Star One is the brain child of Dutch musician Arjen Anthony Lucassen. There are a few definitions around of the type of music that Star One plays, but I think the title of the first album actually sums it up best – Space Metal.

Star One is geek friendly music; each song tells a sci-fi story and the vast majority of their tracks are based on SF movies or TV shows. Here’s a taste; “Earth That Was”, from Victims of the Modern Age:

Space Metal was the first album I listened to and was pretty much sold when I realised that there were songs on there about Stargate, Alien, and Star Trek. Victims of the Modern Age went on to add The Matrix, Firefly, and 12 Monkeys into the mix, amongst others.

What I like about Star One is that the massive sound I loved about Ayreon (Arjen Lucassen’s best known project) was still there, but now it was attached to songs about movies and shows that I loved. Additionally, while the songs remain heavy, there’s a good deal of synth in there (which suits the SF theme) and some of the tracks are insanely catchy as well.

A cast of singers allows room for different characters, particularly in “The Eye of Ra” and “Songs of the Ocean”. The “stories” aren’t told outright either; events are often seen from the point of view of the characters from a film or show.

I discovered Star One through listening to Ayreon, another band that I can’t recommend enough, and which is also “geek friendly”; telling a continuous SF story across many albums (with one exception). The music is massive, the story is massive, and the musical cast is great.

I can’t recommend Lucassen’s music enough (there are many other projects and bands with which he’s been involved), but it’s Ayreon and Star One in particular that captured my imagination.

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As you’re no doubt aware big time MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) launched just before Christmas, as avid Star Wars fans both Onimi and I were extremely excited about this. Docta Jonez has also jumped on board for the ride and so far we’ve all been loving it.

I genuinely believe you can’t properly “review” MMORPGs, it’s an extremely subjective genre and worse other people can change you experience significantly. All my reviews should be treated as subjective but this one more than any other, I am a huge Star Wars fan and it’s an MMO. If nothing else I hope I can at least shed some light on the games good and bad points and explain how certain systems work.

Gameplay

Clearly Force Choke & Force Lightning is everywhere

SWTOR features pretty generic MMORPG questing gameplay at its heart. No matter how much you dress it up it’s still a quest giver telling you to go kill X of Y or deactivate the thing in place Z. I think this grind and quest game play either does or does not appeal to you as a player, the good news is that if it usually doesn’t, I think SWTOR could be the one that wins you over.

It’s more story driven than any MMO before it and you character matters more than ever before thanks to them incorporating Biowares favourite moral choice systems and conversation trees.

There are 5 main types of gameplay TOR offers that we need to explore;

Class Quests

Class quests are the meat of your gameplay experience. Each class has a unique story that they follow through from level 1 up to around level 35. While new content is always being added this is where the legacy content is ending at the moment.

Class questing essentially plays like a Star Wars themed Mass Effect expansion. For those who have not properly player Mass Effect this is a pretty extreme compliment. For the first time ever in an MMO your character is rich, interesting and not a mindless mute who just accepts every quest that comes to them. I am playing Sith Inquisitor, essentially the Dark Side Mage class, my story has involved following a twisting network of Sith betraying each other, questing for power and generally acting evil. Not only does it feel perfectly in line with the expanded universe it really helped me build and understand my character.

The voice acting is amazing, the sheer amount of options and acting in one story is staggering, combined with all the other quests and class story lines I really can see how it’s taken so long to put together but its 100% worth it.

The moral choice system is pretty standard but it’s still really interesting to play it inside an MMO and I love how the voice actors have actually put emotional inflection on some of the choice so you genuinely sound maniacal when continuous force lightning torturing some NPC.

SWTOR is worth buying and playing just to play these quests. For that to be true of a MMO is a really huge step, I think the only thing that has come remotely close is Guild Wars and even then your character really wasn’t your own. If you played games like Mass Effect or Dragon Age and know how important it is to play a character you create and shape then you’ll know what I’m talking about when I say it makes all the difference in this game.

General Quests

These are pretty simple bread and butter MMO quests that you pick up alongside adventuring for your class quests. The difference between this game and other MMOs again comes down to sheer attention to detail.

Nearly every quest (at least 90%) is given by a voiced NPC, each of these NPCs genuinely has a character. Some I liked, some I hated, some I didn’t care about but what other MMO is this true of? Quests tied into each other well and one of the early planets the Empire finds itself on is Balmorra.

Balmorra is basically in the midst of a rebellion and many of the quests you pick up on the planet involve suppressing this revolt and bringing the planet back under control. Even though the bottom line gameplay is go out and kill X of Y it’s made to feel much more fresh and enjoyable because you doing it as part of a larger objective. Again I know TOR isn’t the first thing to do this but it’s certainly the best, the voice acting and cutscenes make even mundane quests interesting and gives you even more chance to develop your character. I genuinely refused a few quests at times because I felt they were “beneath” my character to complete and the game actually accepts this.

You’re going to spend a lot of your time doing these quests and while many are solo-able there are frequently more advanced 2-4 player team quests that need completing, again these tie into the overall storyline of a particular planet. And feature conversation points similar to the ones in Flashpoints described below.

Flashpoints

Each location has a few “Flashpoints” to explore. These are basically special multiplayer missions that have important stories and longer term objectives. They often interact with the major over arching story which I am beginning to take for granted in TOR but most games would easily fuck up.

You start by rounding up a few friends and going to a specific map point to start the mission. You’ll then be transported to an instance with them and the story will begin. You’ll now play something similar to a short series of class quests which work multiplayer.

That doesn’t sound especially impressive until you consider what I said the class section about conversations and character development, in a Flashpoint this happens multiplayer. You still have prolonged voice Acted conversations only this time instead of just your response the whole team has to respond. This basically works by randomly picking who’s “choice” is read aloud but it adds a real feeling of richness to the missions, you never know what your crew mates are going to do and since the missions often include moral choices you could quite easily end up on a completely different story depending on who is with you.

I am really enjoying the Flashpoint system and this is one of the things that Bioware have promised will continue receiving content, if you have a few real life friends you can bring with you to SWTOR then it’s worth it just for this. If they ever do make that ME MMO it should play like this continually.

Space Combat

I think this is the Republic Trooper ship, not quite the Falcon but trying hard

Space combat in TOR is probably the most disappointing thing for me. Not because it’s bad, in fact it’s very enjoyable but more because it’s not what it was in Star Wars Galaxies which is what I really wanted.

Space combat is essentially a single player (to my knowledge I have not done multiplayer missions yet) rail shooter where you fly around shoot and dodge your way to victory. If I were to say it plays like a really good PSN Store game maybe you’ll get the right vibe from it. It defiantly feels like a minigame and not as “part” of the universe as all the other stuff.

Bottom line it looks great, controls well and is generally fun so I don’t want to complain about it but I really liked Galaxies free roaming space. As Docta quite rightly pointed out they probably just didn’t want to spread the game development teams too thinly.

PvP

Obviously the game has a big PvP side to it being set in the middle of a war, to be honest I have not had a huge amount of time to explore PvP yet. I’ll probably return and update this section once I have got a more informed opinion.

Controls & Systems

Controls

The controls are basic but fine. They are tried and tested MMO stuff with a skill bar and some basic run, walk jump controls. Most interaction is done via clicking it and while combat can be frantic it’s never much more than using your skills and hopping out of AoE skills.

Conversation dialogues use the Mass Effect style wheel, again tried and tested and no complaints there.

There are plenty of tweaks you can throw at the UI and the controls in general but all of it is surface detail to the basic truth that there is only one way these kind of games control.

Space combat is very point and clicky but it works quite well, its responsive and I have no complaints here either, it would be nice to see an extra layer or two of complexity to the space combat controls but again this comes back to my love of space combat in Galaxies, not specifically that there is anything wrong with these controls.

Moral Choice System

There has always been a lot of criticism out there for moral choice systems, the most common criticism is that you can’t play a life of balance and expect rewards, I’m sad to say that this has not been fixed in TOR. I personally don’t mind that much but I do understand the criticism and anyone who does care about it will find the problem very prevalent in TOR. Essentially the moral choice system is all about building your character, you shouldn’t care how much light or dark side points you have as long as your character is doing what he/she would do. Unfortunately this is not the case, some items have dark/light side requirements and things get complex very quickly.

Not only do you have to have a certain level of dark/light side points you have to dedicate yourself to a path to truly equip the specialist items. This is because the game works out your alignment level by taking them away from each other, for example if you have made a bunch of dark decisions giving you 1000 dark points but 2 good decisions giving you 100 light points this makes you 900 dark. This means you are almost punished for mixing your decisions up, I really don’t like this and it means I sometimes end up not choosing a dialogue option I want because I’m concerned for my alignment. The specialist items are at the end of the day replaceable so I guess you could ignore it but MMOs are often all about your equipment and I don’t want to be wishing I could equip my new dark side sabre; I just want to equip it.

The good news is that the actual conversations and social interactions from the two paths are fantastic, the dark side really is dark often involving unneeded killing and torture and I am enjoying playing a bad guy for a change.

Companions

This is my companion. Not a sex scene though, he's always half naked.

To help with soloing and to bolster the story modes TOR has a companion system. You pick up your first companion during training, as an Inquisitor I picked up a tank companion who does me a lot of good by taking damage and aggro. Most classes have a well chosen primary companion who will counter balance their classes own skills. The most amazing thing about them is that they are genuinely characters in your story. Not only was gaining my companion a really important part of the story he remains important, interacting in important conversations and commenting on various developments in my narrative.

There is a weak Bioware approval system in with your companion, you can give them gifts and converse with them when you’re on your ship to improve ratings but the majority of the approval/disapproval will come from normal quest conversations.

Your companion will often react to things you say and do inside quests and you’ll gain approval if you impress them with how you handle situations. This is another fantastic example of how hard Bioware has worked to make it all tie in well together; the alignment, approval and conversation systems all sit together well and in turn tie in beautifully with the universe.

You get multiple companions (but can only travel with one at a time) and they count towards the party limit similar to Guild Wars so are often not around in multiplayer quests.

Crafting

A staple of a good MMO crafting can contribute quite strongly to making and breaking a game, I’m very pleased to say that SWTOR scores a hat-trick in the crafting department.

Why is the crafting so good in TOR? Because you don’t have to do it yourself. You send your recruited companions off to craft whenever you want. You still have to manage the tasks, choose the right missions, craft the right items, manage materials and schematics but you don’t have to do the grind. Speaking as someone who works full time and has other hobbies this is a godsend. I hate missing out on crafting inside an MMO because I simply don’t have time to actually do it and this solves that problem 100%.

Crafting is called Crew Skills and you have 3 crew skill slots, one of these can be an actual crafting profession (where you make items) and the others can be either gathering or mission based professions. They all provide different rewards and obviously certain gathering and crafting professions go together.

It’s very simple menu based stuff but I think it’s a wise step for crafting inside MMOs and I honestly prefer it to any other crafting system I have seen before.

Social Points

The game also contains a social point’s reward system where you gain points and levels just for questing with other people. This in turn gets you access to specific items. It’s a small tweak but I like anything that encourages people to play together.

Audio

The games audio is, in a word, fantastic.

Firstly the voice acting is superb. We’re talking 1000s up on 1000s of hours of dialogue in this game, not only do all quest givers and story NPCs talk to you there are also plenty of random conversations going off in cities and spaceports that are simply awesome. It’s such a small change on the surface but switching most of the dialogue to spoken rather than text creates a much, much more engrossing experience.

It reflects emotion well and just my own character has been funny, arrogant, angry, arrogant, sarcastic, mistrusting and arrogant. [Obligatory "bit like me"]

It seems the “Imperials” are all Scottish, English or Welsh because as we all know, the UK is the source of all evil. I don’t mind so much, I can tell what they’re saying at least.

The music is also beautiful, I have the special edition so got the CD to go with the game and I’ve really enjoy it. It fades in an out in the game really well and switches during bigger battles and important story points and while it’s not been done by John Williams it captures much of the epic scale that he usually weaves into the series.

We also have all the Lucas brand Star Wars sound effects which let’s face it are nearly as important as brand itself. Alongside the music it really helps to add depth to the world and I really can’t find a single point of criticism for the games audio department.

Graphics

The pretty landscape of Nar Shaddaa

It’s always hard to judge MMORPG graphics, they generally look worse than single player games because of server load and TOR is no exception. After walking away from Skyrim to play this I can’t turn around and say the visuals of TOR are particularly stunning.

This doesn’t stop the game looking good however, the games not breaking any boundaries with its graphics but they are more than good enough to work with and the environments and space battles look really good.

They have chosen to slightly stylise characters, it’s not quite cell shaded but it has that slightly cartoony feel to it. They are still reasonably realistic and there are plenty of well done facial animations, especially lip syncing and emotions but it’s hard to make the Star Wars Universe with all its odd aliens and robots indefinitely realistic. I found the character creator limiting because of this stylisation but later on you realise the equipment massively changes your characters appearance so don’t worry about it too much at the start.

The game makes up for its slightly unimpressive character models with the environments, huge draw distances and great looking scenery (ok it’s not Skyrim). Some of the city heavy planets look especially nice and considering this is an MMO you really can’t complain.

Space combat looks especially nice, really large vistas and impressive looking ships flying around screen, exploding and/or on fire. They’re often lots of animations of screen and I’ve not seen it suffer yet.

In Conclusion

SWTOR is the best MMO I’ve played in a while, it’s better than Guild Wars and WoW and it’s defiantly better than the more recent Final Fantasy XIV. The story focus is exactly what I want form an MMO and it does such a fantastic job of keeping the mess that is the extended Star Wars Universe together.

I brings together a range of decent systems and minigames and combines it with amazing levels of voice acting, a 5 star soundtrack and very respectable graphics.

The Flashpoints are the real gem here, I hope this changes how all developers of future MMOs look at co-operative multiplayer missions but I doubt any will pull it off as smoothly as Bioware.

SWTOR proves that Bioware really are a great studio, lesser teams would have fucked this game and while it bares many of Biowares “one trick pony” hallmarks I honestly don’t see it as a problem.

I hope i can stay enthused about this game for a while to come, I know that all MMOs have a plateau point but maybe Bioware’s promised content will keep me on board.

I think SWTOR is a must buy for real Star Wars fans and a strongly recommend buy for anyone who likes Biowares other games or people looking for a new MMO to love.

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5) Missi Pyle
Even if you don’t know her by name, you’ll recognise Missi when you see her. I think we probably know her more from movies that TV shows, but she has been in her fair share of genre films.
The first thing I remember seeing her in is Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but she’s also been in:
Galaxy Quest, Josie & The Pussycats, Roswell High, The Tick, Big Fish, Dodgeball, Anchorman, My Name is Earl, Heroes, Pushing Daisies, and American Dad

4) Amanda Tapping

Amanda Tapping will, first and foremost, always be Samantha Carter to me, and to millions of Stargate fans around the globe. I know she splits opinion among some people, but I think Sam Carter is a great character (once the sorted out the first season niggles, and we have Amanda to thank for some of that). It was only after I had seen her as Sam Carter, however, that I realised how much other SF stuff Amanda Tapping has been in. Not only has she been in every Stargate series, from SG-1 to Universe, she’s also appeared in:
Goosebumps, Due South, The X-Files, The Outer Limits, Millennium, Earthsea, Sanctuary, Stargate: Continuum, and Stargate: The Ark of Truth

3) Summer Glau
Summer Glau has only been appearing on our TV screens for about 10 years. Of course, most of us know her as River Tam from Firefly, but a glance back over her filmography on IMDB reveals that right from the start she was appearing in our kind of shows. Let’s take a look at what else you’ll know her from:
Angel, Cold Case, CSI, Serenity, The 4400, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Dollhouse, Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, Chuck, The Big Bang Theory, and Alphas

2) Gina Torres
When Gina walked onto our screens as Zoe in Firefly, I knew I’d seen her in other things before, but couldn’t quite place her. Again, when you start looking back, it becomes apparent that she’s been in a lot of TV that we’ve watched over the years, and a few films as well. Add to this some video game voice over work and you can see that SF and fantasy seems to be one of her mainstays. You’ll have seen Gina in:
Law & Order, Xena: Warrior Princess, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Cleopatra 2525, Angel, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, CSI, 24, Justice League, Without a Trace, Alias, Pushing Daisies, Flashforward, The Vampire Diaries, and Transformers Prime

1) Lucy Lawless
Known to all of us as Xena, Warrior Princess, Lucy Lawless has carved herself a niche in geek friendly TV. It seems impossible that Xena was first airing almost 20 years ago, but that also shows how long Lucy Lawless has been on our screens.
So, as well as appearing in Warrior Princess, Lucy Lawless has also been in:
Hercules and the Amazon Women, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, The X-Files, Spider-Man, Tarzan, Spider-Man 2, Veronica Mars, Burn Notice, Dragonlance, Justice League, CSI: Miami, The Simpsons, Battlestar Galactica, Flight of the Conchords, American Dad, Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, and Spartacus: Blood and Sand

Honourable mentions have to include: Claudia Black (check out how much video game voice over work she’s done), Mary McDonnell, Jewel Staite, Eliza Dushku, Gillian Anderson, and Melinda Clarke.

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OK so I’m a bit late with this one but wanted to get it up on the site before SWTOR comes out. There is a lot to talk about here so grab a cup of tea and a few biscuits and let’s talk about the Dragonborn.

Sequel to popular free roaming RPG Oblivion, Bethesda’s Skyrim is one of the most anticipated games of the year and bottom line it really delivers as both a great free roaming RPG and as a much improved sequel to Oblivion.

I was a big fan of both Oblivion and the more recent Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas games, they are expansive, enjoyable and engrossing, three very important qualities of good role playing games and I was honestly looking forward to Skyrim as one of the best games this year.

While it has its flaws I can honestly say that Skyrim lives up to the hype, I still have a few to go through (Batman, SWTOR and Uncharted) before I say it’s THE best game of 2011 but at the moment it’s a strong contender.

Gameplay

Most dragons are dicks. Get over it and go kill them.

Skyrim clearly aims to be an immersive experience, from the opening scene to your first visit to a major city the game aims to impress you, draw you in and get you excited about fighting dragons and questing.

The most notable point of the gameplay is just how free roaming Skyrim really is. If you’ve played Fallout 3 or Oblivion you’ll be familiar with how Bethesda does things. Main story progression really is optional and you can run around doing side quests until you hit the level cap before the story ever even thinks about forcing you to proceed. In actual fact it can even be quite difficult to identify story missions from side quests early on, a blessing and a curse which I will go into later.

Essentially Skyrim plays as a 1^st or 3^rd person adventure RPG in which you play through a series of dungeon crawls to fetch artefacts kill bosses or learn information. Nothing in any way about the basic setup and execution of the gameplay of this game is really unique but what it lacks in pure innovation it more than makes up for in almost flawless execution.

Dungeons are generally well balanced, they have interesting surroundings and different styles of traps and puzzles that will keep your interest for a fair amount of the game. Repetition does start to creep in towards the end of the game but I have a feeling this is because there is just so much content not because the game especially lacks variety.

Although the story is nothing astonishing it’s actually very enjoyable and while your character is a bit of a bland nobody the world is literally filled with fun, interesting quest givers and villains of varying types which more than makes up for it.

One of the things that impressed me right off the bat was how much race seemed to matter in the game, people of different races often had connecting opinions and discourse and this created a really strong feeling of tribal unity that crossed the whole content. It even successfully pulled off racism without being tacky or cliché and I think that deserves a mention on its own. So many sci-fi/fantasy setting games handle that subject like a Warhammer of Clumsiness +10 and it’s great to see someone play it subtly and not just go “Yeah people hate Elves/Dwarves/Blue Aliens, they’re slaves JUST LIKE BLACK PEOPLE WERE AT ONE POINT IN EARTH HISTORY, DO YOU GET THE REFERENCE??!?!” [I’m looking at you Bioware]

One point of innovation Skyrim does get is how quests “evolve”. It’s only a little touch but it really does make a lot more sense than speaking to one NPC and then getting a huge long quest dialogue for no particular reason.

Essentially quests usually start with a menial task, deliver this note, find this bit of information, investigate the cave but many evolve into being much larger stories. An example is that at one point I got a quest to fetch some medicine for a sick old guy, after I got this it didn’t work I went on a big quest to get a legendary item which when discovered was broken and I had to go get a series of rare items to fix it. Some would argue this is stringing out side-quests but because the characters are actually deep and involving it never feels like a chore.

Although many quests eventually evolve into dungeon crawling or fetching there are lots of nice exceptions including stealth missions, hunting, puzzles and even conversation system quests.

Controls and Systems

The really pretty skill tree screen. Yeah even menus look good.

A note before we proceed any further; I mainly played Skyrim as a 1^st person game because frankly, I’ve played 100’s of 3^rd person RPGs and wanted a change and I always played Oblivion and Fallout 1^st person. I have a sneaking suspicion the controls would be clunky as hell in 3^rd person. I also played it on the PC, I have feelings controls on a console would also be a bit crap.

Controls in general were good, I tweaked a few but honestly it’s very similar to tried and tested PC RPGs and also very similar to Oblivion. There were occasions where I got stuck or struggled a little underwater but you do get used to the controls quickly and it’s not a huge issue.

The levelling system is fun and one of the best solutions to actually creating a unique character I have seen in an RPG. The skills in Skyrim are split into the usual three RPG archetypes, Mage, Warrior and Rouge, the big “innovation” for want of a better word is that you can literally level whichever attributes you want.

It’s hard to illustrate in words but let me give you my character as an example, I specialised in the following combat skills;

• One Handed
• Shield
• Heavy Armour
• Conjuration

This basically enabled me to play a shield warrior necromancer! It was great fun killing things as a warrior but raising my dead enemies to help and trapping their souls to power my weapons. I also specialised in support skills to help me outside of combat;

• Smiting
• Enchanting
• Pickpocket

So you can see how I really diversified my class, a little bit of Rogue, a decent helping of Mage and a healthy dollop of Warrior. The system allows for loads and loads of combinations and I already want to replay the game focusing on magic.

You level a skill up by using and this means you can easily focus and get better at specific traits, each time you level a skill like “one handed” or “conjuration” up you get exp which increases your base level. Each time you increase your base levels you get to boost one of your three main stats (health, mana or stamina) and choose a perk.

Perks are much like they are in Fallout, each skill has a small skill tree of perks that make that particular skillset better, for example taking shield perks helps you block more damage and gives you a handy shield bash technique. Since you have to progress a tree you can’t master everything, considering 50 is the level cap it means you can specialise in 6 or 7 skill trees and get the “level 100” skill ability in each. It’s balanced well and is one of the best level systems I have seen in a while, it’s a bit prone to over-levelling early on but to be fair they can’t really account for that.

The big balance problem comes in the form that Bethesda’s games always suffer from. Bottom line is this; it’s just too fucking easy to steal and pickpocket your way to huge riches and awesome items. Yahtzee pointed out in his Zero Punctuation column on this game that he purposely avoided pick pocketing and stealing because it spoilt Oblivion for him, I honestly wished I had done the same thing. By the time I was level 20 I basically had level 80 pick pocketing and infinite money, whenever I was short of cash I fast travelled to a town waited until dark and robbed jewellery off everyone I could find. Sure you can get caught and maybe lose a bit but considering the thief guild progression lets you bribe guards it’s barely an issue.

I strongly suggest you avoid stealing and pick pocketing [too much] if you want the game to retain its intended balance. You can make much better items with smithing and enchanting than you’ll ever steal, concentrate on that.

Audio

Yeah this guy will literally sing to you if you pay him.

The games music isn’t that stand out, it’s not bad but it’s not ground breaking either. I really like the little songs that the ion game minstrels and bards sings but this isn’t really the main game music and other than doing well to support atmosphere the music really doesn’t stand out much.

Where the games audio really stands out is in voice acting. Since FFX back on the PS2 games have been constantly upping the ante on voice acting and Skyrim really is this year’s ante upper.

The sheer amount of voice acting in the game is staggering, every single pointless NPC talks to you. I mean every single one even the kids playing in the street, even the cooks in the castle kitchen. Everyone.

In general the voice acting is awesome, races have specific accents and dialects and people have huge ranges of potential greetings and reactions especially when you start taking sides in the in game civil war.

One seemingly small thing that really impressed me is how the NPCs actually react to your characters progression. A great example was early on I put a lot of time into conjuration and when passing guards they would remark on how I was a conjurer. “Couldn’t conjure me up a warm bed” one would say or “keep your dark magics to yourself” a less approving NPCs snorted. I really enjoyed this but was even more impressed later on when I got my enchanting high and NPCs responded differently to me, that same guard now said “You couldn’t enchant my blade could you?” or “That’s a mighty fine blade you have there”.

It’s a really small environmental tweak with a lot of work behind it that really helps sell the world you’re in and adds a huge amount of depth to the game especially when you consider all this is voice acted.

Graphics

It looks this good. All. The. Time.

I really can’t say much about Skyrims graphics other than they are really, really fucking nice. Do they have issues? Yes lighting problems and glitches do occur. Does it matter? No. Not one bit when you climb a huge mountain through mist and clouds and look out over Skyrim to see rives flowing and Dragons swooping around you won’t care. It really is one of the best looking games ever made.

Character animation can be a bit clunky but honestly stop looking at the people and look how nice the vistas are.

The Glitches

Yeah the Mammoth flies. Quite a lot.

OK so I’m sure you’ve heard Skyrim has some glitches. Flying mammoths, impossible jumps, and vertical ponies. Yes this stuff is happening in the game. I have been frustrated a few times with quests being a bit glitched or enemies breaking. My most memorable moment was a huge dragon stuck in a mountain peak spinning around like a spinning top and generally being immortal. He is still there, I can’t kill him.

It’s not great; these things shouldn’t happen but in a game as huge and varied as Skyrim I can see how much trouble they would have with little bugs and very, very few of them seem to drastically affect the game.

Unfortunately the crash to desktop stuff does affect the game. It doesn’t happen too often, maybe 1:3 times I play but random crashing really is annoying as fuck and one time I really lost a lot of progress. My advice is turn on the auto saves and quick save like a boss.

Also it’s not a glitch but I found my companions getting in the way. A lot. I actually ended up making my housecarl (read: bitch) a set of armour and childishly calling her shield the “Minions Roadblock”. She is always in the fucking way and always complains when I get her to move.

In Conclusion

Skyrim really is as good as people are saying, it has its flaws there are some major balance issues with the economy and with higher level item making, sometimes quests surprise out level you and the glitches and CTD’s can be really, really annoying but the games sheer scope and beauty outweigh these niggles.

It’s really set the bar for open world RPGs going forward and Mass Effect and Dragon Age 3 are gonna have some huge work to do to catch up. Personally I prefer the Fallout setting so I hope they deliver with Fallout 4 as much as they have with Skyrim.

Most importantly of all Skyrim is an example of a game that blends innovation with execution. Yeah the dungeon crawling bits and general feel are nothing new but the breath taking visuals, amazing voice acting and well thought out levelling system add unprecedented depth to the game and make it much, much more than the sum of its parts. Games series like Call of Duty and GTA could learn a lot from Bethesda’s handling of the 4^th Elder Scrolls instalment.

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The Creepiest Mr Sci-Fi?

5) Zeljko Ivanek
I honestly think that Zeljko Ivanek specialises not only in being Mr Sci-Fi but being creepy Mr Sci-Fi. The first thing I remember seeing him in is 24, where he played a scary as hell terrorist – whose father was played by Dennis Hopper. He’s been in loads of other shows though and you might remember him from the following:
The X-Files, Millennium, Homicide: Life on the Street, Black Hawk Down, The Twilight Zone, The West Wing, Law & Order, CSI, Law & Order: SVU, Die Hard 4, Heroes, True Blood, The Event
 
 
 
 
 
 

He even looks scary when he's smiling

Pretty cunning, don't you think?

The first Mr Sci-Fi?

I think Erick Avari is possibly the first actor I categorised as a “Mr Sci-Fi”. He’s been in loads of stuff that I’ve watched over the years. And he’s awesome in everything he’s been in. I think I first saw him in Stargate, but you may also know him from:
Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, SeaQuest DSV, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Independence Day, The Mummy, The West Wing, Stargate SG-1, Enterprise, The X-Files, Law & Order, Alias, NCIS, Heroes, Law & Order: CI, Burn Notice, Castle, Warehouse 13
 
 
 
 
 
 

Our winner!

The shows and movies I’ve listed for these guys are only a small sample of what they’ve been in – go check their IMDB profiles for a proper idea of how many times you’ll have tagged them as “that guy from that thing”.

It was tough narrowing this list down to five people, so here are the honourable mentions:
Greg Grunberg, Lance Reddick, Clancy Brown, Scott Bakula, Brian Thompson, Michael Ironside

Next up – Top 5 Mrs Sci-Fis.

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After three listens through, I can say that I feel this is a better album than Dark Passion Play, the band’s last release. This has a much more atmosphere and the sound hits dark and lighter tones. It feels more of a rounded release, a pleasing flow between each song whereas with DPP, each track sounded more “stand alone”.

While not such a massive shift in sound that it will alienate fans, I think this is a definite step in a new direction. The bombast is still there (it wouldn’t be Nightwish without it) but new influences also abound – I’ve never heard an NW track that sounded like it would be at home in a Tim Burton movie before.

So, which tracks have caught my attention so far?

* “Slow, Love, Slow” – Nightwish have never done anything like this before. It sounds like the music that would drift from a darkened club in 1930′s America. Anette’s voice really suites this as well. It’s quite a dark sounding song and worms its way into your head.

* “I Want My Tears Back” – this isn’t the kind of song it sounds like it might be. It kicks ass and has a thumper of a chorus. It’s the most “traditional” Nightwish song on the album and easily the most instant and accessible.

* “Turn Loose The Mermaids” – the second of only two slower songs on the album, this has a real melancholy feel to it.

* “Last Ride of the Day” – another real belter, I can imagine this one will be very popular at upcoming gigs (why no UK dates for this tour yet!?).

“Song of Myself” is the (now almost traditional) epic of the album so is worth mentioning; clocking in at 13 minutes, it is again very different from the usual epic NW songs (eg Ghost Love Score or Dark Passion Play). Part lilting song, part spoken word, this needs a few listens to get your head around.

I’m now eagerly awaiting the movie. I can’t wait to see what they’ve come up with and how the songs are going to be incorporated into it. Surely the title track of the album was just made to be played over the end credits?

Give this a spin and enjoy.

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5) The Prologue
I think the prologue sequence in FOTR is one of the trilogy’s major successes. Boiling all that back story down into an accessible 15 minute sequences that introduces us to the main thread of the story and some important characters, it’s the perfect way into the world of Middle-earth, especially for new comers. LOTR’s well known attention to the small details is showcased well here too; arrows skim past their own armies catching hair in their wake, the Ring shrinks to fit its owner and Gollum’s cave is nicely realised.
It’s the very start of it I like the most though; I amar prestar aen, Elvish words whispered over a a dark screen; “The world is changed”.

4) Bilbo’s Party
Personally, I don’t like parties. Too many people and often far too loud. But this party looks brilliant. The food all looks fantastic, it has the best firework display ever, lights, music and Merry and Pippin causing trouble. Again, the little details are great; Pippin is playing in the band, Sam is more or less drunk and Bilbo’s speech is exactly how it should be. Best.Birthday.Ever.

3) Elves
Ah, elves. I love Tolkien’s elves, and here they are in all their perfection. I love the way they realised the elves in these films, especially their costumes. There’s a great sequence in the extended edition of FOTR (does anyone watch the theatrical versions any more?) where Sam and Frodo watch a group of elves on their journey to the Grey Havens, leaving Middle-earth forever. Sam remarks “I don’t know why, but it makes me sad”. Me too. Other than that, I just really like elves, so they make my list!

2) Horses
Shadowfax, Asfolath, Arod, Brego, Snowmane, the horses of Rohan and even Bill the pony. LOTR is packed full of horses and that rocks. There are some truly beautiful shots of the horses in the films as well, especially Shadowfax.

1) Bag End
Who wouldn’t want to live here? It looks like the most relaxing place in the world, full of exciting trinkets and treasures and the gorgeous view across Hobbiton. I could be quite happy living in a Hobbit hole like Bag End, away from all the cares of the world and in the quiet of the countryside.

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Straying a little afield form our usual game and software reviews we are going to look specifically at an iPhone App today, the app in question is WorldCard Mobile made by Penpower Technology.

The main function of the App is to utilise the iPhone camera to quickly import a business card load of information into your contacts without all that tedious typing. It also saves on the annoying “Can you pose for a photo so I can remember who the bloody hell you are” moments by importanting photos located on business cards too. This should work out hilariously if someone has a penguin logo on their business card instead of a picture but the app is to clever for that and spoilt my fun, damn their advanced facial recognition stuff.

I’ll be honest, I’ve seen some bad camera apps like this in the past, stuff not focusing or not picking up, there was a particularly bad barcode one early in the 3GS line of apps. I’m pleased to say this App is not one, the camera function works well, has a decent interface and a high recognition level. We’ll take a look at it in use.

Although I tested seven business cards in total I have chosen a kind of difficult one to include in this test, not sure if it will show up in the photo but it is quite shiny and has a watermark, perfect for fooling a camera, muhahaha.

 It’s not the most modern card out there but it’s my brothers garage and a good test as its not super crisp.

The app starts with a nice splash screen, interface is quite nice and this is something I actually think is important in apps like this. Way too many apps throw away good GUI to reduce production cost, again this isn’t one of them.

You tap the camera icon and get into the main app screen where the purpose is, like many similar apps, to centre the object your scanning in a fram. The interface remains sleek and easy to understand, I had to take this screenshot with the phone down on the table but you get the idea.

It’s got a nice little anti-shake feature too, good if the business card has smaller text. I’m also told it suppports the iPhone 4 model flash for the camera, I only have a 3GS at the moment so couldn’t test this but I am sure it will make positioning the photo that little bit easier.

Once lined up you take a photo and the app does a kind of cool scanning animation and “recognises” the field. This is really where the app stands or falls so let me show you the results screen.

You can see it’s actually done a bloody good job of picking fields up, I was pleasantly surprised to be honest. One thing I have seen before is them randomly attributing fields to the wrong things, the only one, if at all, this managed to do was the “job title” field, still an understandable mistake for a text reader as sales is quite likely to be a title or department.

You’ll notice it didn’t pick up a photo on the card even though there was the penguin logo, I was actually quite impressed by that, I expected it to pick any old picture up but it clearly[read here: I am guessing] runs on facial recognition as it worked fine on a drivers license I tested (I didn’t have any business card with photos).

As I said earlier I tested seven business cards, all different styles and designs, only one card really messed the app up and it did have a terrible font so I’m going to let it off. Most of the time it didn’t even mess any fields up, the one I saw most frequently missed was URL, it did pick strings up as URLs but sometimes made mistakes this was 2 out of 7 and considering one was the already mentioned font, it’s not that bad at all.

The app also feature some other cool features like being able to export the busines cards you scan to CSV, personally not something I would use but I could certainly see the function being useful at large conferences. You can also scan in from a photo you took earlier or scroll through saved business card images, all nice little touches. It also has multilingual features, a very important addition for people who are no doubt more important than me jet-setting around the world and the like.

Conclusion

This is a solid app that does what it says on the tin, it’s premium at £3.99 but better than almost recognition bits I have used so far. It’s got a great success rate and it’s easy to fix up information which is wrong. It’s a niche product that’s for sure, Joe Bloggs at the pub won’t need it but a lot of business professionals have iPhones and business cards and this is a lot less weird than that bump app for people trying to look professional.

You can find the app here: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/worldcard-mobile-business/id333211045?mt=8

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King of Pride Rock

5) The Lion King
Because?The first time I saw the Lion King was at the cinema for a friend’s birthday. I remember almost being overawed by the animation – it looked fantastic; the colours, the way the characters moved, the detailed backgrounds and even CG.

The songs and the music were great too, I think The Lion King was probably the first film I watched where I wanted to listen to the soundtrack in and of itself after watching the film. Nowadays, I’m still partial to listening to film scores and I daresay that the music from The Lion King had a hand in that.

Of course, part way through it throws you completely by killing off Simba’s father – it still makes me cry to this day. But hey, most children’s films are full of “this is what life is like” lessons and this is no different.

The whole film had an impact on me – I “took it away with me” after I left the cinema. I had Lion King toys, books, the soundtrack, PJs, and I have bought The Lion King magazine for a while. I remember drawing the characters at home and colouring them in.

The Lion King has been embroiled in various controversies about being a rip off and other things since I watched for the first time, but it doesn’t stop if from being a brilliant film and certainly one of my top five childhood films.
 

"I don't think anywhere is safe any more"

4) The Dark Crystal
Because?I clearly remember the first time I saw The Dark Crystal. I was at home (sitting far too close to the TV) and it was the Skeksis that I was fascinated by, especially when one of them died and crumbled into dust. That image was a memorable one to say the least.

The planet the film is set on has three suns, it’s populated by imaginative fantasy creatures and is a real feast for the eyes.

I haven’t seen the film for many years and it’s always on my list of “I should really buy that on DVD”. Still, the memory of it lingers in my mind, never quite going away.

" I have forgotten that men cannot see Unicorns"

Because?I saw the film in the school holidays on a Summer afternoon, drawn in by the title – of course I was going to watch a film about a Unicorn.

It turned out to be somewhat dark, not really a cheerful story and the ending is quite bittersweet. Characters lament for things they’ve lost, times that never happened and the people they were never able to be. All the characters besides the Unicorn appear to believe they are in a story with the Unicorn being the only thing that’s real.

The songs aren’t up to much and some would call the animated “dated” to say the least; but I like the old style animation, it’s part of the film’s charm and adds to its fairy tale feel. It’s a pretty faithful adaptation of the book as well; while a few things are skipped over, the back bones and the essence of the story are there.

The image of the Unicorn being driven towards the sea by the Red Bull and then rallying and chasing her enemy into the waves is one that stuck with me for a very long time.

"You have no power over me"

One of the things that really appeals to me is it’s so easy to imagine yourself in Sarah’s shoes. I would rather have been living in a fairy tale world as well. Unfortunately for her, the fair tale world turns out to be a more treacherous place than she imagined.

The puppet creations, for the most part, look great. The ballroom scene is fantastic, with a dark and creepy under current, as is the bag lady scene that follows it. And of course, it’s got Bowie.

I don’t care what people say about the songs; I love them. Magic Dance is on my iPod and I have the full soundtrack at home.

After a certain point, I didn’t see the film for many years until I finally tracked it down on VHS when I was at 6th form. It’s just as relevant to me now as it was back then. The film’s most important aspect, I think, is that we’re never finished with our childhoods. We’ll always need them and they’ll be there waiting.
 

"All the world will be your enemy"

Like The Last Unicorn, some would call the animation dated, but I think it’s all the better for it. The animation is rich and imaginative, particularly in the opening sequence and the more trippy moments set alongside “Bright Eyes”. Morbid as it may sound, the death sequences are also imaginatively animated and the fights don’t skimp on blood and gore. Heck, the colour pallet is dark as well.

I watched the film over and over as a child, I hunted the book out (still have my first copy, somewhat battered and taped together now), borrowed the audio book from the library and drew lots and lots of pictures of things from the film. Like Labyrinth and The Last Unicorn, several years went past at one point before I saw the film again but when I did come back to it, I found it just as I had remembered it.

The story of Watership Down is one that I’ll come back to again and again; I read it every couple of years and the film sits with all my other DVDs. I have the soundtrack somewhere as well. So yeah, a childhood film so important I’m still carrying it around with me today.

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At Number 5: Chip N’ Dale: Rescue Rangers

Run: 1989-1993

It’s only just sneaking into the 80′s but Chip N Dale was a fantastic cartoon with a really catchy intro. It’s like some kind of low budget power ballad and I really love the kind of spooky, low key initial verse. Just watching the intro reminds me of how much I loved all the characters and the sad realisation that both Chip and Dale’s outfits were stolen, think Indiana Jones and Magnum P.I. Fucked up right? I also love how they managed to get cross dressing Chip N Dale into the intro credits, just awesome.
Check this out too, a full version of the song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Lae8Ln0Xw. Amazing!

At Number 4: Thundercats

Run: 1985-1989

An 80′s cartoon heavyweight Thundercats had a fantastic rock intro, I think the reason I prefer rock music now is because most of the cartoons I used to watch had awesome rock intro’s even if they were a little flamecoat. Simple but effective I get’s your blood pumping and makes you want to be a fucking Thundercat. We have the new Thundercats starting on Cartoon Network very soon. I’m not confident. In case there is not enough rock here check out this link for a metal version of the theme song which is equally as bad ass http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zkr2RAC9KDw

At Number 3: Defenders of the Earth

Run: 1986-1986 (so sad!)

Ah unappreciated but entertaining as hell DOTE was a great cartoon but its theme song was really cool. I love the little character intro’s, especially Mandrakes and Wikipedia actually claims Stan Lee wrote these! You learn something new everyday, anyway rocking theme tune with really fun lyrics.

At Number 2: The Real Ghostbusters

Run: 1986-1991

A legendary theme song that’s a bit of cheat since it’s really to a movie but I don’t care :P It’s rocking, it’s cool and it sums up the Ghostbusters well. The Real Ghostbusters was a massively popular cartoon and nothing cheered me up more as a kid than running around with my crappy home-made proton pack shouting “I AIN’T AFRAID OF NO GHOST!” Yeah Ghostbusters, teaching poor grammar since 1986. Your special treat this time is an excellent punk cover of the intro http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inDIfRlAjQE

And Finally, At Number 1: MASK

Run: 1985-1987

MASK has best cartoon theme intro EVER. It’s rocky. It’s electric-y. It’s inspirational. I love it. MASK in itself was a great show but the theme song is always the thing that will stick with me the most. It feels like it sums up 80′s cartoons in general and always makes me want to watch MASK or just be generally full of justice and freedom. The lyrics might be cheesy as hell but that’s what made these cartoons so fun.

Got some suggestions that didn’t make my list? I know I struggled on what to include or not! Also remember I was focusing on 80′s tunes here, clearly Bucky O Hare and Captain Planet both have ace songs but were 90′s and therefore didn’t make it!

In case you still didn’t think the 80′s was the best cartoon period ever I’m going to leave you with this awesome piece by J Scott Campbell because frankley, you’re wrong.

Totally 80's!

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