Star Wars possible return to form? And I couldn't care less

Oh look, one of the original writers of the original trilogy of Star Wars is returning to write for the new Star Wars film. As a fan of Star Wars, I should be excited, right?

No.

I could not give less of a pulsating rat's testicle.

Also, he's involved, so expect so much lens flare you'll be forced to see it in 3D just for the darkening effect to avoid blindness.

And that, my friends, is evidence of the worst thing a franchise can suffer from: franchise burnout.

I was a good age for Star Wars. Obviously, I was not around for the original trilogy to be aired. However, I was a young boy when the remastered versions of the original trilogy came to the big screen, and I watched those, year on year, an instant convert. I had a steadily growing collection of the toys, had a few posters, and before I'd even got the toys I'd make intricate X-Wings and Darth Vader's out of Lego. When David Prose was on the radio, I called him up to ask about how they fought with the lightsabers - you see, I knew they were painted onto the film, and thus wasn't actually in the actor's hands, so I was wondering how they clashed sabers when logically they would have no idea where the sabers were at. He politely explained that they had these spinning bamboo dohickeys that were a right menace as they broke all the damn time. Later that day, I went to a fan convention he was at, and I had him sign a Darth Vader card I owned, which I still have somewhere.

This was before I knew that David Prose would sign anything, but hey, at the time, it mattered to me. Still does a little, in fact.

Linking Star Wars to my video game hobby, I've seen a fair few good to great games made by LucasArts, now a defunct studio. The Jedi Knight / Academy series, the Rogue Squadron series, and later, by Bioware, the first two Knights Of The Old Republic.

Of course, this happiness wouldn't last. I'm not going to give another lambasting of the prequel trilogy - far more talented individuals have already done so - but even back then I had hope. Genndy Tartakovsky made a fantastic Clone Wars mini-series,(which you must check out) but as the final prequel crawled in, I made a conscious decision to not pay to see it. I knew back then it wouldn't be worth it. Later on, I borrowed a pirated disk and fast forwarded it whenever it got too boring. I skipped most the film in the end, to weary to bother trying to engage. It broke me, broke my patience, broke my enjoyment of the whole damn experience.

This weariness wasn't exactly a new thing, as I had suffered it during Return Of The Jedi. Seriously. Knowing that the only reason bleedin' Ewoks were in that movie was to sell toys, and that the original concept had the fight be on Kashyyyk, the Wookie home world? Not only does the resulting fight make more sense, but how awesome would that of turned out? But no, Ewoks. Because the toys.

So many little things can burn out a franchise. Pushing to sell. Piss poor acting. Ignoring basic continuity. Flanderization of characters. Terrible, awful dialogue. Cameoing previous characters. An idiot director with no checks on his dross. Star Wars had it all. And when I felt it mattered to the people who made it, it mattered to me. It was art. Now, I see Yoda shilling phones. It's clear that Star Wars doesn't matter as an expression, as a story, as art: it's a soulless product. Boring. I'll pass.

Just... fuck you. Fuck you whomever thought of this. Fuck you with a rake. Fuck you with a rusty rake.

Now I've seen my fair share of beloved franchises become meaningless to me. Assassin's Creed has gone on a down slide as their incessant drive to produce annual title's has not only slowed the story down so much it becomes meaningless but by the time I can afford one the next one's out. I'm skipping Assassin's Creed 3, and going to try AC 4 when I find the money. It does help that not only did I feel that Connor from AC 3 was boring, but Ubisoft did as well and have quickly passed over him for AC 4. Passing quickly over the Mass Effect series, whilst I can say I brought even piece of dlc for the second game - I gobbled every piece up - I didn't for the third. While I could not get enough of Mass Effect 2, I could not stomach another second of heartbreak from Mass Effect 3. In fact, the only reason I brought any dlc for the third game was an attempt to purge the worst of the pain of the ending from my mind, but it never was like the second game, with me paying good money of useless cosmetic differences.

I may have brought this outfit purely to make stop her looking like a prostitute.

It's not just me. Hear about this one - audiences reacted positively to trailers of Devil until M. Night Shyamalan's name cropped up, resulting in derisive laughter? So what you're toxic, any publicity, right? Right? Ah, no. As we see films more and more nowadays trend to sequels, we also see the rise of diminishing returns. Whilst a sequel is seen as a safe risk, the reviews (and more importantly, the cash) starts to dwindle rapidly. So yes, make annual sequels, sell on your IP to someone else (I've belatedly remembered in fairness seperating George Lucas from Star Wars is only a good thing) and push the merchandise - but if you don't care, nor will your audience.

Overexposure, soulless shilling and being generally crap does in the most beloved franchises. Or, you could just try to make sure you respect your product and try to do a good job with it. But beware, by the time you grasp that concept, don't let too much time pass that the audeince just can't be brought back.

Oh, hey, another Pokemon game is out.

I DON'T EVEN SO CUTE WUT

Oh god shut up and take my money Nintendo.

Free schools and drunken shenanigans are both piss poor ideas

As I sit here, listening to the screaming of the brawling drunks in the street gently wafting up through up open window, I think to myself that I should really close the bloody window, or at least get that pistol crossbow assembled. I also am pondering over the more serious case of the coalition government falling out over the free schools standards thing, but the escalating battle is rather a distraction. I believe whilst it started over a man observing another in an offensively comedic fashion, it has since swept up in it's wake the various wrong doings and infidelities of several unrelated parties who have decided to pitch in. In many ways, it's a rather interesting parallel of the start of the First World War, as one minor event suddenly becoming the flashpoint for a variety of preexisting grievances given the excuse to be enacted upon.

What I'm saying is that I wish the fighting outside my window was as fun as this.

I mean, I understand (for once) where Nick Clegg is coming from. You have these schools, state-funded but not under any local authority control, who don't have to hire qualified teachers or stick to the national curriculum. Now, that to me sounds like a disaster waiting to happen - which is coincidentally my opinion about anything Michael Gove comes up with - and, well, it's not exactly a stretch to see where the Traitor King could see potential flaws in this initiative. I mean, strictly speaking, that theoretically means I could start a school with state money in my shed. This of course is a terrible idea. I'm a sort of anonymous bloke on the internet with a pistol crossbow. Also I'd probably just teach kids how to use said crossbow how to get anything they want in life. Also I don't have a shed. Also, I think the war outside has become a stalemate, further supporting my original comparison.

Of course, I doubt the First World War had amongst it's primary adversaries two assisting women alternating between shrieking accusations of the other being the guilty party of spreading venereal diseases to the aforementioned primary adversaries, and instructing the other to 'kick his fucking teeth in'. And I should know. I'm possibly a historian. In fact, this entire line of thought could merely be wishful thinking in hope that something resembling intelligence could be gleaned from this potential Daily Mail 'ALL YOUTHS ARE BINGE DRINKING MANIACS YOU SHOULD FEAR' headline. Perhaps I'm sounding elitist and arrogant in my lines of reasoning - but in my defense, after you've had the same scenario repeat itself under your window a couple of times it gets kinda boring.

Back to the actual news. Now, the Traitor King has brought up a sensible point that it's inherently a little pointless to have a national curriculum that not everyone has to adhere to. I've watched enough Doctor Who to spot the paradox there. It also strengthens his back-stabbing hands that this week we had a free school be absolutely lambasted by Ofsted for fucking up everything and to top it off, oh, look at that, discrimination and segregation of female staff and pupils. Well done Derby's Al-Mandinah's school. You suck so hard you got shut down. It managed to get the worst result in every bleedin' catergory. Wow. That's... that's a thing, alright. Achievement unlocked: You Suck At Everything (subtitle: Are you trying to fail on purpose?) I mean, even my fictional school in my fictional shed could probably get at least in one category  a 'bad' instead of a 'ruddy fucking awful' mark. It's almost like a lack of oversight and qualified personnel leads to royal fuck ups, and now I think the fighting has ironically stepped up to the 'falling over' stage.

It's not like they're even good at fighting. Whilst only occasionally watching sport, I watched the 2012 Olympics because it's always entertaining to watch phenomenal athletes at the top of their games do difficult things very well. In the same vein I have little patience for the Rocky films because he boxes so piss-poorly: 'I'll stand here and get twatted over and over until the other guys gets tired,' isn't exactly a visually engaging event in my opinion. Rocky's relevance is currently striking, as it's sort of the tactic being currently employed; swing fists randomly until opponent falls over. Of course, the alcohol merrily deadens the pain, simultaneously aiding in resisting falling over and assisting falling over, as hey, alcohol. And then all that's left now is the sweaty grappling and the rolling around. And unfortunately I don't even swing that way to grasp a modicum of enjoyment out of that.

"Well, my tactic will give you brain damage, but the important thing is that you'll be a winner."

I get even less enjoyment out of trying to understand where Education Secretary Elizabeth Truss saying that free schools greater freedom allows them to out perform state schools, where the freedoms free schools primarily seem to have and exercise is to hire people with no idea how to professional handle children and no need to keep to any expected standard of education. I just... what? What's the benefit? There has to be some logical benefit, but I can't see it. Sigh. Maybe it's about religious freedom, but the school in question seemed to use it's religious freedom to impose on other's freedom, so that's clearly not cool.

Tragically, what's worse than all this misuse of children's education is that I may just be having to agree with Clegg on something. Which is a bit rich of me complaining about that, as I high and mightily have declared I don't keep to any ideology because I'd rather go with what works, not what's already been decided, but hating on Clegg is inbuilt in me nowadays.

Fortunately, the little tikes outside seemed to have tired each other out, and are separating on the way home, perhaps aided by the fact there's few residents in this area who haven't wearingly dialed for the police by now. Not that they'd turn up for the next hour or two anyway; having a inebriated smack down in the gutter is practically a British national past time, and it gets treated as such - unless someone gets seriously hurt, which is hardly sporting.

I could shit on the free schools a bit more - of the twenty four free schools currently operating, another five are a single step above the aforementioned Derby Al-Madinah free school. Of course, I could immediately weaken my argument by mentioning that fourteen are 'good,' and four more are 'outstanding,' but hey, let me shit on something here. Let's not bring fairness into a good old fashion bitch fit. While it's possible the pilot scheme seems to be functioning (mostly) with a very small sample size, I still retain great trepidation over this scheme. It's overall about education children, about the forming of young minds, and it's something so important, so essential to our future the notion of anyone doing so without sufficient legal oversight fills me with worry. So all in all, in conclusion I believe I can heartily say...

I should really close the bloody window.

Energy price rises and stabbing people go together suspiciously well

I wasn't paying attention, and the next thing I know, I've been doing this blog for a whole year. So, happy birthday blog. Well done.

Have some cake.

Now if I was clever, I could link this article back to my first thing I did, which was probably me talking about going to the dentist and having her pin my head to the table and command me to floss more. However, considering that quite got the point across, my teeth and gums are things of great health, so much so my dentist barely wants anything to do with me anyone. Pah.

So today, all I have left to talk about is the traditional mix of politics and video games. Because those two topics go together so well!

For starters, I am overcome with mirth over energy prices situation right now. A few weeks ago, we had Ed Miliband get up on stage an announce he intended to challenge the energy prices of this country, including a price freeze.

The response to this was predictable: plenty of people guffawing about how little Eddy knew nothing about the free market and how he was a socialist or communist, depending on the source. That speech also apparently managed to knock a billion pounds off the energy stock marke. So. Whoops. Not perhaps the greatest idea.

...until recently, when SSE declared it'll raising prices by an inflation-busting 8.2%, after great profit, with other companies predicted to be right behind in offering similar rises. It would be a surprise, if they hadn't done the same bleedin' thing last year as well. And those same people, admonishing Eddy for his foolish socialist-imposed folly, have been lamenting the mean old energy companies for fucking over, well, everyone.

Mmm. Hypocrisy. Delicious.

Anyway, I don't want to make a bug fuss on this point, but I think Eddy may have a bit of a point on taking on the energy companies here. For starters, no matter what you say, it's not a free market. It's owed by a mere six companies in this country, and let's face it; I can't start a power station in my backyard as small start up business and compete. Nah. Not only that, tariffs are as confusing as possible and it's not exactly something the consumer can do without. It's sort of necessary today, unless you found a way to do without heat, hot food and internet. And the way most people find to achieve that is by dying cold, alone, hungry and horny.

And you thought there wasn't a way out!

It's the sort of market you can leave to it's own devices and watch as it becomes a mangled mess as the biggest boy dominate and set prices and to hell with the customer. Or you could regulate it, like most EU countries do, but, pfft! Fuckin' commies. I mean, France has energy prices regular, and EDF, who supplies power to both France and here, well, France's power rates are considerably cheaper... but that's probably because... <insert francophobic joke here.>

Of course, I might not of announced a big prices freeze pledge, but snuck up on energy companies like a ninja and blindsided them, but that's possibly because I've playing Mark of The Ninja way too much recently.

Black clothes? Check. Sword? Check. Kunai? Check. Lack of Madara? Double check.

It's a side scrolling stealth-em-up, (I think that's a thing?) where the play a ninja doing ninja stuff - sneaking in air vents, stabbing dudes, infiltrating skyscrapers, stabbing dudes, planning and executing distraction strategy, stabbing dudes, recovering scrolls, and once in a rare moment stringing a guy up by his neck as a lesson to every other dude in the area.

Before you stab them, of course.

Now Mark of the Ninja really appeals to the part of me who is, to be brutally honest, a complete asshole. It's a similar state I explored in the Batman Arkham games, where I'd be sniggering in a dark corner as the pelted the sole remaining guard in the room with Batarangs as you deliberately coaxed him around the room to discover, one after one, the beaten, broken, and strung up bodies of his friends. Like Arkham, Mark of The Ninja has a robust terror mechanic, where dead bodies found lying or strung up can provoke understandable fear responses, including the one time where I chucked a dead body at a patrolling dude for a laugh. Look, I either do this sort of thing here, in the safety of video games, or I go out and do this outside.

I jest.

It's too cold outside.

Just like Spider-Man, if that guy used chains and was about to use his dude's throat as a handy pocket.

Aesthetically, it's very pleasing style of cel-shaded cartoony looks, which makes it look very clear and crisp, with some beautiful smooth animations. The music does a brilliant job of setting the mood and keeping you entertained as you wait for a dude to hurry the hell up and wander over here so you can stab him. You'll observe the room in sight and sound, as your position dictates your line of sight, but out of it a small outlier of sound will appear letting you track dudes in need of a face stabbing. The story, while feeling a bit simplistic as a revenge tale, has the interesting hook that whilst you're better than the average ninja due to your bitchin' magical tattoos, said tattoos will eventually drive you more insane than the Daily Mail's reader comment section so previous champions tend to commit suicide to avoid gnawing off the faces of members of their own clan. Which is nice. That being said, simplistic does not mean bad - it provides more then adequate context to your actions and escalations.

My only complaint so far is that the checkpointing is kinda weird, and it sometimes knocks you back a room further than I'd like, meaning that the odd difficult room will result in you having to navigate a previous trap room for the millionth time and you'll die in the easier room a bunch of times as you get impatient and try to charge through it. Mostly the game gives you enough variety of routes and equipment that taking out a room makes you feel smart rather than being hand-held across.

And in the worst case scenario, if you botch it you can beat the tar out of dudes before sneaking back into the shadows grumbling about how it's bizarre the jump button is also the 'drop down' and 'open hatch' button. It's okay. We've all done it.

Now if they'd like to create some DLC where you hunt down the CEOs of a ruthless energy company - just spit balling here - there's plenty of people in this country that would buy it.





Mark of The Ninja is available in a multitude of places, including Steam and Xbox Live Arcade. Please check out there site, http://www.markoftheninja.com/ for more details.

Guns of Icarus flash sale!

One quick bonus thing to say here. You've heard me talk / gush about Guns of Icarus a lot, yeah? Well, for the next 45ish hours, Steam is having a sale, and it's now sitting at a grand total of £2.49. Yes, Guns of Icarus is currently on sale for what I'd expect a crappy sandwich to cost.

Pictured: More fun then a sandwich, if less nutritious

If you don't have it, I'd highly recommend dropping the few quid and giving it a whirl! If you're feeling particularly flush, they're offering the Collector's Edition which includes a costume pack and soundtrack for the bank breaking cost of £2.99, the fiends.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/209080/

US shutdown, Tory conference, Daily Mail, oh my!

Whilst I was clearing up up the blog last week, in an attempt to make it look more professional then it is (low standards, I know) I discovered I wrote a line indicating early on that I had no intention of ever bringing politics up in the blog, like ever. Which is basically most of what I write about now. Well done, past me. Way to keep at something. Besides, at the time I was wanting to get a job in the Civil Service, which would need political neutrality, and whilst I believe I am capable of that... this post... will not be neutral. Well, this post, and like every other post here, but who's counting?

Anyway, had I kept to this no politics thing I would of been kicking myself as for this week, it was all about the politics, baby. Yeah. Starting off...

Up first we have the fact that the US of A is currently shut down. Yup. It's kinda awkward, as those senators won't be able to get tax payer subsidized haircuts anymore. For shame. Now, instinctively, I want to blame the Republicans how being pricks and kicking the American economy in the nuts over a piss off with a law that passed three years ago. However I'm also reasonably sure it takes two to tango, and there's probably enough blame to go around. Certain polls seems to back this up indicating that while the American public blame everyone in charge for this mess, they blame the Republicans most of all. Personally, I don't see how this playing chicken with the America economy, and the nutpunch to a lot of American public workers and benefit drawers wins the Republicans a lot of support. From what I've read, this could last a week... then serious shit goes down. Maybe China could buy up America on the cheap. The Republicans may be running scared of the Tea Party, but is it worth fucking over your own damn country?

In other news about fucking over your own damn country, we had the Tory conference this past week. And, wooooo... that was some unpleasant listening. Moreso for me, because I had to listen to every intended policy announcement at least three times on account that I broke into involuntary screams of horror for the first couple of listens. Where do I start? Well, bye bye Human Rights Act, or for short, Human Rights. Gone. Zip. Nada. All because Theresa May couldn't depot one person into a country that had used torture to get evidence on him, and were currently sharpening the knives awaiting his return. Yeah. Abu Qatada was a class A prick, but torture is officially and legally Not Cool, no matter how many times you try to kick him out. Aw, you got a letter from Jordan saying they pinky swear not to torture him? Er, you do realize just how little a torturer's word is worth, right? Removing the Human Rights Act is also fortunate, I guess, because it might help with the whole thing about the benefit cap may being unlawful under human rights. Though in general, I feel more depressed that whilst May was announcing the end of our legal rights as human beings, nobody cared as they were focusing on her shoes. Hoi. Can we get an Everyday Sexism check, please?

Of course, that's before we got to the main course of Davy boy taking the stage. I'll be honest with you. He might as well walked onto the stage and placed two dolls down on the floor, one labelled 'My friends', the other 'Everybody else,' before dropping his trousers and pissing on the latter doll. It would of been faster, more to the point, and more truthful. And saying that feels mean, even for me, but come on! His big thing was the whole lark of cutting benefits for the under twenty fives. Lets start unscientifically, just anecdotal evidence, okay? When I got out of university, I was out of work for a year, until I settled with a low paying job I am overqualified for. My degree isn't really getting used. And of my fellow graduates, I was probably one of the quickest employed. Was it because we were all was sitting around, milking that sweet government cash? Ah, no... well...

I WAS UNEMPLOYED BECAUSE THERE WAS NO CUNTING JOBS YOU SMUG TWAT. EVERY FUCKING JOB HAD ABOUT EIGHTY OF ME APPLYING FOR THE SAME BLOODY STARTER POSITION. YOU. UTTER. SHIT.

Fine. I admit it. I hate this man and his stupid face. Happy?

It's not a case of work or school. It takes time to get a job, especially in this economy and lack of support, so you scrape by on the pittance the dole gives you. Take that away? Fuck, that is callous. Especially after Davy boy abolished the future jobs fund and educational maintenance allowance. Whoops. Anyway, numbers. About £1.2 billion of Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) goes to the under twenty fives. That's a lot. The total amount for the JSA runs up to £4.83 billion (which is even more of a lot) or very roughly a quarter of the whole JSA goes to those damn under twenty fives. So let's consider the whole benefit bill. It's around £159 billion holy fucking hell. That is a big number. Wait. £1.2 billion is, like, fuck all to that number. Less then a one percent. In fact, if you really wanted to cut the biggest drain in our welfare bill, you'd go after the pensions, at a whopping $74.22 billion cost. That's nearly half the welfare bill. Fuck it, cut that, they're old, they're about to die anyway... said no-one, ever, as retirees have precious little money as it is and they vote. Consistently. Often for Tories, where the young doesn't.

(Numbers were taken from here, featured 2011-12 spending, and comes with the actual data in spreadsheet form to download. Mmm. Spreadsheets.)

Of course, the Tories couldn't even keep the spotlight on themselves for the whole conference as it turns out this week was one of those times where the Daily Mail puts it's balls on the table and goes out swinging to show just why they're the most reviled dirt rag in Britain. By attacking Ed Miliband's dad. Well, dead dad. Well, he had to be dead, or it's libel. I'm pretty sure the Daily Mail knows the libel laws by rote at this point. So Eddy's dad was a Marxist, and thus hated Britain. Also he fought in the British Navy and was a professor in an esteemed university but whatever! Marxist. Ergo, hates Britain. Also mentioned, and I quote, was his 'evil legacy.' Nice. Evil. Basically, according to the Daily Mail, a Jewish professor with left leanings is on par with Assad and Jimmy Saville. Nice to know.

Of course, they could of left in there... but then they wouldn't be the Daily Mail, now, would they? They doubled down on that shit. First of all, they repeated the claims after Eddy's obvious response, with a picture of Ralph Miliband's grave. But then they are the Daily Mail, so this wasn't enough, so they - yes, it does get worse, stick with me here - they sent round two reporters to dig up dirt about Ralph at his brother's private family memorial. Yes. Of course they would. Daily Mail. My proposed new slogan: We can go lower.

This sort of thing is high stakes... uh, I don't want to use the word journalism because it really isn't appropriate, so let's go with the more honest shit smearing - as they stole attention away from the Tories to show Eddy looking as sad as a person who had people publish lies about his dead dad. And Eddy played it well - instead of coming thumping out with cries of I'm a politician, damn it, he instead spoke as a wounded son and was very composed about things. Incredibly, by being civil he achieved the impossible and actually made the Daily Mail look even scummier. Even Davy boy was forced to grudgingly admit that Eddy's got a right to be upset, and the Traitor King Clegg came out to defend Eddy. In a few weeks, when this country chooses which Royal Charter to follow about press regulation; one submitted from the press, another, more restrictive, from an independent panel, if they choose the latter I want the Daily Mail to realize that this happened for precisely this shit they keep pulling. Like last time, when they hounded a trans woman until she committed suicide.

What? Daily Mail. We can go lower.

It's almost funny because of all the people to accuse someone else of hating Britain, the Daily Mail hates Britain unlike any other. And women. And non-white people. And non-married couples. And modern things. And children. And the NHS. And happiness. I could link you to things, but I view the Daily Mail as a soul mate to the Westboro Baptist Church and Fox News - I won't link as they're link baiting. Don't go to them, let them whither and die. With all their billions of views. Hmm.

And all this depressing shit I could of missed, if I had kept to avoiding politics. I'd probably be talking about funny and cute pictures I found this week.

This Chihuahua adopted a marmoset! IT RIDES ON HIS BACK.

I regret everything.

I don't even...

For a quick, bonus update, I'd thought I share what some people were searching to get to here.

I... just...

You people scare me sometimes.

I'VE NEVER TALKED ABOUT GOATS.

EVER.