Category: Recommended

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Movies Recommended

Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit Since Wallace and Gromit’s first short, “Grand Day Out”, I’ve always enjoyed watching these characters. Is it childish? Probably but what’s not to like about them? Their first big screen outing is backed by Dreamworks but the film still has a homegrown feel about it and benefits as a result. The titular pair own a pest control business and in the run up to the yearly giant vegetable contest, are kept particularly busy. That is until the were-rabbit appears and starts to mess with the townfolk and generally causes a ruckus.

The characters have always been a strong point in pieces by Aardman and this film is no different. Both Wallace and Gromit have some excellent scenes together and the interplay and timing of scenes is spot on. One thing which also struck me was the cinematography. For an animated title, it’s beautifully shot and the detail on the models is astounding. The script also has space for a cast of characters voiced by Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham-Carter and Peter Kay all of which complement the story excellently. If you’re looking for a funny film at the moment then you’d be a fool to overlook this. :mrgreen:

Tony’s Verdict: 9/10

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Games Recommended

Game Demos

Have played a few game demos over the past few days. First up was Peter Jackson’s King Kong (download). It’s being developled by Ubisoft so I suspected this would be a quality title. The demo looks superb and has two sections, one where you play as Jack Driscoll and the other as Kong. I won’t ruin it for people that plan to download it but the frame rate on the Kong section dropped because of my graphics card. I have a Radeon 9800 Pro so I suspected I would have some problems. Overall it’s an excellent demo and I’ll look forward to the full game but it may mean a graphics card update in the near future if I’m to play it properly.

The second demo I downloaded was Call of Duty 2 (download). For anyone who’s played the original, you’ll know what to expect but on a bigger scale with improved graphics. The demo is set in Africa where you’re with a British batallion fighting in a small town close to the coast. You have to take out a set of anti-aircraft guns and make your way through the town. The graphics are spot on and the dogfights going on above the town lend a real sense of chaos to the action. Looking forward to it.

Lastly was Pro Evolution Soccer 5 (download). Pro Evo has long been the king of football titles on sheer realism and control. It just feels like a better football game than FIFA. The latest incarnation improves on the graphic front but they also seem to have done a lot of work on the physics. Players now bounce off each other better and fall to the ground in a variety of different ways. There was no slowdown whatsoever while I was playing and the players look remarkably like their real life counterparts. What they say about football titles on PC holds through here. You can’t play it comfortably with the keyboard. I’d need to invest in a controller but I may just do that considering this title won’t be available on Gamecube.

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Movies Recommended

Serenity

Serenity Wow, what a great sci-fi movie. There had been quite a lot of talk about Joss Whedon’s first movie but I can’t say I was all that excited. Why? Mainly because I never watched Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and his other series, Firefly, which Serenity was based on was never shown over here. Serenity is one of the best sci-fi films of recent times and I agree with Dave in that it shows what Star Wars was doing wrong. You get a real sense of character from every cast member and the script is witty, intelligent and downright scary. These people are friends and they need to stick together to survive. I’ll definitely be looking out for this when it comes to DVD. 🙂

Oh and Jewel Staite is f*cking hot.

Tony’s Verdict: 9/10

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Games General Recommended Web

All Consuming Update

This entry covers on a bunch of things that I just didn’t get time to blog about over the past few days, hence the title. I have to make it quick as well as I’m meeting some of my former college buddies for drinks in about an hour. In that time I have to feed myself too. 😐 Apparently, The Finest, have a gig coming up this weekend in Eamonn Dorans that I hope to get along to. A few of the lads in the band are mates from Oxegen.

Having major trouble with our work email system. We run a service for another provider in the North and their registration page is being hit by spam registrations at the moment. I’ve tried a variety of different things to ward them off but I can’t use mod_rewrite at the moment as it screws up the admin interface for the mail. 👿 Have to get on to our network guys in the morning about it.

I bought and played Day of Defeat: Source on Tuesday night with Trev. We used to play the original DOD constantly back in college on the LAN so it was nostalgic to see the old game back with a new engine. The game itself is as good as it was and the physics are brilliant with explosions and the rag-doll physics model really making a difference. In fact I spent two hours playing it without realising. 🙂 Sign of a good game.

Web Readings Lately:

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Recommended

Veronica Mars

Veronica MarsFinally got around to watching the first episode of Veronica Mars. Dave had been ranting about how good it was so I acquired one of the episodes a few months back but never got around to watching it. All I can say is “wow”. For a series opener it’s excellent and is definitely going to keep me watching. I also really like the web site for the show, it’s innovative and not your bog-standard TV site. Thumbs up all round. 🙂