was previously a trilogy until this game was inserted as the second one). The creator, Boakes, said on 1 December it would come out December/January, so is hopefully imminent. I loved the first game (The Lost Crown) and liked the halloween game (Midnight Horror) so have high hopes for this.
• Dreamfall Chapters part five - I've actually not played through much more than the first part of this as I knew it wasn't all out yet. However, part five is the final section and is supposed to bring this series of games to a close (previous games were The Longest Journey in 2000 and Dreamfall in 2006), so I'm keen to see it.
• Syberia III - I've liked the Syberia point-and-click adventure series for its story and mammoths, although often found the puzzles too hard. So, yes, another one I want to see.
• Pathologic reboot - Really looking forward to this - a Russian game not like anything else I've seen. However, it will either be late in the year or slide into 2017.
• The Last Crown - The third of the Crown series is scheduled for late this year. However, Boakes does tend to be optimistic with his deadlines, so again this may be 2017.

Books
Most of the authors I read I'm either a way back in the series (so have plenty more to come already) or there's nothing I'm particularly waiting for. The one exception is Black Widow, the new Jack Parlabane book from Brookmyre. I haven't been a huge Parlabane fan, but I really liked the last book and it hinted that the Parlabane stuff was about to get more interesting. This is available for pre-order already and expected on 28th of this month, so I'm pretty confident it will be out.

TV
I'm not sure whether I should be putting Heroes Reborn in here, because I'm not convinced it's going to be that good (I've read reviews as it's showing in the States already). However, when it releases on DVD in the UK (which I expect later this year), I suspect I will be buying it. (Twin Peaks is now delayed to 2017 or would be in this section.)

Turns out that there will be a fair number of returns from the original cast to Heroes Reborn. So far Noah Bennet is, I think, the only one who has been confirmed as a regular, but both The Haitian (Rene) and Hiro were confirmed early enough that they may have large parts. Meanwhile, Matt Parkman and Mohinder Suresh have been signed up for arcs. Although there also appears to be a large new cast as well.

We'll see what the balance between old and new turns out to be.

I saw some disappointing Heroes Reborn news yesterday. They asked Zachary Quinto to come back and play Sylar. As it happens - the actor has said thank you, but no. He comments that he loved the show, but did not want to reprise the character.

Now, ZQ was a great Sylar. He was one of the things that made season one so good (and I liked the prospect of him turning into a "Power behind the throne" character in season two until it didn't happen). But... whilst Heroes went wrong in all sorts of ways, in my opinion the absolute top lesson that the creators needed to learn was: Put. Sylar. Down. Sadly, they clearly haven't. Which leaves me wondering whether they've spotted any of their other mistakes.

The other news to date is that Jack Coleman is back as Noah Bennet/HRG and Zackary Levi (from Chuck which I haven't seen) is starring. No others of the original cast have been signed up yet. Milo Ventimiglia (Peter) has said he doesn't want to come back as (similar to ZQ) it was a great experience, but he doesn't want to reprise Peter. Ali Larter (Tracy) and Hayden Panetierre (Claire) have other shows (although HP's Nashville is picking up cancellation rumours) and probably a number of the others do too.

As I've said elsewhere, I don't particularly want the original cast to all reappear, although it would be good to hear what had happened to their characters. I think some of them have more potential mileage than others - I felt that Matt Parkman was not played out, for example. However, I'll have to wait and see.

Ever since Heroes, I've been something of a Milo Ventimiglia fan. I went back and watched Gilmore Girls (mostly the first three seasons) and then had a look at adding his film work to our LoveFilms list. However, both Pathology and The Divide (the most obvious additions) are horror movies and neither of them particularly appealed. He's made a few other things as well, but not many of them looked like my sort of thing and many had bad reviews (for example, Dirty Deeds and That's My Boy). I have been vaguely tempted by Armoured and it might make it onto the list at some point. Both Grace of Monaco and Heat look pretty certain for the list, but haven't been released yet. However, Static and Kiss of the Damned did make the list and, this week Static appeared.

Static was directed by a new director (Todd Levin), was clearly made on a small budget and has a small cast. One of the credits is for Divide Pictures which is MV's film company (jointly owned with Russ Cundiff). Static is somewhere between a horror film and a mystery. It's gotten two and three star reviews from various websites. It's about a couple who are still grieving over the loss of their only child when a stranger turns up on their doorstep, keen to be let in where it's safe.

I felt it was a nice concept, turned into an OK film. It has some utterly beautiful scenery which you see in the first quarter of an hour or so. I was interested in the three key characters and it has some good moments among the scenes I particularly liked the chandeliers hanging from the trees outside. Plus the film knows when to stop - it's about the right length (80 mins). However, the first third and the last third are better than the middle - which gets a little dull. Also, there's a little too much explanation at the end of what was going on. Overall I would say flawed but worth a look for its concept.

It's been nearly two months since I wrote an update, so this is long overdue.

My train reading has mostly been re-reading, in part because I find it relaxing. However, there have been a couple of new things on my list, remarkably similar to each other:

• Halting State by Charles Stross - This is my first Stross book and I enjoyed it. It's geeky, about a robbery in a computer game, has surveillance conspiracy theory stuff coming out of its ears and it nicely ties all the threads together.
• Little Brother by Cory Doctorow - This is geeky, has surveillance conspiracy theory stuff coming out of its ears and has a computer game involved (although that doesn't get robbed). I found it a heavier read than the Stross because I felt so constantly on edge on behalf of the protagonist. However, overall I think it's the better story of the two (if not by much).

On the TV front, I've mostly been watching the second series of Twin Peaks for the first time. I appreciate that everyone on my f-list saw it years ago, but I'm going to review it anyway. I enjoyed it in general, but definitely preferred some storylines to others. The Laura Palmer stuff was always gripping, and the W-E follow-up on the grand plot almost as much, but many of the minor plots fell flat. I could have done without pretty much everything involving James, whose only saving grace appeared to be that he wasn't in the Nadine-thinks-she's-in-high-school plot. I liked Shelley and wished she had some better plots to work in, liked Catherine and Josie, liked Audrey, but didn't like Annie (or her plot). I enjoyed all the Lodge stuff and would have liked to see more. Finally, parts seemed very slow - it reminded me a bit of undyingking's comments about Soap, that it probably didn't feel slow to the people who watched it at the time and it's part of TV generally speeding up its stories. I now want to see the movie and know it's a prequel. As an aside, I noticed that bits of Claire's theme from Heroes sound suspiciously like the Laura Palmer theme (I own both soundtracks).

I've continued to watch offerings from LOVEFiLM, it's been quite a while since I saw the inside of a cinema.

• The History Boys - very "English" - in the way I identify with England dramatics but not my own life, quite fun, easy to watch and apparently has the same cast as the stage version. It's possibly a shame that we saw it just after Closer because you can tell in both cases that they were plays.
• Source Code - A sort of serious version of Groundhog Day which is still watchable despite the continuity errors (and we're not talking about the science). Fast and thriller, very watchable. My main complaint is that they did the most vanilla thing possible with the concept.
• Push - I loved Push. A lot. Kind of a cross between Heroes and The Butterfly Effect (with just a touch of Blade Runner). It isn't time-travel, but it's got all the elements for time travel. Vastly under-rated.

Taking up rather more of my time than the films are the computer games.

• The Void - This took me six months and several re-starts to finish. It's from the people who did Pathologic. It's weird, bleak, beautiful and really hard. It's about drawing glyphs, building up resources and fights. It's sadly also about nude women, but the game part was good enough that I managed to mostly ignore that aspect. Recommended if you liked Pathologic (although I think that was just me...)
• Portal Co-Op - This was great; we used the PC and the PS3 and really enjoyed it. The puzzles are mostly interesting and it has a tiny bit of plot. Recommended if you haven't tried it and like co-op games (particularly if the price comes down).

Of course, my main occupation has been roleplaying.

• 7th Sea - I've never met 7th Sea before, but now I'm in a game, I'm enjoying it. It seems like a good system and I was rather sorry to hear it was out of print. The plot's fun and I've now met an intelligent crow and the King of Cats. Plus swam in a lake that's really, really cursed.
• Meteor - The two parties finally met and kind-of got along. Now they-re separate again and trying to figure out what to do while a bunch of gods fight each other. I'm enjoying running this, but will have to put it down when I plan my Con game for next year.

What else have I done? Well, bateleur and I had a meal at the Turkish restaurant near Waterloo called Tas, which was really, really nice (and whose website appears to be down). I had prawns for a starter, then moussaka and then a liqueur coffee. We want to go back and try some of the other dishes. It's good food, good value and I recommend it to anyone who goes near Waterloo station.

And I think that's my lot. I'll try not to leave as long next time.

Valentine Day came, so we did our usual thing of nice wine and food. bateleur had bought salmon and cream cheese starters and made yummy pasties for the main course. However, the best part of the meal was the dessert he constructed - a little like tiramisu with a base of raisins and bananas cooked in alcohol and a top layer of mascarpone flavoured with spice. It was awesome.

The other main event of last weekend was the photo session at Ryan's school. His school photographs showed up a while back and were rather good (as opposed to Bea's school's more standard - dull - offering. So when the photographer offered family photo sessions this seemed a good opportunity to finally get some decent family photos done. I liked what came out when I saw it on screen, and we expect to get them in a few weeks time. There's three photos of the family (we'll keep one and grandparent the other two), a shot of bateleur and me and both separate and a joint picture of the duo. Most of it was in the studio (school hall!) but some were outside shots.

On a more predictable note, I've also continued to rewatch Heroes - both Once Upon A Time in Texas and Brother's Keeper were still awesome - probably the best of season 4. However, Strange Attractors was still dire and even as a devout Heroes fan I had trouble sitting it through on a rewatch. I haven't fully gone through the deleted scenes from that trio of episodes, but might say more when I do. Also I think both the good episodes include audio commentary which I plan on listening to.

• District 9 - We saw this last night and I knew little about it beforehand. It starts off like a documentary and is gory and disturbing. Having read about it afterwards, I can see why the Nigerians were mightily p*ssed about the way they were portrayed. But an excellent film - good to see one set in South Africa - but not an easy watch.
• Ravenor (Warhammer 40K fiction) - I read this trilogy (with two short stories) and felt it was good, but not as good as Eisenhorn. However, and for the benefit of quisalan, he's a much less smug and irritating protagonist.
• Recettear - I'm well into the eternity mode, but it's still moderately entertaining. The new heroes are interesting and I like upping the number of items and redecorating my store (the equivalent of "raising sheep", I'm sure).

Next week I have a day off work to go to Kew and it should generally be quiet because we're duo-less. Well, apart from the two roleplaying sessions of course (a one-off from bateleur this weekend and a Meteor next).

We've been away for the weekend to celebrate my father-in-law's 70th and - because it's the following day - the duo's 9th. Center parcs is pretty, covered in lights, has deer and has a rather awesome swimming pool. But the best thing? The warmth of the villa we hired (except at night when it was too hot) - we picked an excellent weekend to be somewhere cosy.

• The birthdays - The three cakes were different and beautiful - Josie used coloured icing to paint a pattern on J'J's fruit cake, Ryan had a chocolate dinosaur and Bea had a vanilla cat. The presents went down well - Ryan was instantly possessive of his camera whilst Bea tucked herself into a corner of the sofa with Super Scribblenauts. There was also too much food and drink of which my favourites were the red wine bateleur and I brought, the champagne, the dolma and the duck (and, of course, the cake).
• Sister Alice - My (ex) staff member bought this for me (along with The Player of Games) as a leaving present. It's by Robert Reed and was initially five (long) short stories. It's readable, interesting, set in the future, involves super-powered almost-invulnerable beings and gets meta very quickly.
• Deja Vu and The Butterfly Effect 3 - Deju Vu stars Denzel Washington. He's the lead, the best thing about the film and makes it immensely watchable despite the utterly unbelievable science fiction element. As bateleur noted, he makes his way through a scene watching a woman in a voyeuristic set-up managing to look smitten rather than a stalker (West from Heroes take note). The Butterfly Effect 3 isn't nearly as good, but is worth watching if you have seen and enjoyed the first one (otherwise don't bother). It uses a slightly different approach to the first two and is miles better than the second one (which, as I said earlier this month, was rubbish). It's not as good as the original though and still has a tendency to dwell on its sex scenes (like the second one did). And the protagonist is still a bit of an idiot, but a nicer idiot than the guy in Two.
• Holly Walk - Last weekend, we did something I've been meaning to do for ages - we walked Kew's Holly Walk during the berry time. We've never managed before as it falls in term time and the duo aren't big walkers (well, Bea isn't). But with a bribe of cake, they came along and I enjoyed myself. I love holly and holly berries; in part, I guess 'cos they remind me of the festive season and I love Xmas.
• Xmas cake - Speaking of Xmas, we're at home so I'm making the whiskey Christmas cake and I've done the first two steps (ie. now have a cooked cake after soaking the dried fruit for a week).

Christmas-wise I've got a fair way through the present-buying and have a stack of cards to write. Plus I have a candle and calendar for Wednesday. I love this time of year and have my leave already booked. Also I have two Meteor games in December (weather permitting) and have finally finished the big map of Vebrica.

Then for the final season.

( season four / volume five - Redemption )

That's really my lot on the four seasons of Heroes. If there's a movie I'll comment on that and if there isn't, I'll probably post that it didn't happen here. But otherwise my regular Heroes posts are done.

Next up, the writers' strike season.

( season two / volume two - Generations )

Heroes has been cancelled (says so here). Which, at this point, is not a surprise. The possibility of an end movie/whatever is still under discussion.