The Games People Play

Actually it's the games I'm playing on my mobile right now.  Since my brother kindly gave me his old iPhone, I've been experimenting with downloading all sorts of games. There is lots of dross out there, but also some great little games. Here is a run-down of what I'm playing at the moment rated in order of preference

7. Dumb Ways To Die – Really pointless, but a fun diversion. You have to rescue people from a variety of dangerous situations, less of a game, more of an interactive joke.


6. Star Wars Tiny Death Star –Based on the Tiny Towers games. Slightly less pointless than DWTD and barely a game, but kind of fun with it's slightly piss taking attitude to Star Wars. The idea is to build different floors consisting of shops, cafés and apartments. You amass credits to spend on more floors and just keep building upwards. You do get to use your brain in some small way, occasionally. The ice-cream parlour named “Scoop of Hoth”  gave me a chuckle! But I must state again: pointless and barely a game, as you don't ever lose and there is no difficulty. I actually don't understand why I play it.


5. Ashpalt 8 – Nice looking car racing game, where you can pull a few stunts, upgrade cars and race others online. Good stuff!


4. Super Monsters Ate My Condo – How do I begin to describe this madness? Its a mixture of Jenga and Tetris. Condos (coloured blocks) constantly drop from the sky and stack on top of each other. They have to be fed to one of 2 coloured monsters who flank the tower. Three blocks in a row mean they disappear and the correspondingly coloured monster is swapped out for a different coloured monster. Oh just Google it! A great game, brilliant graphics and sounds, all very Japanese, completely insane – I really recommend this!


3. Solomons Keep – Typical dungeon crawler, similar to 80s arcade game “Gauntlet” seems fun and you can upgrade spells and such. Really good controls that make moving and shooting pretty fluid.


2. Carmageddon - The classic late 90s PC game gone mobile.  Inspired by the Deathrace 2000 films. The aim is to not only to race, but to mow down people and animals. The game is a real challenge and a damn good laugh!


1. Quadropus – This is a proper game! You are a sea creature battling other sea creatures. You get to level-up weapons and abilities and there is some strategy involved. It's so 1980s in game-play style. There's lots of humour and the character animations are brilliant. Yep it's my top game at the moment.

Coming soon "Do I Believe?"

Learn my verdict on the Watch channel's new Sci-Fi/Fantasy programme "Believe"

I Don't Believe It!

I was excited when I first saw the trailer for the "Watch" channel's new sci-fi fantasy TV series "Believe" The trailer showed a a young girl screaming and a load of creatures swarming around a person.  It looked super creepy & mysterious!

On watching the show we learned that it's about a young girl with paranormal gifts being hunted by an institute from which she has been snatched.  The institute (possibly evil or grey) want to continue "helping her" while another group also want to "help her" but they are nice people.  The young fugitive is accompanied by a death-row convict, whom the good guys busted out to protect her.  What the pair don't realise is that they are actually father and daughter!   They travel from place to place solving people's problems.  One of them is a reforming loser, the other is a paranormal gift to the world.  Avid TV watchers of a certain age will feel this story line is familiar.  That's because in many ways it's very similar to 1980's series "Highway To Heaven" Following the adventures of two guys travelling around the country doing good.  One of them a resurrected beardy loser and the other a thick-necked angel on probation.

Unfortunately this show simply lacks subtlety and style.  For instance, the father and daughter story-line is revealed in either the first or second episode - robbing us of any "shock" revelations for later.  Three episodes in, we find out loads about the mother too - oh!

The scenes within the institute seem flat and lifeless.  The gifted research subjects are often seen sitting in their rooms looking bored and aimless, usually levitating objects.  One subject can levitate tons of bricks to create a large model dog on the grass outside his window.  This guy then, has almost god-like power, but no one is that impressed.

When the cops assigned to track down the girl are shown around the institute and witness the dog-bricks man, they show no more interest than if they'd just seen a basketball player sinking 10 hoops in a row.

This little girl seems to have very little room to grow, because already by the third episode she can:

• Mentally move objects 
• Read people's minds 
• See the future 
• Electrify objects
• Just generally know what to do for the best 

It just seems like lazy writing to give a character immense power or reveal that power so early on.
I really don't know where else there is to go with this series, and frankly in our household we don't care.  it's over for us.  What a wasted opportunity, and a shameful waste of  Kyle Maclachlan.  So I await the next attempt, Next!

5 Reasons Why TV Could Kill You

We all love a bit of TV, but is it really killing us?!

See below and find out how

1. Spare The Rod

Rod Hull (With Emu) had a long assaultive career, plunging his hand into peoples forbidden areas, only to die while trying to adjust the TV aerial on his roof. Don't try this at home folks!

2. Let's Call Death "Death" Don't Couch It Out!

It's been proven that the more time spent sitting n the sofa, the shorter your life span,  and let's face it most people sit on the sofa to watch TV.

3. Aversion To Soap 

A dark soap like Eastenders can add to the stress you already have.  It struck me about 30 years ago, when I became aware of a nagging worry at the back of my mind.  On examining my thoughts I realised that I was worried about Sharon off Eastenders.  My soap watching ended immediately.

4. Non Reflective Service

Constant TV watching doesn't allow you to have head-space to reflect on your problems, and perhaps formulate solutions.  So that nagging pain in the chest that you had made half a plan to see the doctor about gets forgotten again, or your partner doesn't get a chance to talk about their nagging pain, or nag you about yours and then 20 episodes later your story ends...

5. Death To Apathy Or Whatever

TV is very good at making you feel like you're doing something.  You watch other people: building houses, saving the world, having romance, travelling the world - and somehow you feel you've experienced it all.  Well you haven't, you've sat on your ass drinking tea, dunking biscuits and your life has flowed past you like an irrelevant river.  I write from personal experience, because I'm a born-again life liver!  Ok so it's not exactly killing you, but you are suffering loss of life.  It's like a person walking through the country-side, but instead the country-side zooms past the stationery person while they look down at nothing in particular.

TV can be great, but handle with care!

Coming Soon - 5 Ways TV Can Kill You!

Look out for this exciting revelation filled, life changing post arriving in the next few days!

Dumbness of Galactic Proportions

So I'd just been watching one of the excellent off-shoots of Battlestar Galactica on a cable channel.  The story was ending as we see our star-ship flying hero zoom off to victory and beyond.
We are still seeing his smiling face with the credits a gnats toenail away, when suddenly a moronically croaky voice smashes into the moment with "Now don't forget there's..." and proceeds to tell me of other programmes I might like to watch. The moment that I have just invested an hour in to see is utterly cremated.  I want to shout at him "Never mind about what's on later, I'm watching this now, yes now!" and then  "Do you know what now means?, It's the current situation unfolding, It's what's going on at this moment, Unlike some better imagined future, it's whats actually happening at this time"

Do their own programmes mean nothing to these people?  Do they consider their output as meaningless worthless trash, trash that can be talked over or covered with pop-up boxes saying "Dr Who next"

Or do they think we're like the people you see out with their mates: head down texting, missing any subtle interactions or spontaneous fun,  missing most of the conversation. What is this important texting about? I'll tell you shall I? These people are texting other mates about future social events, perhaps meeting in a pub, like the one they are in now, maybe the actual pub they are in now, maybe with most of the people they are with right now. What happens when this future event arrives, what will they be doing while their mates laugh and chat around them? I think you know don't you?

Anyway my point is if the announcer could have held off for literally half a second, yes half a second - I would have been allowed to savor the moment.

To understand how I felt, imagine you've just had a lovely dream and you're about to wake up feeling great, when suddenly some shrimp brained mulark  grabs you by the shoulders and shakes you while shouting in your dribbling face "FIRE, FIRE!"

So I say this to you cable TV people: allow us to fully watch our programmes, let us enjoy the moment and savor the experience that you have delivered to us.
Stop rushing in to move us on to the next thing.  Let us drift a while longer in the sea of fantasy, and come back to reality gently, don't tip up the dingy soaking us in salty wetness you gigantic group of ass!

Wattle I do? - They brought back Birds of a Feather, but they won't bring back Blake's 7

This is where I lament the non-return of a classic sci-fi/ fantasy series while staring in horror at the filth that is re-gurgling forth from the sewage pipe of effluent TV.

This week I need to declare thus "They brought back Birds of a Feather but they won't bring back Blake's 7!" What the hell! BOAF died in 1998 but has been reanimated using darkest magic.  Why have you brought this back? It's maggot infested carcass should have been left to rot back into the earth.  But no this moaning sad sack of crap roams the corridors once again.  The stories are lifeless and depressing, the fat one lives alone and looks like an old boy who has long given up on trying to be a woman. The blond ones face is falling into the sea.  Dorian looks like a very old prostitute who would only be hired by those who have lived more than a hundred years, or people involved in a satanist ritual.  The characters do not evolve they are in perpetual stagnation.  Return to the foulest pits of festering excrement I command thee!  Blake's 7 had a constantly shifting ensemble cast.  The characters evolved.  Blake was idealistic, Avon was cynical.  In the beginning their personalities clashed.  Over time they developed a mutual respect.  The universe was a complex place, there were lots of people to kill or befriend or both.  They have tried a few time to bring back Blake's 7 and failed.  Try harder!  I know sci-fi can cost more, so use the money from 3 rubbish programmes like BOAF!

If you would like me to discuss any more TV injustice then add your comments below.

Thanks for reading!