peeeeeeet

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Magrs basically describing Cartmel / early NAs here, despite doing an absolute hatchet job on them back in the day. THE NORTH REMEMBERS.

FWIW, my view is that there should be a cold reboot of Who. For most of my life I've resisted this, preferring it be all "one big story" where a current episode can have an oblique (or not so oblique) reference to An Unearthly Child. But it's just got too jammed up. Even in the most wanky period of the mid-80s there wasn't that much retconning and revival of old monsters. Write a 90 minute tv movie in which two 2026 schoolteachers (one of which is played by Natalie Casey) suspect that a weird pupil might have a dodgy home life, and investigate, only to stumble on an erratic alien spaceship piloted by an erratic alien (played by Amibika Mod). Obv we would need something other than a junkyard for the setting since those don't exist any more.

Everyone is on the same page - fans don't know anything that the casual viewer doesn't know. Everything is up for grabs. Daleks will probably have to be kinda the same, but most everything else is reinvented from first principles. Maybe Timeless Children is no longer true - or maybe we skip the Time Lords entirely and ONLY go with Timeless Children. Maybe it's LOOOOMS all the way down. You won't know till we get there.

So over Chrimbly I replayed the three FF XIII games. I didn't particularly intend to, and indeed don't usually play multiple games from a series close together in case I get fatigued by the game style. But I enjoyed it, partly because the three games have quite different mechanics, partly because the overall story hangs together pretty well, but mainly that the ending feels genuinely satisfying when it took you 100 hours to get there (and that's playing super-efficiently!). At the end of Lightning Returns, the world is quiet; everything is winding down, people are awaiting the end, monsters have been dealt with (the game contains a fixed number of spawns for the majority of baddies and bonuses when you kill the Last Ones). Souls have been saved. The fixed overall time limit of thirteen(ish) days means you can get a couple of days at the end of just enjoying the various places, the music, the cycle of days and nights. Then you kill god lol.

So I thought I'd do the same with another series, and Infamous popped into my head. With three-and-a-half games (I skipped the vampire DLC), it's a reasonable quantity of gamery, though unlike XIII all the games are pretty similar. You divide your time between story missions that often unlock new superhuman abilities and clearing out bad guys from small regions at a time to make them more quiet (and thus achieving a similar effect to LR).

Infamous 1 is probably the one I enjoyed the most. The crisp premise and small cast is effective, though perhaps a little too crisp - quite a lot happens off-screen and what turns out to be the actual plot is communicated via a series of optional dead drops. But the side missions are varied and mostly fun, and while the story missions vary, the whole thing doesn't feel like it's outstaying its welcome. The main downside is cosmetic - the three main areas of Empire City are quite similar and the whole place has a rather grey, dour look to it. Character models are basic and animation is janky. Perhaps the weakest aspect overall is the karma system, in which you decide whether to be a superhero or supervillain. The problem with this element is that you don't have much choice but to choose either evil or good at the start and stick to it, and the gameplay itself doesn't differ that much either way (though you don't have to worry about civilian deaths if you choose evil!). It's odd that two of the three sequels kept the system.

Infamous 2 is longer, involves its characters more and is a much prettier game overall. It's perhaps the most engrossing of the games, thanks partly to the introduction of conduits other than Cole; you can't play as them, but they do assist in various missions. One is obviously the "good" companion and one the "evil" companion, though there is a nice twist towards the end that makes it less crude than that. New Marais is a more varied city, too: there's a gasworks, an abandoned train yard, and most interesting of all (given that Cole is the Electric Man), a flooded shanty town. It's in many ways the perfect sequel, taking the things that worked and building on them, but it's also a rather long-winded and laborious game. Mini-bosses that take a while to put down early on still take a while later, because while the series is a quasi-RPG, you tend to unlock new moves as you go rather than improve your own strength or fire power that much. Nice ending though - the "good" one involves all conduits being sacrificed for the greater good. A neat way to end Cole's story.

So WHY was there a third game? We open apparently seven years into a government round-up of conduits. The earlier mythology is kept at arms length (though there is an electrics store apparently owned by Cole!). We follow new guy Delsin Rowe, who is a bit annoying at times; but overall the characterisation is decent: we meet other conduits who play a strong role, including the main villainess of the piece who is believable as someone who thinks she's doing the right thing.

The story shifts to real-life Seattle and the first big fight is on top of the Space Needle! Overall gameplay is similar, but enemies are very bullet-spongy and side missions are a lot more repetitive. The boss fights are also tedious - one particular fight you work through three times in total. It's not a bad game - especially on the PS5, with its higher frame rate - but it should perhaps have distinguished itself a little more. The main new idea - that you can steal powers from other conduits as you touch them - doesn't work quite as well as it might, partly because the movesets don't differ that much, and because you don't always have a lot of time to get used to them - most egregiously of all, the final boss can only be defeated by stealing her power, so you must take her down with moves you haven't used before (and can't level up, if you haven't saved up some juice with which to do so).

Finally, First Light, an origin story of sorts for supporting conduit Fetch. It's digital only and about half the size of the previous two games, though not much shorter than the first one if you include the various built-in Ratchet-and-Clank style challenge arenas. It's back to crispness - the story involves getting involved in a turf war between drug dealers, and while it tilts into "drugs are bad mkay" occasionally, it has a raw edge that the previous game lacked. We're back to only one moveset, and neon is perhaps the most visually pleasing one (and zipping around half of Seattle in one continuous streak is very cool). The actual story unfolds as flashback, interspersed with the arena challenges in a way that feel satisfying and fair, so while it's not reinventing the wheel it does have a freshness to it that appeals.

And that's all she wrote. While one could argue that the games are all similar enough that perhaps they ran out of ideas, I do think it's high time we met some new conduits. While playing through the whole series in a little over a week and a half was fun, it didn't hang together as well as XIII.

A final note - while I knew they were similar, I didn't realise just how much Forspoken stole from this series - many of the moves are virtually identical! I do think, though, that the sheer scale of Forspoken suits the game style more. While the Infamous areas vary somewhat - particularly in 2 - they're all a little samey: you don't really get the vast plains, mountains, deep caverns, forests, rivers of Forspoken. At the very end of the series, Fetch briefly gets out of town for a linear Tomb Raideresque few minutes, but it's too little too late. The heavy urbanness of the series is something of a trademark, but also something that all blends together in the mind, with few particularly distinctive parts. (Even the Space Needle is only one of a handful of tall towers you have to climb.)

So yes, a good series, one that deserves another entry, but one that never quite got everything right in a single game.

I haven't, so far, been affected by the new law that requires British people who wish to look at boobies to provide a picture of their face which clearly shows they are the sort of person for whom the perusal of boobies is part of the natural course of their day. Whether that's because I don't frequent dodgy websites, or whether it's because the websites I frequent are SO dodgy they don't give a shit what the UK government wants them to do, I'll leave to your imagination.

UNTIL TODAY. When I attempted to log on the NHS website and was told I would need to send them MY FACE. This was after I had already done the thing of having a code sent to my portable telephone. I used to think that two-factor authentication was a needlessly tedious chore, but now we are up to THREE FACTOR AND COUNTING. When will this end? Must I make a video where I moonwalk while reciting Kubla Khan dressed as Lara Croft? MUST I??

One of the things I've been doing this year is rebuying magazines I had in the 90s. Magazines are a lost art. They were so dense! Often obscurely so, full of little injokes for those who bought every issue. They're also often very slick, with high production values (which means they have survived pretty well over time). I know they technically still exist but back then TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE would buy them. My main magazines of choice were:

Doctor Who Magazine - mainly up to late '93, with a few more following the TV Movie
Amiga Format - Pretty religiously until mid '92, then I fell off hard for some reason
Q - mainly the "late Britpop era" of '96 to '98
Official UK Playstation Magazine - late '97 to sometime in '99.

Of course in addition to ones that are familiar, buying big job lots means you often get ones you didn't have which can be a fascinating snapshot of the time.

Some odd highlights:

Someone used a letter from a Financial Advisor as a bookmark. They didn't sign and send off the contract part so I don't know if they ever received financial advice.

A lot of the scratch-n-sniff perfume adverts are still v. pungent.

The DWMs often had the free gifts intact, including the Absolom Daak flexidisc ("I'm gonna kill every damn stinkin' Dalek in the galaxy!") and many posters and postcard sets. I kinda want to leave them, or I could blu-tac all the posters to my bedroom wall exactly as I did with the originals. One time a moth landed on Sylvester McCoy's face and made him look like he had a Hitler moustache.

The Playstation mag gets steadily more sexist over time, all while doing editorials where they crow they are the least sexist playstation mag

One playstation mag had a Parappa the Rapper cut-out-and-fold diorama thing which the original owner had left alone. I just don't understand some people, though I am grateful.

Another owner, though, had carefully cut out his favourite PS1 lead characters from about five issues. He particularly liked Barrett Wallace.

Q liked to take the piss out of David Bowie every chance they got.

Isopropyl Alcohol is very good for returning the front and back covers to their original shine

Anyway, magazines was pretty much all I spent my money on during the 90s, so I probably now re-own virtually everything I bought. Remember, we didn't have the Internet. Well, we did, but it was shite.

As they say in the videogame Katamari, "Origami!!!!"

I have been getting back into paper folding, partly for A Thing that is currently A Spoiler. But also, I wanted some quick DIY way of making pockets for View-Master reels. This is because I think that I have sort of started to become a View-Master reels collector. Anyway you often buy them loose so some protective wallet would be nice.

TURNS OUT you can make a square envelop from origami paper that is about a quarter the size of the sheet you start with. This is MY OWN DESIGN!!!!!! though technically (a) it is an adaptation of a couple of other designs I saw and (b) it's so simple that it probably isn't that original anyway. But still! I AM AN ORIGAMI DESIGNER.

Anywayz in case I forget I have made a little tutorial:

1) Starting with 20cm x 20cm paper, make a diagonal corner to corner mountain fold on the non-plain side, then open it up and make a crease halfway along an edge.



2) Use a line from the crease to a corner to mark a cross point that is 1/3 the way up the paper.



3) Refold the mountain fold and use the cross point to fold one wing across.



4) Fold the other wing to match and make another light crease halfway across.



5) Fold the front flap down so the point matches the crease you just made and tuck one wing into the other.



6) Place up to three View-Master reels into the pocket you have formed.



7) Fold the remaining flap down and tuck it into the pocket.



8) Turn over and write important information on the front.



ETA: As usual with origami, looks best with duo paper:

"I heard his maiden speech in the Lords, and I saw his maiden over at Lord's. In my view you cannot truly trust an Englishman until you have seen him deliver two maidens."

Some Doctor Who thoughts, including some SPOILERZ.

1) What was the point of all the accents? Was it just to give Barney a chance to show off?
2) I like NPH and I think he pitched things about right, which is a minor miracle given what a tonal and structural mess the whole thing was.
3) Why was Mel there? I like Bonnie but what story function did it serve?
4) Kate Stewart apologised to everyone EXCEPT the gingers. WE NOTICED.
5) The resolution of the story is that the Doc challenges the villain to a game of catch and the villain drops the ball. No, for once I'm not being facetious, that was the literal sequence of events. It's like if the Curse of Fenric had ended with Fenric going "how do the horsey ones move again?"
6) Was that a sly dig at how shit Moff was at writing out companions? Cos people in glass houses and all that. Chibs got off fairly lightly I would say, though it's frustrating that after three years of Fam this and Fam that, the Doc appears to think he's only just acquired family. I mean you can argue Chibs didn't write it very well but it's still not fair.
7) I guess we're never going to be done with Tennant. EVER.
8) Put on some trousers, new guy.
9) I'm not massively keen on new guy so far. It looks like they're going with a vain, preening Doctor again. Sigh.
10) Some nice creepy design here, starting with the doll's hair catching fire. I loved the wife doll bit with Donna and the assistant guy as a puppet with a real head. Very 80s comic strip - arguably more so than the actual 80s comic strip episode. But holy hell, the editing was a royal mess, just random jumbles of shots with no visual continuity or context. Other recent shows have started suffering from this, though not to the same degree. Do directors and editors actually train any more?
11) Some just plain barmy plotting. Without reference to a stave those notes could be any distance apart, and we're being very selective in picking only the peaks of the wave anyway. Just like, does RTD make this stuff up as he goes along and no one is willing to challenge him on it? The first half of the episode was basically characters just saying the first thing that popped into their head and then moving straight on.
12) Why was Mel invited to the family dinner but Kate wasn't?
13) Last week Isaac Newton was under-used and this week Logie-Baird was underused. This at least had a point behind it whereas Newton was just there to kill time and invent that dreary "mavity" joke. Anyway, the importance of television reminded me a bit of The Wire (the Who episode, not the po-faced cop show). Wait, that wasn't what it was called was it? The Idiot Lantern? Anyway, why have the assistant at all? Have JLB go to the shop and get turned into a puppet. You can even cast an actor of colour if you really MUST use them as props in your confected war with other white fans.
14) That'll do for now

They brought back Big Brother! It is simultaneously as good as ever and not very good. We are at the halfway point so thortz:

a) They put too many housemates in to start. We could live without Tom who is basically just what happens when you put Paul and Matty in a blender and lose interest before you press the button. At only six weeks long, it's weird that they're doing one eviction per week as with the original series, meaning they'll either have to speed up from this point on or there will be ten people in the final. Doing two evictions per week and perhaps saving a couple of housemates to add in now to shake things up might have been better.

b) There are lots of other decisions they've made that suggest they didn't go back and look at what works. They had the first eviction before anyone really had a chance to get to know the housemates properly; in the original series the first set of noms was in week two (usually or perhaps always, I can't be bothered to check). AJ and Will are both adequate presenters - Will more than AJ, I think, who can be a bit wooden when faced with an autocue - but they don't really gel together.

c) They've kind of smushed the main show and sideshow together, for example the eviction interview is held in the sideshow. This seems unfair to the housemates who get the limelight for all of a few seconds before they're whisked to another studio. That said, old eviction interviews could be hard to follow if the crowd were very lairy or unsupportive, so I guess it makes sense.

d) Main episodes seem oddly edited for pace at times. Shots will jump around haphazardly and then we'll get longueurs. It feels a bit like they've given the footage to film school students for an assignment and not given them much direction. In particular, the eviction episodes drag on. Half an hour of recap before the boot is enough, any more and one can get fidgety waiting for the inevitable.

e) Far too much of the livestream is censored, and there's no particular reason that the livestream always has to be the same time window since it's online only so it isn't pre-empting any other programmes. They may not have the budget for 24 hours livestreaming but I'd like to see a few morning or early evening sessions, I think the vibe could be very different. I think part of the issue is that Big Brother seems to be doing a large number of shorter tasks rather than a smaller number of longer tasks, and thus there are more potential "spoilers" on the livestream, but I'm not sure I think that's all that important.

f) There's a lot of inconsistency regarding rule breaks, and it seems more like Big Brother decides on a punishment based on what will be most entertaining rather than what is proportional to the offence. I suppose you could argue that that Old Testament capriciousness is fitting, though.

g) Onto some positives: I love the design of the house. It's colourful without being a mess, the geometric shapes and use of the eye motif in unexpected places really works. They usually change the house every year but I'd be OK with them sticking with this one longer term.

h) The housemates too are a consistently good bunch. It's interesting that so far there's been no overlap between the housemates nominated each week, suggesting no clear villains. It doesn't seem like people have been put in primarily to piss off other people. The vibe is much closer to the first three or four years than the later, more aggressive years. Some people are finding that dull but as someone who thinks year three was the best, it suits me very well. It does mean though we lose great housemates earlier than we might usually. Hallie in particular is a big loss.

PROVISIONAL HOUSEMATE RANKINGS AT THE END OF WEEK THREE:

1) Yinrun. The most multifaceted housemate, she constantly surprises with her attitude and her look. Silly one moment and serious the next, her reactions to things are unpredictable and often adorably funny. She wears her heart on her sleeve but can also be sly and cheeky when she wants to. I only worry that as basically everyone's favourite to win, she may have peaked early.

2) Trish. Comes across as the most honest and trustworthy housemate, she plays a straight bat at all times. Wash your hands after touching raw chicken, though, girl, come on

3) Jordan. At first amusing due to his dry observations and deadpan delivery, he's gradually developing into the messiest bitch in the house, alternating playing hot and cold with those close to him and often failing to maintain his studied aloofness. When I've known people like this in real life they've been infuriating, but he's good telly.

4) Olivia. I'm surprised she's this high, but she's sharp and always has a quick comeback to anything anyone says to her. I thought at first she'd be irritating and an obvious first or second eviction, but she's thrown herself into the experience and won me over.

5) Chanelle. She has the makings of a classic early-noughties housemate with her gently amusing Welsh charm. She's low key compared to others, though, and hasn't been involved in many instantly iconic moments.

6) Henry. Made it this high because he's a central part of the Jordan Experience, which is good for him since I suspect he'd otherwise be a bit dull and one note. I'm glad he survived the week two eviction, though.

7) Kerry. I have mixed feelings here. She's a big-headed busybody who's often inserting herself into other people's drama, to the occasional bemusement of other housemates, and she is generally unwilling to throw herself into tasks without a lot of moaning and pessimism. You can't deny, though, that she's got under the viewer's skin, as evidenced by her already being an entire sub-category of memes.

8) Noky. She offers something unique in this house, someone who after three weeks still appears completely two-dimensional. If she were a fictional character I'd be screaming "cardboard!" at the telly. She gives off a rather snot-nosed VIP vibe despite contributing not very much. She is easy on the eye, though.

9) Dylan. Someone on Twitter pointed out that whenever there's a wide shot of the kitchen he's always in there. He's appointed himself lord of the food budget and cooking and gets the hump when someone isn't as grateful as he thinks they should be. It's a shame as his spats occasionally make good telly, but he's not very good value to the viewer.

10) Matty. I can't say I've noticed anything about him other than his involvement in The Jordan Experience. I can't really get a read on his personality, other than his taste in haircuts and clothes is very bad. He's another one where you occasionally think he could break out and become iconic and he just never does. But then, Jordan calls him "Myatteeh", like Ian Richardson in the original House of Cards, and he goes up a place for that.

11) Paul. I don't think I'd like Paul at all on the outside, but to be fair to him he does throw himself into the experience - takes it a little too seriously at times, if anything. He's oddly thin-skinned for a lairy scouser, so here's hoping he explodes at some point and becomes interesting.

12) Jenkin. Tis perhaps telling I failed to include him in the first draft of this ranking. He showed early promise as a potential bag of fun and games, but he's another one that moans his way through tasks. Very occasionally you glimpse his potential - twerking at the Free Yinrun rally, for example - but given there were 18,000 applicants one can't help feeling his place could have gone to someone who would actually enjoy being there some of the time.

13) Tom. Has made almost no impression on me at all, other than sharing Matty's penchant for 80s footballer style. There's still time for him to improve, though.

So the moral of this story is: white men suck except messy ones

I thought I'd challenge myself to see how quickly I could get to the credits from a cold start in Pikmin 4. Just under five hours! I'm sure I can shave off another half hour but beyond that... hmmm.

SPOILERS:

There's some shenanigans in that castaways that you need to access later areas do not always hide in the same hole. I *think* you get them in a set order regardless of the caves you go down, suggesting that going down the quickest ones to complete would be best. But I also think that the key one, Bernard the sexy pilot, is always a leafling so possibly you can only find him via Dandori battles and / or challenges. This time I did three battles and two challenges but went down many fewer holes overall. So it might be possible to make a bee line for those types of caves and avoid others entirely (though getting 20-30 ice pikmin is still a good idea). Also I think world three is best for getting the blue onion, there doesn't seem to be one on world two and the one on world one is a faff. On three you just have to climb the sandcastly thing and be there post-meridian with a squad of 20. I made heavy weather of this by assuming you needed 20 blue first, but this wasn't entirely my fault - a bug meant that the area didn't appear drained the first time I went there PM. There again, do you really need the blue onion? It helps with some caves but those ones may be avoidable.

Beyond that, no need to return to earlier areas once you have enough sparkly-yum to move on. In particular, you can avoid everything in world four, just get two of the three playing cards, switch on the fan (you don't need to kill the boss near the switch) and guess the third number. One playing card is near the entrance before you even see Moss, and another in accessed on the steps via the slidey thing. You can then beat Olimar and take him back to the onion in much less than half a day. I *think* Oatchi's rush move needs to be upgraded to get the first playing card down, since I think when I tried to rush it first it didn't come down.

I did four night missions which were all fine enough, but I'd rather see if I can get that down to three by not getting any leaflings other than Bernard and Olimar, but that may not be feasible. Alternatively, do one of the double-reward ones even though they're a bit harder, but perhaps they weren't unlocked early enough? Speaking of unlocking, not getting Oatchi's swim skill until what, day four?? is a pain when you're trying to dandori the whole thing. Why I couldn't be allowed that on day two I don't know.

EDIT:

Got it down to 4 hours 20 minutes. Didn't bother with a blue onion. The reason the water doesn't drain is because the onion is plugging it, for which you need 20 blue. It also seems like Bernard is always the leafling from whichever dandori battle you do third? So it's a double waste of time doing the challenges, because in addition to never being Bernard, they pile up leaflings to cure meaning more night missions. Reckon I could shave off another half an hour that way. Also I forgot to switch the fan on but it was already on, so the switch must not control all fans??

EDIT 2:

Final attempt, just under four hours. I could have shaved off the odd minute here and there but I think that's close to my best possible time. Did no Dandori Challenges (and in one battle I got around 200 more than Olimar!!), though I only did single-lumiknoll night missions so could have saved a few minutes there. (For comparison purposes, one pro reviewer claimed it took her twenty hours to do the same thing, though there's no shame in taking a more exploratory approach if you'd rather, since there isn't the ticking-clock aspect of 1 and 3.)

According to the Internet Oatchi learns to swim two days after struggling in the water, which I understandably tried to avoid. Not the only instance of the game penalising you for playing better or rewarding you for playing worse (example: if you do night missions when structures aren't built, enemies have to take a longer route and sometimes won't even get near the lumiknoll by the end of the night).