The 1% Club
3x08 Episode 8
[Watch it (again) on ITVX.]
Tuesday, 17 September 2024
Monday, 16 September 2024
Sunday, 15 September 2024
Audio Drama
Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor Adventures
The Stuff of Legend Part 1
The Stuff of Legend Part 2
This is the Big Finish 25th anniversary production that was performed live in London this weekend (twice yesterday, twice today — an expanded number of performances because of demand). Obviously I didn't go, but they released the studio-recorded version simultaneously for those who preordered it, so I thought I'd give it a listen in... solidarity? Not quite the right concept, but anyway.
The Stuff of Legend Part 1
The Stuff of Legend Part 2
This is the Big Finish 25th anniversary production that was performed live in London this weekend (twice yesterday, twice today — an expanded number of performances because of demand). Obviously I didn't go, but they released the studio-recorded version simultaneously for those who preordered it, so I thought I'd give it a listen in... solidarity? Not quite the right concept, but anyway.
Comics
2000 AD #2390
The Uncanny X-Men #1 by Gail Simone & David Marquez
The next part in the "From the Ashes" X-relaunch is volume 6 of Uncanny. (Random point: this comic is always referred to as just Uncanny X-Men, including by Marvel themselves, but there's a The at the front of the title; it's right there on all the covers. Hardly a big deal, I know, but it's still kinda weird that even the official listings by the publisher don't acknowledge that, when they're the ones who put it there.)
Anyway, these issues have the same problem faced by so many in-continuity relaunches: having to acknowledge the previous events that were so affecting they caused enough change to provoke a renumbering, while also trying to keep things simple and appealing enough for new readers. The two I've read so far have handled that reasonably well — it's clear Stuff Has Happened, but I still enjoyed what I read.
That said: absolute beginners would be completely lost — you still need some idea of who the X-Men and the main characters are to even attempt these books. Indeed, this one feels aimed specifically at fans of the animated series, as it stars most of the fan-favourite characters from that show. I don't know if that was deliberate, but with X-Men '97 launching recently too, it does feel like a conscious choice.
The Uncanny X-Men #1 by Gail Simone & David Marquez
The next part in the "From the Ashes" X-relaunch is volume 6 of Uncanny. (Random point: this comic is always referred to as just Uncanny X-Men, including by Marvel themselves, but there's a The at the front of the title; it's right there on all the covers. Hardly a big deal, I know, but it's still kinda weird that even the official listings by the publisher don't acknowledge that, when they're the ones who put it there.)
Anyway, these issues have the same problem faced by so many in-continuity relaunches: having to acknowledge the previous events that were so affecting they caused enough change to provoke a renumbering, while also trying to keep things simple and appealing enough for new readers. The two I've read so far have handled that reasonably well — it's clear Stuff Has Happened, but I still enjoyed what I read.
That said: absolute beginners would be completely lost — you still need some idea of who the X-Men and the main characters are to even attempt these books. Indeed, this one feels aimed specifically at fans of the animated series, as it stars most of the fan-favourite characters from that show. I don't know if that was deliberate, but with X-Men '97 launching recently too, it does feel like a conscious choice.
Games
Fighting Fantasy
Shadow of the Giants by Ian Livingstone
Continuing my second attempt — and, this time, completing it. I didn't actually expect to finish: I'd been waiting for a good place to pause, and suddenly I found myself in the finale and I thought I might as well finish. All in, it took me about two-and-a-half hours to complete. I know I missed some sections (there's a whole optional fight with a dragon, for example), but I guess that's in the nature of these types of books — you don't see everything in one go-through (well, I could've, but I didn't).
What does continue to slightly bug me is how I only won because I happened to make the correct arbitrary choice in some moments. I looked at some alternate pathways later, and some of them end your adventure prematurely 'just because'. Again, I get that it's a limitation of the format (otherwise the books would probably spiral out of control to hundreds or thousands of pages), but if you don't have space to write a convincing alternative pathway, maybe don't bother?
Example: at one point you're meant to team up with another character as you head out on a mission. I did, and so was able to complete the book. What if you don't team up with him? Can you still complete it, but it's more challenging? No. Can you have a crack at it but, ultimately, you need his support? No. Instead, with in a choice or two, the book has your character either do something stupid or encounter a random event that kills you. To me, that's not playing fair. You're punished and lose because the book doesn't have time/room to provide an alternative pathway, not thanks to the consequences of your actions. No wonder they emphasise the "one true path" thing — the only way you can spin that as fair is via some fate-esque "you must make all the right choices at key moments to bring the good outcome" ideology.
That said, it's still fun — it just makes me think it's less "cheating" and more "how you have to play to succeed" to do that thing where you remember paragraph numbers and flip back a bit if you get an unfavourable outcome. After all, if the book isn't playing fair with you, why should you play fair with it?
Shadow of the Giants by Ian Livingstone
Continuing my second attempt — and, this time, completing it. I didn't actually expect to finish: I'd been waiting for a good place to pause, and suddenly I found myself in the finale and I thought I might as well finish. All in, it took me about two-and-a-half hours to complete. I know I missed some sections (there's a whole optional fight with a dragon, for example), but I guess that's in the nature of these types of books — you don't see everything in one go-through (well, I could've, but I didn't).
What does continue to slightly bug me is how I only won because I happened to make the correct arbitrary choice in some moments. I looked at some alternate pathways later, and some of them end your adventure prematurely 'just because'. Again, I get that it's a limitation of the format (otherwise the books would probably spiral out of control to hundreds or thousands of pages), but if you don't have space to write a convincing alternative pathway, maybe don't bother?
Example: at one point you're meant to team up with another character as you head out on a mission. I did, and so was able to complete the book. What if you don't team up with him? Can you still complete it, but it's more challenging? No. Can you have a crack at it but, ultimately, you need his support? No. Instead, with in a choice or two, the book has your character either do something stupid or encounter a random event that kills you. To me, that's not playing fair. You're punished and lose because the book doesn't have time/room to provide an alternative pathway, not thanks to the consequences of your actions. No wonder they emphasise the "one true path" thing — the only way you can spin that as fair is via some fate-esque "you must make all the right choices at key moments to bring the good outcome" ideology.
That said, it's still fun — it just makes me think it's less "cheating" and more "how you have to play to succeed" to do that thing where you remember paragraph numbers and flip back a bit if you get an unfavourable outcome. After all, if the book isn't playing fair with you, why should you play fair with it?
Videos
Critical Role
2x55 Duplicity [2nd half]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube, or Twitch, or Beacon.]
Talks Machina
#104 'Duplicity'
[Watch it (again) on Internet Archive.]
2x55 Duplicity [2nd half]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube, or Twitch, or Beacon.]
Talks Machina
#104 'Duplicity'
[Watch it (again) on Internet Archive.]
this week on 100Films.co.uk
Oh my God, it's finally happened — for the first time since May, a new review was published to 100Films.co.uk this week! And it was of something I watched recently too, which is a first since April. And it was...
The Swordsman of All Swordsmen (1968)
More next Sunday? You never know!
The Swordsman of All Swordsmen (1968)
The film runs a tight 85 minutes, and in that time manages to pack in seven sword fights and still find room for some honour-based moral conflict. The action comes thick and fast (that’s an average of a fresh duel starting every 12 minutes, maths fans) but remains thrilling throughout.Read more here.
More next Sunday? You never know!
Saturday, 14 September 2024
Videos
Critical Role
2x55 Duplicity [1st half]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube, or Twitch, or Beacon.]
Talks Machina
#103 'Well Beneath'
[Watch it (again) on Internet Archive.]
2x55 Duplicity [1st half]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube, or Twitch, or Beacon.]
Talks Machina
#103 'Well Beneath'
[Watch it (again) on Internet Archive.]
Collection Count
Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.
Only two new additions this week, and one is a DVD-to-4K upgrade at that (always feels like a fun jump, probably because I'm glad I didn't spend money on a Blu-ray that I don't seem to have watched 99% of the time). But I also took a look at the actual contents of some previous purchases (as opposed to what the listings / online info said) and reclassified some shorts as TV episodes. Not really important, just wanted to explain that change at the bottom of the list.
Number of titles in collection: 3,372 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 998 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,374 [up 2]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 389 [up 2]
Number of discs in collection: 8,121 [up 3]
Number of films: 4,163 [up 1]
Number of additional cuts: 397 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 9,800 [up 9]
Number of short films: 1,163 [down 8]
See you next week, faithful reader.
Only two new additions this week, and one is a DVD-to-4K upgrade at that (always feels like a fun jump, probably because I'm glad I didn't spend money on a Blu-ray that I don't seem to have watched 99% of the time). But I also took a look at the actual contents of some previous purchases (as opposed to what the listings / online info said) and reclassified some shorts as TV episodes. Not really important, just wanted to explain that change at the bottom of the list.
Number of titles in collection: 3,372 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 998 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,374 [up 2]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 389 [up 2]
Number of discs in collection: 8,121 [up 3]
Number of films: 4,163 [up 1]
Number of additional cuts: 397 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 9,800 [up 9]
Number of short films: 1,163 [down 8]
See you next week, faithful reader.
Friday, 13 September 2024
Games
Fighting Fantasy
Shadow of the Giants by Ian Livingstone
Began a second attempt. It's going a lot better so far.
If I had one criticism (and I don't know if this applies to all books in the series or just this one volume) it's that it relies too much on luck — not the luck of a dice roll (that's fine; that's games for you), but in terms of what choices you make. This is partly a limitation of the format (unless the book were huge, only so many choices can be meaningful), but there don't seem to be any overriding principles to help decisionmaking.
For example, it could be that you should always talk to people because it will always lead somewhere, or that you should never talk to people because they'll always scam you — but both of those things happen, and it's pure luck which choice will benefit you at any moment. I'd be ok with that if there was always a 'save', but quite often an incorrect choice either hobbles you or leads to permadeath.
I can see why "most people" (anecdotally) resort to marking points of divergence and going back a step or two (or three or four, maybe) if things go sour. It's no worse than saving in a computer game, really, and a lot less time consuming than starting the whole thing over because you made one wrong decision deep, deep into the story.
Shadow of the Giants by Ian Livingstone
Began a second attempt. It's going a lot better so far.
If I had one criticism (and I don't know if this applies to all books in the series or just this one volume) it's that it relies too much on luck — not the luck of a dice roll (that's fine; that's games for you), but in terms of what choices you make. This is partly a limitation of the format (unless the book were huge, only so many choices can be meaningful), but there don't seem to be any overriding principles to help decisionmaking.
For example, it could be that you should always talk to people because it will always lead somewhere, or that you should never talk to people because they'll always scam you — but both of those things happen, and it's pure luck which choice will benefit you at any moment. I'd be ok with that if there was always a 'save', but quite often an incorrect choice either hobbles you or leads to permadeath.
I can see why "most people" (anecdotally) resort to marking points of divergence and going back a step or two (or three or four, maybe) if things go sour. It's no worse than saving in a computer game, really, and a lot less time consuming than starting the whole thing over because you made one wrong decision deep, deep into the story.
Thursday, 12 September 2024
Videos
Critical Role
2x54 Well Beneath [1st half]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube, or Twitch, or Beacon.]
Talks Machina
#102 'Cornered'
Talking about the previous episode of CR, of course, but this Talks aired the day after the Kickstarter for the Vox Machina animated special launched — for those who don't know, it reached its target in the first hour and sailed past all planned stretch goal points before they even had the chance to do the launch day live Q&A that was meant to help drum up interest (with hindsight: lol; it's a great watch in itself), and went on to become the most successful film/TV Kickstarter of all time — so of course they have to talk about that too. Plus the guests are Matt and Sam, two of the best for talking about the show anyway, so it's a great episode all round. (Shame it's "not available" anymore, but I get why.)
[Watch it (again) on Internet Archive.]
2x54 Well Beneath [1st half]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube, or Twitch, or Beacon.]
Talks Machina
#102 'Cornered'
Talking about the previous episode of CR, of course, but this Talks aired the day after the Kickstarter for the Vox Machina animated special launched — for those who don't know, it reached its target in the first hour and sailed past all planned stretch goal points before they even had the chance to do the launch day live Q&A that was meant to help drum up interest (with hindsight: lol; it's a great watch in itself), and went on to become the most successful film/TV Kickstarter of all time — so of course they have to talk about that too. Plus the guests are Matt and Sam, two of the best for talking about the show anyway, so it's a great episode all round. (Shame it's "not available" anymore, but I get why.)
[Watch it (again) on Internet Archive.]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)