Just some goings on in Stourport

The pedestrian crossing next to Harold Davies Drive is still out from at least Saturday; and Lloyds have put up signs stating they are moving in January 2011 to Unit 4 Sandy Lane Industrial Estate. The old Midland Stock Disposals which is the first left before Barracks Road that was supposed to be some sort of Army Store moving in last June.

So it looks like we'll be getting a car-park sometime in Jan/Feb next year.

Speaking of car-parks 5 cars this morning on the Vale Road one.

Speaking of parking the van parked outside the café next to the Flamingo on the zig-zag lines - yes you were unloading, but note that a) you're on zig-zag lines and b) before you opened up the rear doors to unload you might have noticed that there was nothing parked in the bays in front of you. Never a warden around when you want one.

Fallout: New Vegas mini-review

Having finished The Force Unleashed II before I even realised it I had a quick go with Fallout: New Vegas. It's the same as Fallout 3 with some more polish. It still stutters on loading the next section at times, though loading between doors seems much quicker to me. Shame they haven't updated the AI though.

During the tutorial with Sunny Smiles I beat her to the hill then waited for her to show up and give me a rifle for target practice. The bottles I would be aiming at just appeared out of thin air, I was watching at the time. So shoot, then aim and shoot, then duck and shoot. Then the 'cutscene' jumps in with Sunny addressing you while you're still in the crouched position [sigh].

Then off you can go to kill some critters at the water wells. Sunny and her dog got caught on so many rocks etc. it was hilarious; that was until the game just crashed down after the first shoot out. No it hadn't auto-saved after the quest was complete; so I had to go back through the entire tutorial again.

But this happens a lot - the sticking not the crashing. It seems to be a major problem when there's more than one NPC trying to perform the same action. Two scorpions after me got stuck on each other at a rock outcrop; so did coyotes so did too many to mention.

I also found magazines "Wow that's quick finding magazines that increase your skills" Nope they are one-time only use, but it's a temporary increase only. So there are some changes to the game; but so far it does feel more like an add-on than a full game in its own right.

I'll see how it goes.

Babysitting

Yes I had the Bratii again. The first thing out of Minor's mouth before he even managed to remove his shoes was "Can we play Munchkin Quest? Can we play Munchkin Quest?" repeat four times.

"You do realise that every time you hassle me about this it just makes me not want to play it?" I told him. Anyway we settled down had a chat and then "Can we play Munchkin Quest? Can we play Munchkin Quest?" yeesh!


Major chimed in "You do realise [me] has brought it down ready to play?" he'd spotted it in the corner and I repeated my previous statement with a disappointed "Ohh!" as my answer.

I then presented them with two films, "Monsters Vs Aliens" and "Planet 51". "Have you, do you, want to watch either of these?" I showed them to Major.
"Seen it, not bothered" he replied.
I held them up to Minor
"What?" he spat
"Fine" I replied and put them away.

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Playstation Move calibration?

Playing Move with Bratus Minor got me thinking about the calibration of the controller and how it just didn't gel with movements on screen.

The basic calibration is to point the controller at the camera and press the Move button, easy enough except the camera can be placed either on top of or below the screen. Now consider I'm 6ft (ish) and Minor is 3ft (ish). If the camera is on top of the screen I'm level with it, but if it's at the bottom Minor's level with it. So what? Well it's less to do with the camera and more to do with it's position relative to the screen. How does it know that when I move the controller upwards I'm pointing at the middle of the screen, but Minor has to point the controller at a greater angle to accomplish the same? The answer seems to be that it doesn't.

This showed up in the "Tumble" demo calibrate in this way, but hit Circle to reset the centre. Both of us had to constantly reset the centre and it still didn't feel right, you'd point the controller directly at a block on screen and it would be too high or too low - there was no method of 'point the controller at the centre of the screen and then at the corner indicated' which would have been a much better calibration method.

Oh and Minor 'broke' the tutorial by accidentally flinging the block he was supposed to place on the base behind the camera. As that part of the demo hadn't been reached the camera controls were locked out so he couldn't pick up the block despite the urgings of the game.

Science has no answer

As the Shuttle has closed the comments I've no opportunity to reply to Jon except here: (I hope he sees it)

Avoidance Jon? "Whereas in your story we know for sure there isn't a monster with the God question we don't know for sure there isn't a God therefore the two are not analogous." Really and exactly how did you determine there isn't a monster? My story didn't state that and left it open to interpretation which is the entire point. Why can't the existence or non existence of the monster also be agnostic (i.e. not knowable)?

How can you clearly come down on the side of non-monster, but not do so with God?

This is my point which you seem to refuse to see. By classifying the existence of God as unknowable you are not in a position to tell those that have faith in Him (or Them) that the actions they take are wrong as for all you know they may be right. God may be beyond knowledge but still like worship.

Now you argue that your actions don't affect others, that your refusal to come down on one side or another makes no difference to those who worship or don't. Except that's what implicit means, by not countering the actions of those who worship (in particular teaching their children to worship) you are implicitly condoning that behaviour.

Now you've argued that you're not because being agnostic doesn't mean you can't take a position regarding such activity yet your position is based on no greater basis than that of the theists who are doing the worship.

This was the point of my monster analogy and your 'belief' system. The atheist is saying that you shouldn't worship because there's nothing there to worship, the agnostic can't say that because there may well be.

Oh by the way... the BBC is on strike

Switched on the BBC Breakfast show and saw the BBC News (24) desk. Oh great has the broadcaster station accidentally messed up the channels? Watched the news, went to what is normally local news and just got 'adverts' instead. Back to the news and got the headlines, then the splash screen with "BBC Breakfast" written on it; huh? Introduction, another headlines and then he tells us the difference is due to a strike at the BBC.

Yeah sorry I've been watching for twenty minutes and now you mention that?

Force Unleashed 2 mini-review

As I'm going to be busy for the next few nights I made time to have a quick go on Force Unleashed 2 for the PS3 that I picked up on Saturday.

On installation it found my old FU1 save (wait FU! Huh just realised that) and it told me I had received some bonuses. I couldn't see them at the time as I was just installing it; but now with a chance to play it seems to have given me a lightsaber crystal; it's nice to reward your loyal customers this way.

So the story so far - Darth Vader takes on a secret apprentice (Starkiller) and charges him with discovering who is planning action against the Empire by creating a rebel force. Ironically this is the impetus that actually creates the Rebel Alliance when Starkiller goes rogue. In the official ending Starkiller is killed, yet here he is in the second game - how come? Clones.

Yep he's been cloned on Kamino (where the Stormtroopers were created) and his memories are explained as a result of the forced learning process (sigh). Sadly for Vader this clone seems to have too many original memories and off he goes too.

So that's where the game starts with you trying to escape Kamino and without all your memories it explains why you don't have full access to your powers.

So is it different to the first game - it's more polished and that's about it. The camera is still a pain at times, and the enemy lock is still persistent button push rather than a toggle on/off. Combat seems more fluid; targeting is both easier and more obvious; but there are still glitches.

It does still delight in targeting what the camera can't see. In one instance I moved towards a urn next to a corner in order to Force Grab and throw it towards an unpleasant enemy instead I ended up crushing a wall mounted screen on the corner I couldn't see.

I've also ended up having to restart the game (not the console) when heading up the elevator on the second 'level'. The elevator activates as soon as you step on it with the result that the camera is trying to look through you (so you turn transparent) and the menus are disabled to allow the voiceover of "I've seen how you can fight now how do you run". The elevator reaches the top and... you can't move and the menus haven't been re-enabled.

Speaking of "how do you run" don't you ever learn? There's little more frustrating than forcing the player to run towards the camera and you've made me do it in two levels now. Yes it's dramatic, but it just screws you up because you end up running into the boxes strewn about the place because you can't see where you're going.

Likewise a cutscene whereby your efforts go unrewarded - save the transport you're riding with 100% 'health' and it'll still catch fire and blow up. Sure you're protecting it until you're close enough to jump - but the sequence won't end until you destroy the ship shooting at you so what's the point?

There's also "Challenges" separate to the game (kill these enemies in X time etc.). Accessing them will present you with a non-informative loading screen that sits there asking if you want to cancel. Eventually it'll point out that you're not connected to the internet and are you sure you want to continue. Come on guys doesn't the PS3 have a connected/disconnected toggle? Just check that and state "You're not connected are you sure you wish to continue" rather than sit there for a minute checking. I mean I don't have to sit around waiting for Dragon Age so why am I waiting here?

So what's good about it? Hmm well it seems to have less tearing and they've tidied up the menus Thank The Gods it no longer requires a load between every...single...menu...screen. So yeah more polished, and graphically better but really that's about it.

If you liked the first one, you'll like this; if you didn't there's little here to tempt you.

[Update - I started on Easy mode just to get a feel for the game and ended up finishing before I even knew it maybe 6 hours of play with the need for only two upgrades; so don't play it on Easy]