Aug 27 2011
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Games 'n' Stuff

Sinister Reviews #02: LEGO Harry Potter – Years 1-4


#02: LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (Nintendo Wii)
Genre: Third-Person Adventure, Brick-’em-Up
Platform: Nintendo Wii (version tested), PC, Nintendo DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PSP, Mac
Release Date: June 2010
I was slightly apprehensive at first about delving into LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4‘s comfortable, warm wizard’s sleeve robe. My previous experience of the LEGO video game series had been the staggeringly-awesome LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, which still ranks as quite possibly the best Star Wars game there’s ever been (give or take a few BioWare and Dark Forces outings). However, it came with the ever-so- slightest twinge that it hit a sweet spot that was entirely unique to the novelty of combining the Star Wars saga with a bunch of kids’ toys, and that its sparkle couldn’t last forever. Still, along came the boy wizard in the form of a cheap pre-owned sale, and here we are; back building bricks and saving the world yet again.
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Aug 21 2011
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Games 'n' Stuff

Sinister Reviews #01: No More Heroes

#01: No More Heroes (Nintendo Wii)
Genre: Action-’em-Up, Third-Person Adventure
Platform: Nintendo Wii
Release Date: March 2008

 

It was with great trepidation that I booted up No More Heroes . My only previous experience with Suda51’s wacky Grasshopper dev team was the decidedly hit-and-miss puzzle-adventure Flower, Sun and Rain on the DS, which turned point-and-click adventure gaming completely on its head to produce something so unspeakably bizarre, to this day I can’t decide if it’s a work of genius or a product of lunacy. They’re a developer renowned for pushing the boundaries of traditional games, often adopting unconventional visual styles, gaming conventions or storytelling techniques to blur the line between games and “art”; though very much with a tongue firmly wedged in the cheek. From the off, however, No More Heroes is a barnstorming slash-’em-up that’s a riot from start to finish, even if the entertainment it provides feels ultimately hollow.
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Aug 20 2011
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Motorsport

Wilton House Supercar Day 2011

– Just some photos from the Wilton House Classic Rendezvous & Supercar Day 2011 from last Sunday. Enjoy.

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Aug 11 2011
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Work 'n' Stuff

Get a Move On

Here is a photograph of my desk from earlier today.

On it, you might spot my fully-formed and completely not imaginary Transfer Thesis, which I finally submitted. It’s weird, I almost feel like a real human being now after having been little more than an automatic typing machine for the last six weeks or so. Anyway, here’s to (nearly) two years of this damn PhD being crossed off. Booyah.

[Zinar7]

Jul 24 2011
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Activities

Das Wünderschloss

Look at this fing wot Bry and I finished today:

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Jul 21 2011
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Work 'n' Stuff

Panic Shuffle

Okay, so I’m working from home today. Stupid bad back has decided to rear its ugly head again and giving me a massive slice of inconvenience to boot. Should be working hard on my transfer thesis in the office, but instead I’m stuck working on what I can from a laptop balanced precariously on my knobbly legs from my bed in 24WC. I’m getting towards the end now and the end goal is getting ever closer to being in sight, but things are still not finalised and I’m still feeling a little shaky on the whole of project and whether everything’s progressing at the right pace to get through the PhD, but my supervisors assure me things are going to plan and that it’s just me not being able to see ‘the big picture’ that’s panicking over not completing things on time.

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Jul 14 2011
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Activities, Games 'n' Stuff, Movies 'n' Stuff, Work 'n' Stuff

To Infinity and Beyond

So, it’s 9pm and I’m at work (ish) in the office while watching F1 videos on YouTube. It’s becoming a pretty standard feeling of late, especially since we don’t have any int4rwebs hooked up in our new flat yet, so coming to the office of an evening to catch up online whilst gently shunting paper around my desk is one way to get my daily fill of random crap on the net.

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Jul 09 2011
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Activities

Welcome!

Okay, so I have a new blog now. The whole LiveJournal thing took a downturn about two or three years ago, and I kind of stopped posting things on there. Then I started using Twitter, and all the kind of random bullshit I used to send to my blog would kind of just get dumped there.

I did keep up using it for a few things (notably the few video game reviews I did around a year or so ago and for dumping photos from Flickr or something) but generally it got to be like the bottom of the garden that’s gotten over-run with weeds, and you venture down there with a strimmer a couple of times a year to hack away at the overgrowth only to find that there’s some sort of many-tentacled monster living in it that’s a little annoyed you woke it up. Plus the fact that my posts are getting spam comments, like, once a day and even logging onto LiveJournal requires grabbing a machete and slashing your way through a jungle’s-worth of adverts, the biscuit had definitely been taken.

So, things start once again over on glorious WordPress, which I’ve been putting off for a while but have finally managed to summon the effort to get up-and-running. I don’t really know what’s going to go here yet, and I haven’t even figured out how the site’s going to look, but I thought it was a good idea to get something down on (sic) paper here so I can’t put it off everything else I do. Wish me luck.

[Zinar7]

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