Back In the saddle.

Right, friends and readers.
I've been absent for a while (a long one) and upon asking my friend Dali Dimovski if it was worth keeping up/remount this venture I decided to do so.

I do not know how often I'll post but I'll be posting some stuff throughout the year.
November not so much. Doing NaNoWriMo then.

Right now enjoying various books and hooked hard on The Blacklist.
Gone back to listening to more music and have made a return to vinyl.

My other things can be found to the right scrolling down a bit.

Hope to see you around :-)

Doctor Who 50 Years A Journey Through Time, Space, Culture And Science

Originally published on RadCrew.net in Norwegian.

Original piece is found here: Doctor Who 50 År En Reise I Tid, Rom, Kultur og Vitenskap
If you know Norwegian I urge you to go there and read it. You'll find other content there that's really worth checking out. For the rest of you read on for my translation to English.

Pure text.

50 years and 799 episodes has aired.

I thought I'd take you through the celebration and the programming celebrating the series.Allons-y!

The whole thing kicked off with little sprinkles of trailers and minisodes throughout the week. On BBC And BBC Worldwide's YouTube channels.

http://www.youtube.com/user/doctorwho and http://www.youtube.com/user/BBC

The Science of Doctor Who lead by Professor Brian Cox, a fun and educational thing and features The Doctor. It's really nice for those of us with an interest for "The science of science fiction", this despite Doctor Who being officially a drama series. Plus teachers has something to learn from Brian, had more teachers been like him learning would be so much easier.

In the weeks preceding the anniversary the BBC held a vote for best monsters and villains on http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho. For three evenings they had a countdown where they revealed the results with an episode featuring the monster/villain.

The result was as following (=episode title)

10 Judoon (Smith and Jones)
9 Silurians (A Good Man Goes To War)
8 Ood (Planet of The Ood)
7 The Clockwork Droids (Girl In The Fireplace)
6 The Ice warriors (Cold War)
5 The Cybermen (A New Doctor)
4 The Silence (The Impossible Astronaut/Day of The Moon)
3 The Master (Utopia)
2 The Weeping Angels (Blink)
1 The Daleks (Dalek)

I voted The Daleks but love them all and others there's been.

Doctor Who The Ultimate Guide is a light hearted but good look back at the series, That had a lot of information that those who've only watched from the 2005 onwards might not have know. Well produced and obviously made both for a new audience and us fans.

Earlier this year they had a Doctor Who At The Proms that got aired on telly this week. It's a concert with a full orchestra and characters and creatures from the show in an intimate interaction with the audience. The concert is a great presentation of Murray Gold's musical contribution to the show and a nod back to the rather unique music from the Classic era.

After the special a humor filled take on making a 50th special was published.  The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot. Got some good laughs out of that.

Spoiler territory ahead.

First I'll have a look at An Adventure In Space And Time.

An Adventure In Space And Time is about the three first years of the production, William Hartnell's life during that time and the people behind it. Very well written by Mark Gatiss (of Doctor Who/Sherlock), William Hartnell is portrayed by David Bradley who does a great performance. A very good drama re-telling of the Doctor Who's start. The narrative is built in a way that speaks to me and is really well put together. Very nice to see William Russell, the original Ian Chesterton, have a little cameo.

I was impressed and yes I cried, especially when he didn't want to leave the show , but could not continue due to his health. And that last confirmation of Hartnell's faith in the show was shown in a metaphorical way to show the bridge from 1963 to 2013. (before the fact bit)

The Day of The Doctor

At 8:50 pm the 23rd of November the broadcast started, 94 countries and cinemas around the world in a simulcast, earning the show a Guinness world record in the largest broadcast of a drama series. The show started on a Saturday and turns 50 on a Saturday.

The special itself I thought was very well written and answered many questions I had at the final scene of The Name of The Doctor. Steven Moffat has really created a speacial worthy of a 50th celebration of The Doctor. I thought it was awesome that they started it identical to The Unearthly Child complete with the original black and white intro. Clara works as a teacher at the same school where Ian Chesterton and Barbra Wright taught and The Doctor's granddaughter Susan Foreman attended as a pupil. Fun to see U.N.I.T. is there as the The Doctor worked for them (still employed with them) and that Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is there in the form of his daughter Kate.

Must admit I was unsure if I wanted Billie Piper in this but the way it was done was well done and the fact she has no interaction with Tennant or Smith or even Clara for that matter. You meet the Bad Wolf version not Rose Tyler, she does a great job against John Hurt as the war torn The War Doctor incarnation. I didn't want any swooning or lovey dovey goo. That's why I'm very happy with that bit.

John Hurt who threw himself at the project on short notice does an amazing jobb, and I have found myself thinking like his Doctor about some of the expressions used in the show, when I'm not just letting the child in me just enjoy it. The way Hurt, Tennant and Smith work together is just nice to look at. Acting prowesses deserving of something this epic. Getting Hurt was a bullseye. He does the war torn Doctor brilliantly.

The Gallifrey bit was just a joy, to get represented all the incarnations involved, all the TARDISes flocking in, including the future Incarnation of The Doctor. Got to admit I screamed when I heard "No! Sir. All Thirteen!" followed by Capaldi's intense stare. Oh my lord how I'm looking forward to his interpretation. Yes I will cry when Smith leaves but I'll laugh/cheer when Capaldi arrives.

When I heard Tom Baker's voice and saw him come on the screen my eyes welled up, I made cuddle noises and cradled myself further into my Baker scarf, that I had made for the anniversary. He was so still the same.

I'm unsure how necessary the Zygons were for this special. I could perhaps want more of the Hurt/Tennant/Smith interaction. I view it as a nod to their first and only appearance in the 1975 Terror of The Zygons.

It's going to be exciting to see part three of the "Of The Doctor" story line at Christmas.

'Doctor Who: 50 Years' Trailer - The Day of the Doctor - Doctor Who 50th

New Writing Venture

I have started a new venture into writing, this time I do so in my native language of Norwegian.

Rad Crew put out an offer for their audience to contribute to their site radcrew.net and I threw my name into it. This week Jostein Hakestad (CEO of Rad Corp) made me a contributor.

I started out with a little presentation piece on Doctor Who.
Here; Doctor Who 50 Års Jubileum

All my Norwegian nerd/geek writing will be done there with this continuing to be my English language base where I write whatever topic I like.

The Urban Legend

Initial Impressions

The Urban Legend is a Norwegian superhero comic written by Josef Tzegai Yohannes, drawn by Newtasty and coloured by Sara Machajewski & Juan Moraga Gonzalez.

"The Birth of A Real Superhero!"

Plot plays out in Capital City a.k.a. God's City, A city reeking with corruption and more or less ran by Devil's Advocate and his ilk. A poilce force incapable at protecting it's citizens and do their jobs.
29 year old Malcom T. Madiba a high school teacher is the protagonist.
This is the origin story of how The Urban Legend was born.




For more info (Twitter/Facebook etc.) visit The Urban Legend site.

I bought it after hearing about it on Teikneseriehovudstaden that I found on Rad Crew's site (Norwegian gaming/geek/pop culture podcasts). I wanted to check it out as I got curious.
I am liking it well so far and feel I look forward to the new issue every month.
The writing is good and the illustrative work is very well done, and good colouring.

I like it so much I care that it gets a bigger audience.

Will launch in the USA soon.

Olympic Wrestling Saved!

Will be at the 2020-2024 games

Election Results - Olympic Programme for 2020 and 2024 Games #BA2013 #olympics pic.twitter.com/CTxVuOGEsJ

— IOC MEDIA (@iocmedia) September 8, 2013

The sport will be revamped in rules and presentation going forward.

So happy! Cus I've seen how wrestlers felt face to face.

The Lonely TARDIS

My Doctor Who Podcast of Choice

And yes I refuse to type out TARDIS in anything other than CAPS! Hah!

Hosts for The Lonely TARDIS are

Shaun Norton, Dali Dimovski, Steven Strom and Marcus Beer.

Latest episode is out here discussing the 12th Doctor.

Listen to it and the other TLTs :-)

I am so happy Peter Capaldi is cast as the 12th Doctor, I have gone through a wee shuffle in my brain spaces and have realised, what I REALLY wanted was an older man in the part again.

The show itself has never truly been as accused; racist, sexist and unprogressive socially.
Sure there has been some white actors portraying non-white characters and been stereotypical in the voicing and such but were there really the talent there to do the actual race of the character back then?
And "New Who" has Retconned races into certain positions they would not have in the era portrayed.
As for sexism, there has been strong females since the start, I view Barbra as the first strong female in the show. And for the most part the women/girls came off better than the male companions- (fair enough I've not gotten to Doctors 5-8 yet.).
As for going older man, the bloody show started with an older man, age range 55-26 from 1963-2013 (start of Capaldi's run start about October?), So glad they now made shipping creepy (Jenna is young enough to be Capaldi's daughter). I have had the most admiration for Donna Noble as she could not give any fucks, and was by far the strongest companion I've seen so far.

Woman Doctor, black Doctor; We're not quite there yet. As said on the podcast I fully agree with Marcus on this. And yes Helen Mirren is the only one I can see as the Doctor. And yes The Doctor HAS to be British (because the show is quintessential British), and a man. I'm not for being politically correct at all and the stupid controversy drummed up about casting a woman or non-white person just because of PC or fake (in my view) feminism, just annoy me. In a few years maybe, just not now so go away. And for the whiny "Ew he's old and not cute like 10." or whatever these people are going on about.. You're not needed. Ageist is what you are. If you have to have some cute young guy go rewatch series  2-7(28-33) again.

Now I am a big fan of William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Chris Eccleston, David Tennant and Matt Smith, they all brought their own thing and added to the mythos of The Doctor. As said earlier I have yet to form a relationship with Peter Davidson, Colin Baker, Sylvester Macoy and Paul McGann as I've yet to see them. But I'm sure they will end up in my fan file too.

Open heart and open arms welcome The Doctor with all his faces and incarnations.

End of brain space dump.

E3 2013

It's A Thing. Respect The Thing II

Sony

Sony was just an onslaught of games and features. So I'd rather just give you a quick rundown of it all:

Vita
Batman Arkham Orign
Counterspy
Destiny of Spirits
Doki Doki Universe
Killzone mercenaries
Tearaway
God of War HD 1-2
Flower
Final Fantasy X-X2
Dead Nation
Walking dead 400

PS3
The last of Us
Puppeteer
Rain
Beyond Two Souls
Gran Turisimo 6
Batman Arkham Origin w exclusive content.
GTA V console bundle w headset

PS4
Media stuff w some exclusive stuff
The Order 1886 Sony Excusive
Killzone Shadow Fall Sony Exclusive
Drive Club Sony Exclusive
InFamous Second Son Sony Exclusive
Knack Sony Exclusive
The Dark Sorceror Exclusive? (w funny 4th wall breaking segment)

Indies:
Transitor
Don't Starve
Mercenary Kings
Octodad dadliest catch
Secret Ponchoes
Ray's dead
Outlast
Oddworld New and Tasty
Galaxy
All exclusive debut on console

All of these games got sone stage shine time.

Diablo III with PlayStation titles themed items PS3 and PS4
Final Fantasy versus XIII is now Final Fantasy XV
Kingdom Hearts III
Final Fantasy XIV Realm Reborn PS3 and PS4 (This is a relaunch of the original FF XIV)
Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag (plus mention of Liberation for Vita) Some freezing issues. (To be fair Battlefield 4 had problems getting the game to run on stage on Xbox's)
Watch Dogs w new gameplay shown (additional 60 min of game plus outfit on release on Sony)
NBA2k14
Elder Scrolls Online (console exclusive PS4 aslo planned with Beta)
Mad Max w x Road Warrior kit

And we all know the rest.

Jack Tretton, We all saw it.

No DRM (3rd party decide themselves if implementation)
Online everything but muli player is free. (PS+ required)
2014 the cloud services launches.

Drive Club PS plus edition on Instant Game Collection for free for PS+ users-
Destiny with exclusive content for PS4. And exclusive partership multi year

Price: 399$/399€/349£

This holiday = November most likely

All in all a home run, a touch down. Just a short time spent on things not games or game related.

A in my book.

Day 1 over.

Day 2

Nintendo

Nintendo was at E3 without a press conference They held a Nintendo Direct on their site.
Now they were a bit to fast and their stream did skipp and hop a bit so pardon me if I don't have all the games  or system they belong on.

But here goes what I did catch.

Pokemon X and Y for 3DS
Super Mario 3D World for Wii U
Mario Kart 8 for Wii U
Wii Party U and Wii Fit U
Art Academy for Wii U (drawing thing)
Disney Infinity
Just Dance 2014
Rayman Legends
Scribblenauts Masked
Shin Megami TV
Skylanders Swap Force
Watch Dogs
Splinter Cell Black List
A bunch of eShop titles (so fast I could not catch them)
The Legend of Zelda Windwaker HD
The Wonderful 101 from Platinum Gmaes
Bayonetta 2
Smash Bros for both 3DS and Wii U
And something they called X (could it be Xeno game?)

Good line up in general. Presentation leaves a lot to be desired. Too bloody fast! and a stream of low quality.
Overall a D

Other than this E3 has consited of showcasing the games, interviews, features and general developer talk and overall just sharing the games with us.

Great cracking E3!
Can't wait to play some of this!

E3 2013

It's A Thing. Respect The Thing.

E3 2013 happened this week as you may have gathered from my last post. I hope you listened to the  BritCast I shared there featuring David and Luke with me as guest, with predictions and a bit of silly banter.
There will be a follow up.

So I watched about 90% (I needed a few breaks) of the entire livestream Gametrailers had, supplemented by Gamespot links provided by E3's official Twitter, as the livestream got very blurry at times and I wanted to see what the games looked like. I watched most of the press conferences on the E3 provided links. I also watched the Nintendo Direct, Day 2,which was fine for the most part but got a bit skippy hoppy.

Overall a great E3 coverage with tons of great stuff that I'm very keen on.

Day 1

Before the MicroSoft presser Lego Marvel Super Heroes was announced along with Rare's new title Kinect Sports Rivals. Lego really does all the geek franchises, which is fine as those games can be a lot of silly fun. Rare's game.. Yeah.. The company that once was a power house, with legendary titles such as Golden Eye 007, now just making basically mini games collections. Sad.

MicroSoft

The conference kicks off with Metal gear Solid V The Phantom Pain and Hideo Kojima, that looked awesome (non-exclusive title). Followed by Xbox Live talk. Now we'll get two free games each month with our Gold memberships. Not specified if Europe and US will get the same offer.
Next up World of Tank 360 Edition, Free to play exclusive to 360, followed by Max And The Curse Of Brotherhood from Press Play( XBLA exclusive) and Dark Souls II from Namco Bandai (360, PS3 and PC).
MicroSoft Studios segment (all exclusive) with Ryse Son of Rome from Crytek, Killer Instinct by Double Helix, F2P with one character, the rest you much buy.
Sunset Overdrive by Insomniac Games a loony cartoony shooter with energy drinks? as ammo. 
A bit of car porn courtesy of Forza 5 by Turn 10 Studios a solid racer, now with Drive-atar.
Remedy brought Quantum Break, Xbox One exclusive, I have no idea what it is yet. Looks tasty though.

Xbox One will feature the Twitch streaming service for game streaming and MS points is gone to be replaced by real currency pricing.

Crimson Dragon by Grounding, Inc.Land Ho! Co. Ltd a Kinect on rail shooter (fail on audio missing in stream).
Dead Rising 3 the zombie apocalypse exclusive to Xbox One, that seem to have lost it's humor from it predecessors.

The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt by CD Project Red, will also be on PC, looks awesome!
Titanfall from Respawn Entertainment, also on PC, looks like tons of fun, FPS, Jet packs and Mechs.
Battlefield 4 (a false start) by Dice, Xbox One, PS4, PC. looks cool but kinda standard.

Indie titles such as Minecraft and Below was also present.

MS confirmed always on, check in ever 24 hours, game DRM to be determinded by publishers but the messaging was still unclear exactly what they really mean.

And Halo 5 was teased.

And Don Mattick response (in a interview post presser with Geoff Keighley of GT) to people not able to be online all the time "get a 360" (Smooth.. Not).

Price: 499$/499€/429£

Overall a good presentation with good titles ovarall. Though some of the "killer apps" aren't even truly exclusive.(to me a true exclusive is only on one platform i.e not PC as well)
I give them a B-


In between MS and EA we were presented with Saint's Row IV from Volition Inc. Same loony style, Now you're the US president powered by super powers brought by aliens. *Teal'c eyebrow*
Looks like good silly fun.
Thief from Eido Montréal a reboot of the orignal game series by Looking Glass Studios/Ion Storm. Looks alright I guess, a bit generic sneaky sneaky.

EA

Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare from Pop Cap a Team Fortress like thing based on the Plants vs Zombies games, looked like fun. And Peggle 2 (how is that going to be improved?) announced with a jump.

Titanfall out on stage. Still keen.

Dice Frostbite with Star Wars Battlefront teased and Battlefront 4.. Looks fun.
Dragon Age Inquisition by Bioware is a thing.

Need For Speed Rivals, which looks to merge single player with multi player seamlessly, a variant on the Most Wanted theme.

Sports the usual NFL, NBA Live, FIFA, NHL and new comer UFC which was introduced by Bruce Buffer in his classic style, with Dana White, Benson Henderson, Jon Jones and the EA Sports guy. All games built on the Ignite engine. Personally I, as a UFC/MMA fan, am curious about how the UFC game turns out, not sold yet.

Mirror's Edge 2 was announced, this time free roaming. Cool.

Overall a good presentation but badly paced. a C+.

Ubisoft

Aisha Tyler is the host again, yes! I like her!

Jerry Cantrell from Alice In Cahins comes out, he's demo'ing Rocksmith. Cool enough.
Splinter Cell Blacklist with a confusing trailer, out this august.
Rayman Legends re-announced from last year this time not a Wii U title only.

We got to see Assassin's Creed IV Blag Flag, Watch Dogs, Just Dance 2014 South Park the Stick of Truth and The mighty Quest For Epic Loot, the latter a F2P Hack and Slash, Trials Fusion and Frontier, one for iOS and one for consoles. And Rabbids interactive TV thing in cooperation with Nikelodeon.

New cool IPs are The Crew a car based mission based multi/single player game, looked like a cool game. As someone who has a background in the car mechanic/shop business the car assembly bit was very nice.
The Division looks so cool, that one I really want to get my hands on.

Overall a solid B

Part 2 comes later. come back for more.

BritCast E3 Prediction Show (music by "As Night Dies")

Join David, Luke and me for some E3 Predictions



We'll return post E3 :-)