weblog March 18th, 2009
In my effort to post all the links in the notables thread, I’ve neglected the review column so here’s a blog post to rectify that. It’s been a conficting month. This quote from Eurogamer sums up my feelings “it’s now perfectly possible to love Sonic and wish he was dead at the same time.”
Dawn of War 2 is fun, and I haven’t even tried the co-op yet. I like the new focus on action, the rpg leveling up and no base building, but I have pangs of longing for the classic rts style. The missions are faster as a result, since you no longer have to build a base before leaping into the action. This makes multiplayer tougher, because there is now more emphasis on getting the right starting build and keeping your units alive. Lose a couple of squads due to poor unit selection or inattention and you won’t have the forces to take back the Strategic Points before the match ends.
Squads are treated as one entity like the first DOW, which makes handling large numbers of troops easy, unless one of your heavy weapons units gets involved in close combat. The rest of his squad then un-deploy their weapons and walk slowly into help him so their squad can entirely be involved in melee, because they’re the three musketeers apparently. Given that they have no qualms firing into a close combat fight at other times and that their firing damage is so much higher than their melee damage, I find this vexing. Telling a squad to teleport to an area that is out of the range of part of the squad can confuse them too.
The game is pretty, but it’s been some time since I played the first one, so it’s difficult to compare. There are some techinical issues though. The game would crash after every other mission, after the autosave had kicked in, so you wouldn’t lose anything except the time taken to restart the game. While only mildly annoying, that’s been patched out thankfully. Any remaining crashes are the fault of my computer.
Also the install screen looks like this:
Posted by Andy Cocker to Dawn of War 2, games | 4 Comments »
weblog March 16th, 2009
Things are quiet around atypicalreview, and it’s my fault. I’m a bad person. I can’t blame it all on my broken chair. It’s not like I’m not watching TV that I could be writing about. Dollhouse is steadily improving, and is supposed to get awesome next week, or so they tell me. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles continues to engage me, and I’ve scientifically proven that it’s not just because Summer Glau is in it. I like the general idea of John Connor and Skynet both reaching back through time, trying desperately to create themselves and destroy the other. Battlestar is one episode from ending and has staged a most unexpected comeback.
I should have reviewed Doctor Who‘s 2008 Christmas special as well, but ultimately it was just a little unremarkable, and so I’m having trouble remarking on it. There was a giant frickin’ robot stomping over Victorian London, and I can’t think of anything to say. That’s disappointing.
I still love those dots. I could change the subject to anything at this point and no one could argue. Unluckily for you, I’m changing it to the size of text.
I’m in the middle of a disagreement at work about what size text is ideal for a website, and what size is ‘standard’. A quick survey revealed that most of the more famous sites these days don’t drop below 13px. The Age hits 15px, as does The New York Times. Some have said the standard is 12px, but I don’t see the evidence, except in old timey 90s sites. Somewhere along the way I think everyone realised that there was no point in squinting. Or, more likely, we got bigger screens and so weren’t that fussed any more about squeezing everything in. Or, perhaps we actually decided to try to come close to vaguely respecting the default font size specified by the user.
Posted by Tom Charman to Doctor Who, Dollhouse, terminator, tv, website | Comments Off on Excuses
weblog March 10th, 2009
My chair’s broken, and when I sit on it, it sinks all the way to its lowest point. Consequently, I’ve not been writing much recently, as it’s not that comfortable. Oh, and I’ve been addicted to Fallout 3, too. But I’m clean now. I’m giving that shit back to Jackson. I won’t touch it no more, or at least, not until it gets some more DLC.
Anyhow.
It feels a little odd reviewing a seven year old TV show, so I won’t be. But permit me some waffle. I picked up the first season of The Wire from JB Hi-Fi the other day, for the princely sum of $15. Having heard Tony Martin go on about how awesome it was on ‘Get This’, I decided it was probably safe to make the investment. Three episodes in, In a shock twist, it turns out that it is awesome.
It tells the story of the drug trade and the police in Baltimore, Maryland. I went there for two days once, so I know all about it already, but it’s nice to get some extra perspective. It’s certainly more entertaining than Underbelly: A Tale of Two Titties. Perhaps partly because it’s not burdened by telling a real story, the characters are genuinely involving, on both sides of the law. And because of this, it’s gripping. I’m desperate to see if the noble but kind of pathetic Detective McNulty gets to actually bring down his target. Likewise, I can’t wait to find out whether D’Angelo will be able to improve things, or whether he’ll just stop caring.
And there’s no annoying voiceover, either. I’ll stop the Overbellly comparisons there, because it’s not strictly fair. They’re very different beasts. The Wire just feels a lot more mature. Or real. Or something.
Disappointingly for me, the later seasons are now trading at closer to $50. But to be honest, if they’re anything like the first season, then they’re worth it.
Posted by Tom Charman to games, the wire, tv | Comments Off on Wired
weblog February 8th, 2009
Often I’ve justified my rather dubious TV downloading practices with the excuse: if I had a way to get it legally the week it arrived, then of course I’d use it.
Now, the iTunes store in Australia is selling Battlestar Galactica episodes as they’re shown in the USA, and I find myself having to put my money where my mouth is. Unfortunately, whereas iTunes music has recently and wonderfully become DRM-free, video content is still bound up by various restrictions. The most annoying of these is that I can’t watch it on my television without buying an Apple TV. As I’m already the owner of an Xbox 360 and a Playstation 3, I’m reluctant to purchase yet another device.
Meanwhile, the iTunes solution is highly tempting as it’s in iiNet’s Freezone. And it comes down hassle free, and knows its episode name, and I don’t have to worry about seeding to people. But on the downside, there’s something vaguely irritating about paying for content which I know I’ll be buying on DVD or Blu-Ray later. If only buying a season of TV gave you a reduced price on buying such things later. At $3 dollars an episode, a 22-episode season becomes $66, which is often more than you’d pay for a nice, unrestricted, playable-anywhere set of DVDs.
Even once you get past the DRM and cost, there’s a few annoyances to iTunes television. For a start, there’s no way I can see to get notified when a new episode turns up. Apple have an RSS generator, but for some reason you can’t make a “Just Added TV” feed. The best I can find is the page in the iTunes store which shows you the most recent TV shows. But since you can’t bookmark the iTunes store, this isn’t super helpful either. And the update schedule seems poor. ‘The Oath’ arrived in the store on 30 January, and eight days later, the following episode has yet to arrive. This may sound like whinging, but one thing that your regular TV does usually manage to do is get a new episode for you every week.
Ultimately I’m not sold on iTunes TV. It’s super-easy, but restrictive and kind of expensive. Hopefully, at some point we’ll get some competition in the Australian marketplace, and things will take a turn for the better.
Posted by Tom Charman to apple, Battlestar Galactica, itunes, tv | 10 Comments »
weblog January 11th, 2009
New Zealand has two islands, and the ferry that crosses between them goes from Wellington (reasonably famous) to Picton (not very famous). Picton’s a touristy sort of place with parking for $2 a day and lots of nice crinkly coastline nearby.
As a result of the coastline, there are a lot of winding roads about, with 50km/h speed limits. Some people liked to sit up my arse as I traversed them. A special place in hell is reserved for these people. Hopefully, they’re stuck behind people like me there, too. Driving presented another challenge when I discovered that New Zealanders give way to right-hand turners when turning left. This at first created many awkward “you go!” “no, you go!” moments. This is nothing though, when you consider the terrible peril we’re in if any New Zealanders come to Australia and assume they have right of way turning right. What? I’m being told New Zealanders can come and go to Australia as they please. What happened to deciding who would come and the manner in which they did it? Madness.
Back to Picton. It’s a big port. It’s also a big tourist destination. Disappointingly, this means the restaurants are often over-priced and not that good. When your main consumer base keeps shifting every year, you can get away with this. If you are in Picton, I hear that Spinnaker is nice. We meant to go there, but never found it, instead opting for a few not completely impressive places. In general though, I never had a steak I didn’t like, so you can be reasonably comfortable ordering them from anywhere. Be warned; some places won’t serve you coffee unless you’re getting food. Tremendously uncivilised. We did however stop in at Alan Scott Winemakers on our Wine Tour and found the food there to be pretty awesome.
Our place of residence was A Sea View B&B. I have no idea why they called it this.
If you like amazing scenery, cooked breakfast every morning, handy local knowledge, and chickens, then A Sea View is the place for you.
The best thing about Picton is the stuff nearby. You can go kayaking, you can drink yourself silly in the Marlborough wine region, you can hike along the Queen Charlotte Track. Our kayaking was with the Marlborough Sounds Adventure Company, who took us around the Kenepuru Sound, which is rather pretty. The day started off relaxing and interesting, but got a little intense at the end when we needed to do a big open sea crossing to get back in time for our co-kayakers to check out of their hotel. Pah!
I’m already getting annoyed by rating towns out of ten, but I’ll do it once more; eight peaceful tourist towns out of ten.
Posted by Tom Charman to new zealand, travel | 3 Comments »
weblog January 11th, 2009
“If you ever do want to kill yourself, back lack the courage, I think a visit to Palmerston North will do the trick.”
John Cleese had some unkind things to say about Palmerston North. I can imagine thinking along similar lines if one had to spend a sustained period of time here. However, for a quick trip, it’s not too shabby. There are more lawyers than milk bars and more flouro tops than you can shake a stick at. It also has power lines under the ground, and a few little oddities.
The main city is arranged in a square. I like neat cities. However, they also just dump their garbage by the road rather than putting it in bins, so this neatness is somewhat undermined. Four sheep jokes out of ten.
Posted by Tom Charman to new zealand, travel | 2 Comments »
weblog January 9th, 2009
Lame. The food court is tiny and they wouldn’t let me upgrade my regular Red Rooster meal to include iced tea. Apparently only lard-arses who aren’t on my patented “medium chips” diet are entitled to Nestea. Disgraceful. Also, the weather was too hot, and the train driver between the airports was sarcastic. 2 daylight savings time abstainers out of 10.
Posted by Tom Charman to australia, travel | 3 Comments »
weblog January 9th, 2009
As our regular Who correspondent is AFK, I’m stepping in to relay this important news. Some guy called Matt Smith has been cast as the new Doctor, replacing David Tennant whenever he decides to leave.
Having seen Tennant replace Eccleston, I think I’ve got this being a Who fan thing down. First I’ll say that I don’t care for the new guy’s foppish hair, and that he could never replace the current Doctor. Then perhaps I’ll moan about why Tennant has to leave and savour the last episodes with him. Sometime next year, when I see the new guy in action, I’ll initially hate him for replacing Tennant but quickly change my tune and decide that the new guy is the best ever.
Posted by Andy Cocker to Doctor Who, tv | Comments Off on Doctor Who update – Andrew edition
weblog January 6th, 2009
The Internet has announced this week that a Slightly Larger iPod Touch has been cast in the role of the Mac Tablet in the iconic Apple rumour of the same name.
The Slightly Larger iPod Touch will be the 12th Mac Tablet rumour and will take over from the short-lived Jason O’Grady Mac Tablet rumour which like all previous incarnations, proved to be completely full of shit.
One rumour that has caught my fancy however, is the Apple Home Server Rumour. I want it.
In a house with three computers, and two people who have users on each one, having unified iPhoto and iTunes libraries that we can both access at the same time from any computer would be awesome.
Reading the article, the idea of having a massive media library stored on the internet sounds a bit ridiculous. Perhaps because we live in Australia – the land of crap upload speeds and data quotas – a combination which makes the whole idea working here retarded.
Anyway, expect a review this week. I would threaten to completely redesign the site to scare Tom, but since it would probably cost him $8 just to visit here from his phone I doubt he will read it.
Posted by Jackson Kearney to apple | 1 Comment »
weblog December 30th, 2008
Off to New Zealand! If I find any nice wireless networks then you might even hear from me while I’m there, but otherwise, you won’t, because it’ll cost me $20 per megabyte to use data there. Yeesh.
Posted by Tom Charman to new zealand, travel | Comments Off on Leaving
