It seems that our favourite detective won’t be back on our screens for another year with the new episodes slated for Autumn 2011. Given the excellent quality of the recent series, this show being back can only be a good thing.

You can read the whole article here.

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Be sure to pay proper attention to the final couple in the “far, far away region”- a good little joke. But while we’re at it; in this world of new Star Trek, should Vulcan also be listed as “recently destroyed”?

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You can read the full timeline here.

The very first and the final events on the timeline are pretty cool and will probably raise a smile.

And bonus points for including Farscape and The Fountain on there. Nice one!

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We’ve got news on several new MMO’s as well as one being released recently. Lets take a look at the important information.

APB

First up is the new world we are playing in, APB: All Points Bulliten.

APB is being (fairly accurately) described as a kind of Grand theft Auto MMO, it’s Enforcers vs. Criminals in a sprawling city full of potential victims and everyone’s packing heat and jacking cars.  It’s a great game and the multi player experience is worth a lot and it has quite a good pay structure where you can either pay per hour or purchase unlimited monthly time.

The good points of the game are that it’s fast paced, pretty and fun to play, there ins’t really a grind so it’s more about just playing whenever and occasionally upgrading yourself.

The bad points are that this means battle can sometimes be massively unbalanced, not helped at all by the stupid amount of hacking in game at the moment.

Most of the bad points can be fixed with time and the game is so new I would expect things like this to crop up, I am very confident it has a limited shelf life but the bottom line is I can choose not to pay if I don;t want to play it one month and keep my character etc. so no downsides there (unlike most games which delete your account after 1 month). Oldish trailer is here if you want a good summery of what the game is like.

Our APB page will be coming soon.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Onimi and i have been exicted as hell about this since the rumoours were only rumours the recent Hope cinematic was epic and if you havn’t seen either of the cinematic trailers please watch them below before continuing so you understand how epicx this game will be.

Anyway the game is going to be that fucking good, at E3 they put a multilayer combat tech demo out (below) that was really pretty and fast paced, makes combat and dialogue look cool and what’s more Mon Calamari in a battle suit!

Yes it’s very WoW and yes, it’s nothing “new” from an MMO front but the story and conversation qualify will add this element as long as the combat game play is reliable I will be happy.

Final Fantasy XIV

Well Star Wars is a pretty big hitter but a new online FF game? What are we going to do with our time? At least this has been announced early (30th September this year) so we have a year to play before the Old Republic is out.

It’s worth having a gander at the new site they put up recently it’s really in depth and if you want more info on classes and races it’s all there, needless to say Nilhuanwen is just happy about having kitty ears race back, even if their new name is gay.

The class system looks really exciting and think forming a party will be a lot of fun this time around (unlike FFXI). I will definitely be giving this one a while, costing confirmed at £9 per month with first month free. On another note it looks to me like the pre-order item with the normal edition is better than the one with the special edition? Go figure.

Assassins Creed: Brotherhood

Well, you have to hand it to them the E3 trailer was amazing.

Not much to say on this one other than it looks amazing I can;t wait to play, that’s if I have any time left :(

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This round was interesting with 21 goals in just the 8 games.  There were calls for goal line technology, calls for Capello’s head and calls to the Nigerian Prime Minister to let his team go out and play with the other boys and girls.

OK, England.  They are out and here’s a list of things I need to say about it…

1. They are over paid yes but that is not the reason they didn’t win the World Cup.  It has nothing to do with money and the money they earn is mostly the clubs fault.  Also, Imagine if every time you make a little mistake in your job it’s splashed over the back pages being called all sorts of things.  You wouldn’t like it and you’d want to be compensated accordingly.

2. The Second World War was 2/3 generations ago (6/7 in some areas of the country :))  Let it go, you can’t compare the defending in a 4-4-2 formation without a holding midfielder against Ozil and Podolski to defending your country in a War.

3. The disallowed goal DID make a difference.  Yes they scored 4 but at 2-2 we can sit back, and 2-1 we had to go forward.  To show this, watch Barry on the third goal.  He took the ball forward from our free kick when at 2-2 he would have held back to break up play.

4. We qualified with Heskey so don’t complain when he plays.

5. (TBA – I had something and forgot but I’ll add it when I remember)

Anyway, here are the “Awards of the week”

Best Goal

Frank Lampard – England
Carlos Tevez – Argentina (The good one, not the offside one)

Lot’s of good goals and finally a few from outside the box.  The Tevez one was a little ‘purer’ than the rest so I’ll give it to him.

Best Team

Ghana

There were no shock results as the ‘expected’ team went though on most occasions.  This means that the winner of USA v Ghana would get this award.  Ghana, being the last African nation left have deserved a quarter-final place.

Best Player

Carlos Tevez – Argentina

No real stand out player this week but Tevez scored twice (even if one was dodgy) and looked more like the player we’ve seen in England recently.

Least Valuable Player (AKA The Muppet Award)

Sepp Blatter – Fifa

Frank Lampard’s disallowed goal could be explained by the assistant ref looking down the offside line.  So where was he looking when Carlos Tevez received the ball 3-4 feet offside? The replay being shown on the big screen within 10 seconds after it happened shows that video technology, as much as I don’t want it, is possible.  Fifa have now said they will look into it further.  To add balance, I will say that I mentioned Karma a few times in my World Cup posts and a goal bouncing in off the cross bar against Germany NOT being given when it clearly went in added karmic balance to that particular situation.

Best Moment

Goals Goals Goals

This is better.  When a win is needed, teams have to attack, an average of around 3 goals a game compared to 1 a game from the first round of matches.  Goals from outside the area, free kicks and penalties.  This is better.

Serious predictions this time…

Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Spain

Brazil Spain final. (Argentina 3rd.)

Spain to win.

See you after the final.

@jestatharogue

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I am a massive HP Lovecraft fan so the though of a multilayer co-operative board game sounded really appealing. It doesn’t come cheap (around £40-50) for the starter however it’s got a lot of pieces and it’s very high quality build.

How Does Arkham Horror Work?

Essentially Arkham Horror is a scaled down version of a tabletop roleplay game, there are preset characters and equipment, events, monsters and locations all represented either on the board or by tokens, you make skill checks with D6 and different effects come out of passing or failing them.

When the game starts an “Ancient One” is selected, these monsters are typical Lovecraftien gods or Great Old Ones such as Cuthhullu and Azathoth. Each Ancient One has different on going effects, monster modifiers and combat powers so the Ancient One chosen at the start can massively change how the game plays out offering large variety.

Each Ancient One has a Doom track which fill up as the game goes on, if it fills up the monster awakens and you have to face it in (a usually very difficult) combat session so your usually aiming to win the game before this happens. Winning the game is done by closing and/or sealing gates to other dimensions which open each turn, essentially it’s a race to shut the gates as they’re opening.

Each player takes a turn to move around and do things which is followed by the monsters having a turn and opening new gates, spawning new monsters and environmental cards altering gameplay mechanics.

A turn basically involves moving to a location, having an encounter there (which means drawing a card where something will happen such as fighting a monster or making a skill check to discover/escape something) and fighting monsters that have come to attack you. You venture through open gates to other worlds, spend a few turns moving through them then return to Arkham with the ability to seal the gate you came out of.

Is Arkham Horror Difficult to Play?

I wouldn’t say Arkham Horror is hard to play but it’s by no means the kind of game you can pick up and play in five minutes. The rules are complex but well presented in the manual therefore having someone on hand with the manual in your first game is advised and just keep looking problems up as you encounter them.

Most of the game is made up of skill checks and modifiers so anyone familiar with tabletops won’t have trouble but it really doesn’t get any harder than adding your combat modifiers to your fight stat and subtracting the enemy modifier.

Combat itself is interesting as it always a bit risky, you need to roll enough success’ in one check (a success is usually a 5 or 6) to hit an enemy for all of it’s health, damage doesn’t carry over to the next round of combat so you really have to think before getting into a fight with a big beastie. A really nice twist is having to manage sanity as well as health (called stamina). The crazy world of Lovecraft Monsters can be havy on the mind and it’s really well reflected in the fact that you need to make sanity checks before fighting the grotesque monsters of this world.

Winning the game is certainly not easy, we have currently done about 5 games (with between3-5 players) and we have won 3 lost 2 so it’s certainly not one of those one where you always win but that adds a lot of fun and pressure to the game, especially in larger multilayer. A heads up though, games can go between 2-4 hours.

What Do I Like About Arkham Horror?

The number one thing I want to big up Arkham Horror for is how well it captures the Lovecraftian feeling of being truly overwhelmed by your battle with the Old Ones. Sometimes you’ll literally be surrounded by enemies trying to run but failing, going mad and generally struggling to survive alongside the horrors, although this might seem like the game is really hard it makes a lot of sense for anyone a fan of HPL, very few people survive their encounters with Lovecraft’s monsters and while your intrepid investigators deal better than most they are still just people up against Gods. Should you actually awaken the Ancient One combat is usually very difficult against them and especially once a few of your team has fallen. This just makes it all the more rewarding when you do win.

I also love the multi player co-op element, we’re all big fans of that at Guardian Force so we enjoy playing as a team, passing items around and working together to smash monsters and seal the gates.

The design of the game itself is also very high, pieces are high quality with fantastic print work and really nice illustrations, although its pricey it’s easy to see where that money went and I have no doubt we will be getting out money’s worth out of the box by playing it so many times.

What Don’t I Like About Arkham Horror?

Every game has it’s flaws and Arkham Horror’s is that sometimes you just can’t catch a break. It’s really annoying to be very close to winning the game and then lose all your items because a random card got you arrested or the biggest monster possible spawned on your head. It does add unpredictability to the game and stops you formulating long term easy win tactics but sometimes it’s very demoralising to see you loose 1 gate from winning.

A few of the starting investigators are also woefully underpowered compared ot others, we seem to never use certain investigators on the grounds that they are crap.

Conclusion

All in all Arkham Horror is an awesome game and I strongly recommend it to people who play games in groups, its expense means you need a fairly reliable group to play with but if the conditions are right you will enjoy the multi player co-op horror feel game and I’m already looking at expansions. its decent into Lovecraftian mythos is executed almost perfectly and more importantly the game will make you feel like you really are on the run from one of the Old ones

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The group stage is over and only 6 European teams are still in, here are the “Awards of the week”

Best Goal

Keisuke Honda and Yasuhito Endo – Japan

The goalkeeping wasn’t the best but it’s nice to see some free kicks going in.  Both were good in their own.

Best Team

South Africa

Beating France alone should get this but they did it well against a French team that was trying to win. There won’t have been bigger celebrations in Dublin over a French sporting defeat outside the 6 Nations.

Best Player

Robert Vittek – Serbia

Scored twice to knock out Italy, played really well in what was the best game of the tournament so far.

Least Valuable Player (AKA The Muppet Award)

M Rodriguez – Mexico (Referee)

Although Estrada for Chile should have had 4 yellows, his second official yellow came when Torres tripped over his legs as they were running off the ball.  Unintentional and not worthy of a booking at any point.  He then allowed the teams to play out the result for the last 5 minutes which we were told would not be tolerated.  Boring.

Best Moment

Italy and France

Italy cheated in the second round of the 2006 World Cup against Australia, barely qualified for the World CUP 2010 out an easy group then went on to fail pathetically, good.  They’re boring to watch and roll around far too much.  France on the other hand were poor with the infighting and players going home.  They took Ireland’s chance a blew it, like having the Playboy Mansion for a weekend and spending it in front of the TV.

I’m going for it on my predictions, let’s see how these go…

Korea
Ghana
England
Mexico
Holland
Brazil
Japan
Portugal

I’ll be back on the full time whistle on Tuesday to see how these pretty bold predictions went.

@jestatharogue

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Second round down, Cameroon and North Korea are out already but will they get a consolation of one of my “Awards of the week”? (Spoiler: They don’t)

Best Goal

David Villa – Spain

Special mentions to Landon Donovan and Luis Fabiano (The good one not the handball one)  but this one topped it.  Nice solo effort, quick feet coming in from the left and stretching to lift the ball into the far corner.  Best goal so far I think.

Best Team

Serbia

Tough one, New Zealand played a very average opponents, as did Argentina, Mexico, Algeria, Portugal and Spain to rule them out of team of the week.  But with Germany playing VERY well when they came up against Serbia who limited their chances despite the Podolski penalty miss.

Best Player

Gonzalo Higuain – Argentina

Straight forward, World Cup Hat-tricks are hard to come by and no matter how they go in they all count.

Least Valuable Player (AKA The Muppet Award)

Wayne Rooney – England

“His second touch is a tackle” has never been more pertinant than the game against Algeria.  No control, no shot, too slow, didn’t chase back, nothing, couldn’t be bothered.  Kaka, Villa etc woke up after one game hopefully Rooney will wake up after two.

Best Moment

Kaka – Brazil

Loving the Karma again.  OK, it was 12 years ago since Rivaldo was “hit in the face” with the ball against Turkey.  So I took great delight in Abdelkader Keita for Ivory Coast just dropping holding his face when he was… erm… whats lighter than a push? He was ‘brushed’ in the chest by Kaka.

That’s my 5 awards for another week.  From now until Friday you have the choice of which game to watch as the groups are decided.  I’ll be watching Mexico, Greece, Slovenia, Ghana, Slovakia, Cameroon, Portugal and Chile vs their respective opponents.

Qualifying Predictions are..
Uruguay – Mexico
Argentina – South Korea
England – USA
Germany – Serbia
Holland – Denmark
Paraguay – Italy
Brazil – Portugal
Spain – Chile

I’ll be back on the full time whistle on Friday with more news and to see how the predictions went.

@jestatharogue

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So after the first game round robin portion of the tournament, here are my “Awards of the week”

Best Goal

Siphiwe Tshabalala – South Africa

Quick and well finished, scoring in the opening game for the host nation.  What the goal meant for the nation and the tournament added to the fact it was a really good finish.

Best Team

South Korea

6 to pick from including North Korea’s brave showing against Brazil, New Zealand’s first ever point and the “SpainKillers”Switzerland.  But South Korea play with a reckless flare that few teams dare attempt.  They beat Greece 2-0 and did it with style.

Best Player

Tae-Se Jong – North Korea

Cried during the national anthem, maybe because of pride or perhaps his family are held in some camp and a win against Brazil is the only way to see them again.  Either way, he taunted the Brazil defence that consisted of mostly top Champions League players.  Very quick with a powerful shot, Jong was my pick for the week.

Least Valuable Player (AKA The Muppet Award)

Nicolas Lodeiro – Uruguay

With so many goalkeeping mistakes I was sure to pick an outfield player.  This guy came on, did very little except get sent off 17 minutes later.  He made no impression on the game but made quite an impression on Sagna’s ankle.

Best Moment

Thierry Henry – France

Isn’t Karma a bitch? After cheating his way in to the World Cup after a double deliberate handball against the Republic of Ireland, ‘Terry Henry’ had the audacity to *SCREAM* for a penalty for handball final minutes of the game against Uruguay.  He didn’t get it and I think we’re all glad.  Was it a handball? Who cares, no penalty and I will go ahead and assume it was the right decision from the referee.

That’s my 5 awards for the week, I’ll be back on the 22nd to run through the second round of results and look ahead to the group deciders.

@jestatharogue

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