Lathany

Last night I saw Distant Worlds at the Royal Albert Hall. It was a great night, although fewer people were in costume than when I was there two years ago.

I think that the songs and order of play were something like this:

FFX - "Hymn Of The Fayth"
FFVII - "One-Winged Angel"
FFXIII-LR - "Lightning Returns"
FFV - "Dear Friends"
FFIX - "Vamo' alla Flamenco"
FFVII - "Main Theme of Final Fantasy VII"
FFX - "Zanarkand"
FFXI - Ronfaure theme
FFXIV - "Answers"
FF Fight compilation - "Clash on the Big Bridge" (V) / "Those Who Fight (Let the Battles Begin)" (VII) / ? (Mayby "Run!" (IX))

FFVIII - "The Man With The Machine Gun"
FFIX - "Rose of May"
Another compilation - / / FFX - Seymour fight (can't remember which one)
FFVI - "Balance Is Restored"
FFVI - Character themes Terra/Kefka/Celeste/Locke
FFVI - "Dark World"
Main FF theme
FFVI - "Dancing Mad"
Chocobo theme

(I'll update if any of the people I went with have things to add (chrisvenus, quisalan, ao_lai and chrestomancy).

Highlights were quisalan recognising "Dear Friends" without knowing why (it was a track I used in Meteor), the main theme from FFVII which I absolutely love, "Hymn Of The Fayth" (with choir), the FFVI character themes (it's years since I played, but they brought it all back to me) and the fight compilation.

A couple of weeks ago, bateleur and I celebrated twenty years together by going to a rather fine restaurant called Roganic. As bateleur has already provided an extensive write-up, I don't propose to say anything more about the food. However, I would add that the service was excellent - we were offered water when we arrived (still, sparkling or tap), every course arrived promptly and was described in detail and they brought the menu, wine list and bill to the person who asked for them. And chrestomancy was the hero of the occasion for providing the babysitting.

Roleplaying
GMing
I finished Meteor last night. It was a two year fantasy campaign for which I designed a world. The features were a pantheon of gods (the game featured just over a hundred) and a magic system with six types of magic - form, movement, energy, mind, disruption and displacement. When I set it up, I decided to try out running two different parties within it.

• The Good - Both parties worked and had different dynamics and somewhat different goals. It meant I could run with more players than I usually do (seven - I don't like having more than five people in a party these days). It made more use of a background I had put a lot of thought and effort into. All the characters were good and worked (although it turned out that some magic paths were more interesting / easier to progress through than others).
• The Bad - The parties were both on six week (ish) cycles while I was on a three week cycle and the players would have liked to run more often. The two occasions when the parties met up involved playing in somewhat overcrowded conditions (our lounge is fairly short of seating anyway) although no-one complained. I'd had a cunning plan for bateleur to play in both games - to NPC in one of the two, but it didn't work that well and he was constantly trying to remember which character knew what.
• The interesting - The parties had very difficult reactions to things and stopped and started at different times. The Nemoria party (lanfykins, chrisvenus, Alistair and bateleur) were more directionless at the start while the Constructs party (quisalan, ao_lai, chrestomancy and bateleur) were fine at the start, but struggling with aims and plans towards the end.
• Memorable moments - There were loads, but for the Nemoria Party, I think the tragic battle at Jist and also the Preadith Pilgrimage particularly stick out in my mind. For the Constructs party I would go with the debate about the sword of Thearanda and also the Battle of the campsite Orcet Bridge.

So, I enjoyed it, but I need to rethink the two party approach if I do something like this again.

Having completed a campaign, I'm now thinking about one-off plans for the next Con. Also, I can finally read Dark Heresy without worrying about it influencing my Meteor campaign.

Playing
Seventh Sea re-started on Tuesday and this time we set off across the land of Germany Eisen and promptly found a ghost inn. The resulting interactions were creepy, strange and - I think - a little bit helpful. Most characters have been contacted by people asking for them to come home (to different places) and the party is going to have to figure out where to go as soon as we complete our business in Eisen.

Computer Games
I promised a write-up of the two Darkness Within mystery/horror point-and-click games when I finished them. The short version is that the story was interesting (inspired by Lovecraft), the atmosphere tense/scary in places but that the gameplay was awkward and I constantly needed a FAQ. For a longer version:

There were originally supposed to be three games in this series, but the company finished the story in two games (which can be bought together) and, as far as I can tell, then stopped being a company. The two games they produced had some good elements, but I could also see why they hadn't get excellent reviews.

On the plus side, the story was genuinely interesting and there were a number of unexpected developments and scenes. The first of the two games (In Pursuit of Loath Nolder) in particular had some great surprise moments - such as the appearance of the poet (I won’t say more). Also, the inclusion of nightmares along with the day-to-day world was a nice touch. Every time I moved to a new night or day I was very keen to see where I now was.

I liked the two main characters - Harold (the protagonist) and Loath Nolder (who mainly appears in the second game, The Dark Lineage) - which particularly brought home the rather gruesome fates they suffer. Perhaps it's in keeping with the genre, but one thing that stuck out is that the main character does seem to make what Bea would call "poor choices". Example: Exploring the house of the murder victim? Go alone and do some rope climbing in the dark! Howard never told his friends anything and never asked for help. Perhaps that’s a mark of a bookish police detective, but it left me scratching my head and blinking at the screen several times. That said, his friends didn’t seem that bothered about him either.

The big problem with the two games was the gameplay. The main part of the game is usual for the genre - wandering around the environment reading things and interacting with objects. However, the game also has a couple of other elements - the first is a process for examining documents and the second is about combining items or ideas - both are nice concepts, but rather irritating in practical terms. The process of examining documents is that when faced with a new paper, letter or book the game gives you the option of underlining key words and sentences. Trouble is, some key sentences are really obvious and others are not. I found I wanted to underline everything, a few lines at a time, to process a document into clues. The combining items feature appears in many games in the point and click genre. What makes Darkness Within different is that this is also used for ideas. This is a lovely thing in theory - you combine some of the thoughts your character has and then reach new conclusions. However, in practice, you need all the associated thoughts to be able to use the mechanic and this is frustrating when you have only some of those needed. Also, in the second game, I’m not sure there were many places where the combination feature could be used for ideas (I don’t recall finding any).

Outside these two features, the game has other problems. The main ones being missing hotspots, huge areas and needing scenes to activate objects. The missing hotspots issue is caused in part by the screens scrolling up and down as well as right and left. There were several occasions when I missed something on the ground and it was really annoying. The huge areas were just painful. Whenever I was stuck, the next thing or stage could be anywhere in a huge range of locations as the character was almost never restricted in movement and the resulting plodding around was extremely frustrating. Finally, the inactivated objects were a nuisance because it meant I wandering around looking for things only to discover what I needed was something I had already examined, but could not previously pick up.

The overall result of the system was that the game had some nice ideas, but these were somewhat drowned in the inevitable plodding from place to place re-examining everything. So, I found it was just about worth playing - with a FAQ to hand.

Films
We've seen two more films - Fire Walk With Me and The Raid. The former was rather disappointing, but the latter was excellent.

• Fire Walk With Me - We finished Twin Peaks last year, so this seemed like a good idea. In addition, Mark Kermode had thoroughly recommended it (although responses were mixed). So I watched it, and was disappointed. My huge complaint was that there was little or no new information. The dark fate of Laura is already known and this film shows very little of anyone else. Yes, Kermode is right and Sheryl Lee is excellent as Laura, but that simply isn't enough in itself for me. I think the most telling comment I read was that Lynch apparently said he made because he was in love with the character of Laura Palmer and, if so, yeah - that's what it looks like. Like most other people, I would have liked a sequel (I knew in advance this wasn't) and the couple of lines alluding to Dale's fate simply were not enough. I gather two more films were planned to complete the Twin Peaks sequence but these were cancelled when this film flopped. A shame, but I can also see why.
• The Raid - Subtitles or not, this is excellent.The characters are interesting, the plot works and if the action is a combination of realistic firefights and unrealistic martial arts - well, even they kind of work. I loved this and I want to see the sequel (in production). Apparently the Americans are remaking it with the original director.

Not a lot else is going on right now. Work is busy - as always in the autumn - and I'm gearing up for dark evenings, dark mornings and the Halloween -> Xmas shopping.

Normally, I'd be hacking my way through ancient Egypt on a Wednesday evening (Titan Quest). However, this week my partner in crime heroism has stood me up (that's Alistair J), possibly for The Secret World (which I haven't yet looked at, but was created by Dreamfall's Ragnar Tørnquist, so is likely to be impressive). So instead I'm writing an LJ update and trying to ignore the fact that I might be half-way through my annual leave already.

On the virtuous/work side (also known as I like a cleaner house than I tend to live in), I have managed a fair bit of housework in the last week-and-a-half. I've cleaned both bathrooms fully, washed the kitchen floor, de-moulded and cleaned a number of windows (along with washing numerous net curtains), done more clothes/bedding washing than I care to think about and a tiny bit of vacuuming. The house could still do with a lot more. In addition, I've been able to do a fair bit of cooking which I enjoy when I have the time.

On the sofa-bound/leisure side, bateleur and I have spent more time watching films on the television than usual in the last week. This is mainly because I finally got around to buying the last two Harry Potters.

( The two Deathly Hallows films and Equilibrium )

I'm not sure whether this ends up counting as leisure given it was bloody hard work, but after several days of trying (limiting myself to a couple of attempts per day) I finally took down the end boss of Diablo III. I've mostly covered this in a previous post - but it was difficult, time-consuming and, after learning the strategy to do it, I had to turn the video quality down to reduce the game lag to succeed. It'll be a while before I try any of the other character types (my completion was on the standard difficulty using a wizard with the Templar as my follower).

After much swearing at Diablo III, I decided my next PC game had to be easier. In this, I have succeeded. I chose Drawn which turns out to be aimed at Bea's age group and she and I have been playing together. It's a pretty fairy tale type of game, quite fun, rather mini-game heavy and mainly point and click (although, as the title suggests, provides opportunities for me to prove that I can't draw for toffee). I've also been playing a bit of Dynasty Tactics 2 on the PS2 for contrast (it's a turn-based strategy game). When Bea goes off to Sherwood with Ryan and my parents I'll pause Drawn and start on one of various horror games I have lined up: Dark Fall: Lost Souls, Penumbra Collection and the recently bought Darkness Within collection which is apparently "for Lovecraft fans". Darkness Within arrived with a soundtrack which I am now listening to (and may use in a future roleplaying game).

bateleur's game Revolution is continuing (the local gaming group - sessions are two or three hours long roughly once a week on a weekday evening) and we are slowly learning more about the plot. And developing higher levels of paranoia. We've identified the local weapons merchant and found there is a cordon around our town.

Following a sudden flux of roleplaying posts (mainly OxCon), I'm thinking more and more about my GMing plans post-Meteor (which I expect to complete before the end of the year). I have a copy of Dark Heresy which I have been ignoring while Meteor was still to run. It's been a long time since I ran anything with a published system and so I think I'd like to use one for once. Whether it will be a one-off or a mini-campaign will depend on what I think of the system once I've read it. Also, I'm starting to get ideas for various one-offs and I'm writing them down with the aim of coming back to them when I'm ready to plan something. With the exception of Ghost Hunting at the British Museum, I haven't run a one-off in years. When I do games, it tends to be campaigns, so I think that when Meteor ends, it might be a good time to run a few one-offs for once.

Many thanks to everyone who posted about the Troxy. It was indeed small enough that the station coped with the crowds and we got back to Waterloo for the last train but one.

Garbage were utterly awesome. They played for just under two hours, mainly their older hits but with a few tracks from their new album (three or four, I think). Shirley Manson was very good - both singing and addressing the audience. My favourites included Bad Boyfriend, Stupid Girl and Only Happy When It Rains. I think they played almost all their hits - The World Is Not Enough was included, although Bleed Like Me was not.

I have been very busy roleplaying of late:

• Ghost Hunting At The British Museum - My one-off game involved six characters being sent on a ghost hunting expedition in the British Museum by a mysterious corporation. The second run-through (the first was at KrysCon) has been completed and was successful. Best of all, the resulting game was very different. It is the most prep-intensive game I have ever run and I will probably not sink that much time into a game again, but I wanted to try it and I think it was worth it (plus I really enjoyed my research at the British Museum). It was a series of puzzles - namely how to get rid of individual ghosts - all building towards a larger puzzle (which, among other things, involved a vortex stretching between heaven and hell (the Dark Fall) and time travel). The concept was, very loosely, based on the computer game Dark Fall series, although playing those games would not have helped the players solve the plot. I felt that the six characters worked and were generally different to each other. There were three ghost hunters: the most experienced (quisalan / wildrogue), the one who was suspicious about the company (zandev / chrestomancy) and the one with their very own ghost (leathellin / TheHattedOne). There were also three others: the company employee (chrisvenus / ao_lai), the museum employee (smiorgan / lanfykins) and the student who could see ghosts everywhere since a road accident where a pedestrian died (huggyrei / bateleur). There were a number of amusing coincidences - for example, precisely one case got smashed in both games and it was the same case smashed by the same character (zandev / chrestomancy) for no reason I could understand. There were also an awful lot of differences; mainly resulting from the characters' reactions to the corporation, to the ghosts and to the time-travel element. ao_lai won the angst award in the second game, while huggyrei got it in the first. The first party all decided to take up the employment offer, while the second party were looking to Bring Down the Company as a lifetime goal. All-in-all, I really enjoyed both runs and many thanks to all the players.
• Meteor - There has been another pair of Meteor games and some interesting developments. This time, the party in the north had a comparatively quiet game which one of the party spent wondering whether they were the bad guys due to the circumstances and the weapon they had recently acquired (although there was also a God vs character single combat). Meanwhile, the party in the south spent most of the session trying to escape the battle/bloodbath which resulted in an impressive number of dead gods. I think it's safe to say that the Prayer to the Eight needs updating.
• Revolution - Incoming: one burning village. Enough said.

On my train journeys, I have read The Ring of Solomon (The Bartimaeus Sequence) by Jonathan Stroud (a prequel) and really enjoyed it. Having read it, I realise I have missed Bartimaeus and I am now re-reading the original trilogy. Ring of Solomon is nicely self-contained and I liked the unfolding of the story and the characters involved.

In the last month, we have seen two offerings from LoveFilms (13 Assassins and Of Gods and Men):

• 13 Assassins - I am not quite sure where this recommendation came from, possibly a work colleague. It is set in ancient Japan and is about how 13 Samurai (OK, 12 and a random) try to take out 200 guards and their VIP. It is an odd mixture of realism/horror (the early scenes) and cinematic fights/bloodbath (the later scenes). I quite liked it, but felt the meshing of styles did not quite work. The film received excellent ratings, but I do not quite agree.
• Of Gods and Men - This was Kermode's number two film of 2010 (I think). He heaped a great deal of praise upon it, so we watched it. What I had not appreciated was that it is a "true life" tale - a film type I do not really like. The result? Great acting, interesting setting but... that irritating lack of resolution that too many true story films have.

On the video game front, I finally went back to The Void and completed the hard ending - the nameless sister. I appreciate that no-one else on my friends list has played this, so I will just say I was very pleased to do it and I will now put the game down and not return to it. I next plan to play Dark Fall: Lost Souls.

RIP Jayden.

(Meteor game)

I'm on holiday for slightly over two weeks, so this seems an excellent time to catch up on my LJ stuff.

First the roleplaying that's been happening.

• Revolution - bateleur finished his mini-campaign on Saturday. This was his "local group" game (chrestomancy, floralaetifica, wildrogue, shadowjon and me) and involved weird character sheets that looked rather like children's "pretty pattern" colouring sheets. Our characters (or at least some of them) had magic powers gained by channelling aspects of powerful historical people and the background was multiple "worlds" (various NPCs kept telling us there was one world). We completed the game by meeting our aims - sealing off our little "oubliette" of the world, gaining control of the (sealed) portal, staying alive and we Evelyn also saved Piers from his controlling aspect.
• Meteor - I finally held the double party session - the seven characters finally met. After hearing descriptions of What Had Gone Wrong, they then helped a number of Gods take on and beat two of the eight Corrupted Ones. This was followed by an email chat session of sharing plot, angst and cat feeding. I enjoyed it - and it went pretty much as I hoped.

There have also been three films.

• Notes on a Scandal - I enjoyed this, even though the story is rather grim. Both Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett make for good viewing and I thought it was the right length for the concept (about an hour and a half).
• The Ghost - A Polanski starring Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan. It was a atmospheric, intelligent, well-constructed film (a thriller without action sequences) with a disappointing ending. We debated alternative endings for some time and while we could improve on the one in the film, we failed to find a satisfying one that didn't require at least another hour to carry out.
• Closer - A four person film about swapping relationships which I found watchable, but didn't like very much. My chief criticism is one I feel about many "relationship" films - I failed to like any of the characters (although I had some mild sympathy for Natalie Portman's Alice). And I don't understand why Clive Owen was nominated for all sorts of awards, I didn't think it was that good a performance.

We've also been meeting up with people.

• Brockwood Hall - Many years ago there was BadgerCon and the venue was the place that my parents used to take chrestomancy and me for Christmas back when we both lived at home. We went back with both sets of the duo's grandparents last week. I don't propose to write a long review as bateleur already has. However, I enjoyed it greatly - particularly the meal at the hall and the train/waterfall day - and will probably return in another nine or so years.
• _alanna and al_fruitbat - Yesterday evening featured an enjoyable meal (goats cheese, tomato and spinach and asparagus starters, Coq au vin and cheesecakes in cocktail glasses), lovely wine and an entertaining conversation of films, books and computer games. I also got to admire _alanna's bump which I hadn't seen before (and won't remain a bump for much longer).
• Fryer's Delight - Just before I went on holiday, I met up with some former work colleagues for drinks and food. One of the them recommended the Fryer's Delight as the best fish and chip shop in London. On the plus side - the meal was cheap and I enjoyed it. On the minus side, the business has changed hands and it isn't nearly as good as it once was (or so he and various on-line reviewers say). Perhaps still worth a visit - although be warned there are no toilets on the premises.

Finally, an update on my hearing. I went back to the doctor, he looked at both ears and we talked through the options. On the good ear, the wax is softening and generally responding to the oil. However, the bad ear still has a huge build up of wax (we've treated both the same with oil so somewhat surprising). He agreed that there was a small chance that syringing would be dangerous, but said that was also true of micro-suction (he used to work in ENT). He also agreed that the hole in the drum should have cleared up, but it was impossible to tell with the wax there and if there was a chance it was still there then neither syringing or suction were suitable anyway. What I agreed with him, given the progress the oil managed on the good ear, was to carry on with the oil, but if there was no further improvement I'd go back and he'd book me into ENT.

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).

( Cut for spoilers, including comments on deleted scenes )

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.

The other Meteor group played today. Turns out that the way to give them major angst is to get them to name a beeb.

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.

I'm so looking forward to my holiday at the end of this month. I've started to feel rather run-down and tired. It's mostly because, whilst I've taken time off earlier in the year, it's always been to do something (such as Bea's dance show). The prospect of lying in a heap for a fortnight really appeals. Apart from anything else, I might get to finish Dirge or play The Void.

As per usual, my update-by-bullet-point:

• Heroes Emmy Nomination - A surprise, yes, but the category may be less of one: "Outstanding Art Direction For A Single-Camera Series". It's for Brave New World and I think it is well deserved. Heroes' problems were all in the writing - plot in particular, but also some of the dialogue. I doubt it'll win though. In other Heroes news, the movie is now looking less likely. So season four may be it.
• Gaunt's Ghosts - Now I've started on this Warhammer 40K fiction lark, I don't want to stop. I've moved on to the first Gaunt's Ghosts omnibus (apparently book 1 - The Founding - is the most popular 40K fiction) and enjoyed that too. Of the trilogy, the second book is a bit too flashback-to-short-story-per-Ghost but the first one is great if you like the good old "underdogs come through" stuff. The third book had a slow start, but I eventually got into it.
• Films - These were The Holiday and Starship Troopers. I have the same general comments about both of them, fun and enjoyable, but somewhat lacking in plot and not something I'd rewatch. The Holiday IMO isn't as good as 27 Dresses as it seems a bit aimless in places and Jack Black is a bad fit (particularly with the rest of the cast). That said, the interactions between Eli Wallach and Kate Winslett's characters were great. Starship Troopers had Denise Richards playing - what I seriously hope was supposed to be - one of the most annoying and smug characters I've ever seen on-screen. Consequently, I liked Dizzy on default alone (aka the other female character). It's not a bad premise, but again rather aimless and without a real conclusion.
• Portal - Can't believe I've not met Portal before now. But Steam were giving it away free and bateleur suggested I loaded it up. It's utterly awesome. I can see why even Zero Punctuation was stuck for criticism. Good puzzles, good pace, awesome black humour. And I just about coped with the motion sickness as I finished the end of level 18.
• Meteor - Last, but most important of all, I've finally kicked off my new roleplaying game. And, so far, so good. I love both the parties and I'm pleased at how differently things are progressing in different parts of the same world. lanfykins, bateleur, chrisvenus and AJ are stuck in the House of the Heretic hoping that the tomes in the library are going to save them whilst ao_lai, chrestomancy and quisalan are battling with divine clashes and a little matter of amnesia aided by bateleur's DPC. I'm hoping it continues to go to plan.