Breaking the News

Shock! Horror! Ticking clocks! Gasp! Shouting! Alert! Exclusive!

Okay, so I haven't broken anything to do with news, nor do I have any breaking news for you, apart from that you may be interested to know that I've only got 3,000 words left to write before next Wednesday (hurrah) and only 11 episodes of 24 Season 4 left to watch (hurrah again)... but apart from that, nothing much left to report! Got your attention, though, didn't I?

Apart from that we've had word of the second-year module selection process and I've sneaked a quick glance at the possible list of modules: very interesting, people! Imperial China (ah so, sounds good), Russia since 1953 (no more Stalin, sounds good), Final Frontier: American Involvement in the Space Race (that's realistic Star Trek for the educated, then, sounds good), Middle Eastern Politics (always interesting, sounds good), European Political Thought (know your enemy, sounds good) and some other one that I've forgotten, but it sounded good. Will keep you posted on what is decided!

This weekend I may be going to see The Pink Panther with Costantinos, who is a big Panther fan, just to confirm if it is actually as bad as the reports say (it'll be another terrible film that I love... move over Avengers), and then Monday is back out again on the town with the legend that is Elspeth (woo, free drinks again)!

So until later, then, peace out.

The Longest Day of Your Life

Welcome back, madcap Bonkers Loony Conspiracy fans! I'm in the library, about to finish off my Documentary Commentary for HIS124, and thought you all might like to read a small review I wrote about a certain game that came out on Friday for PlayStation2... if you're interested...

'24: The Game'

The Good:
- Amazing presentation: just like a missing season of 24
- Fantastic plot: inventive twists and turns exactly like the show
- The full 24 cast: everyone from Jack Bauer to Adam Kaufman act their socks off
- Superb variety of missions: never repetitive
- Well-realised world: explore a full-scale city on foot or by car
- Brilliant shooting: many weapons and approaches to a situation
- Fast-paced driving: physics created for big cinematic car chases
- Hacking mini-games: not as rubbish as they sound
- Music and sound: score by Sean Callery, plenty of bangs and booms

The Bad:
- Not the best graphics: not terrible either, but there are better looking games out there
- No co-operative multiplayer: imagine Jack and Tony working together...?
- Not actually real time: more like 14 than 24

The Review:
The following takes place between 6:00am and 7:00am...

An anonymous phone call from a public pay booth near the Los Angeles docks informs Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) that a shipment of illegal weapons, plus a deadly ricin biotoxin bomb, has arrived. Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) leads a SWAT unit to seize the shipment and diffuse the bomb. Meanwhile, in Washington DC, DC CTU agent Chase Edmunds (James Badge Dale) is working undercover with a group of terrorists who are planning to assassinate Vice-President Jim Prescott in LA later on in the day. Blowing his cover to warn CTU in LA, he becomes a target of the people he's working with.

As the day progresses, Jack's daughter Kimberly Bauer (Elisha Cuthbert) starts her first day as a temp worker at CTU, and ends up working alongside Michelle Dessller (Reiko Aylesworth) when an enemy agent from Jack's past raids the building for a hard-drive containing information about their plans. Special Agent in Charge Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard) stops a deadly ricin attack on a subway in LA before uncovering evidence that implicates Governor of California James Radford in the terrorist plot. A deadly earthquake, caused by a well-placed bomb somewhere underground, rips through LA. All the while, President David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert) recovers from the attempt on his life that occurred six months previous, trying to cope with the stress of the day's events.

You're now panicking about having missed a season of the excellent television show, 24, aren't you? Don't worry, you haven't. The above is the convoluted plot of '24: The Game', a superb PlayStation2 title that takes place between Season 2 and Season 3 and answers all of the questions that were left hanging after Palmer was seen dying in the street at 7:00am after the second longest day of Jack Bauer's life. Offering players the chance to step into the world of counter-terrorism in the high drama, high action and high suspense world of 24, this game is an unparalleled success.

There are three main modes of play that will confront your characters in '24: The Game'. Firstly, and predominantly, you control a character in a third-person shooter game. Missions ranging from stealthy infiltration without alerting guards, all-out assault on an enemy base, undercover missions where you must act naturally or be rumbled as a government agent or chasing a fleeing suspect through alleyways all come up in the course of the story. Mainly, you're Jack, running and gunning in his usual style, but often you'll play as another CTU agent: Chase, Tony, Michelle and even Kim are playable. In fact, one of the more interesting missions of the game sees Kim, who hasn't had weapons training, sneaking through a locked down CTU without any means of defending herself... incredibly tense, edgy movements and ducking behind crates have never been so loaded with excitement. Gunplay is the standard fare, with L1 targeting your enemy and R1 blasting them away, Circle performing a duck-and-roll move, X making you take cover behind walls or desks, etc. In fact, if you've ever played 'James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing' or 'From Russia With Love', you'll feel right at home. A nice addition, however, exclusive to '24: The Game' is the speech button. Far from being the catchphrase-reeling useless function of 'Terminator 3: The Redemption', this allows you to issue commands to the various characters you'll come across. Target an enemy and press R2, and your character will call out "CTU! Hands in the air!", and if they don't co-operate, a shot to the arm or leg will force them to drop their gun and raise their arms, leaving you to either handcuff them or snap their neck. Civilians in danger of being shot in a crossfire can be faced and told "I'm a federal agent, keep down!", and other characters following you can be instructed to "Wait here and stay covered!" or "Follow me, slowly!" This really adds to the interactivity of the gameplay and makes for tactical approaches to situations that would otherwise be very similar.

It's also a helpful feature in the driving missions. If you find yourself stranded without a car in '24: The Game', a quick tap of R2 will call out "Federal agent, I need this vehicle!" and allow you to commandeer a new set of wheels. The driving is one of the carefully thought out sections of the experience. The camera and driving physics have been tweaked to make sliding round corners and spinning your car very cinematic and over-the-top, just like 24 on television. There are the usual range of sports cars, saloons, SUVs and trucks to be had, and missions are usually timed dashes across town or carry the objective of tailing a suspect, mainly while fending off enemy vehicles that try to ram you off the road. A satisfying handbrake turn at the right moment will send them sailing off into a wall (resulting in a lovely big fireball of death), and this makes the driving sections rewarding.

Thirdly, computer-based mini-games pepper the action, usually taking place back at CTU headquarters. These are fun little segments of logical puzzle-solving: use a satellite to pinpoint enemies in buildings around Jack's location by their heat signatures, break into secured files using a scrambled code, pressing sequences of buttons, memory tests and a few mazes aren't as dull as they sound, especially since the famous 24 ticking clock is ever-present, adding to the layer of tension as you try to remember which path was blocked by FBI servers and which wasn't as you hack into secured files.

Admittedly, '24: The Game' isn't as pretty as it could have been. There are better looking games available on the market (mainly from EA Games), but having said that, it's not that big a problem. The graphics are good enough, the framerate slowdown (of which there is a little) is barely noticeable, all the cast likenesses are very accurate and the interactive environments are well-detailed. The atmosphere, suspense and storyline are so immersive that you buy the entire package and don't really question anything until you've beaten the final mission on board a luxury yacht and seen the final cutscene in which Jack... oh, no, I won't spoil it for you. As noted above in The Good, the music is provided by 24 and 'James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing' veteran Sean Callery, capping off that 24 feel to perfection, and the sound effects are all satisfyingly over-the-top, exaggerated roars, blasts and screeches of tyres.

The only two downsides that may sway your opinion of '24: The Game' are as follows: one, there isn't any kind of multiplayer. Sure, a deathmatch is out of the question based on the plot, but a co-operative selection would have been brilliant, having Jack and Tony storming a building or Jack and Kim trying to escape a terrorist base together, or one man hacking a satellite to call out sniper positions while the other picks them off...? Two, while it would be nigh-on impossible for a game (where the player has total freedom over his actions and therefore how long he/she takes) to be real-time, '24: The Game' is more like '14: The Game'. Each hour, made up of smaller missions, takes between twenty minutes and three-quarters of an hour to pass. You won't really care, and the jumps in time are covered well in the storyline, but as its 24...

Forget about the last paragraph, however, as '24: The Game' is literally amazing. We aren't talking genre-redefining stuff, but any fan of the show or any fan of action-adventure shooting games will simply adore kicking down doors and yelling "CTU! On the floor, now!" and travelling sideways round a corner before smashing through an alleyway filled with cardboard boxes at breakneck speed. '24: The Game' is everything you could ever want from a 24 game, and everything you could ever want from a 24 product or story.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you get to play out your very own longest day.

The Score:
- Graphics: 8 out of 10
- Gameplay: 10 out of 10
- Length: 9 out of 10
- Value: 10 out of 10

Tomorrow, or maybe Tuesday, normal posting will resume. Take care, peace out!

I Loathe Public Transport

Firstly, those of you clever enough to work out the time difference (this website runs on an American Central clock, I live in England, go figure) will realise that I'm supposed to be in POL122 at the moment. However, the stupid Metro people have done it again: we sat at South Gosforth station this morning for fifteen minutes while the driver who was changing over chatted to the new driver! Grrr!

So I've missed my lecture completely and was wondering what I could do with the spare time... so hello one and all! Lots to tell you about today, people, so I won't be mentioning any political shennaneg... shenn... shinneganen... "events" this time, that'll be tomorrow.

Congratulations are in order for Dad, who successfully completed the Redcar Half Marathon in one hour fifty-two minutes (plus "some several seconds", as he put it), a highly respectable time! Considering he's done no training in two weeks and was suffering from a chest cold, the eight minute improvement on his expected time is no small achievement! Bitter, freezing weather and snow drifts added extra excitement to the day, as did the Dad fan club running out in front of him and grabbing his hat/shouting "Go! Woo!" during the course of the race (hey, it's all for support). So well done Dad! Next stop, London, which should be fun. A big day of chasing Dad through crowds, seeing if he can catch up with Paula Radcliffe (my advice: sprint when she stops in the road for a 'pit stop' and you should catch her out! Remember, Dad, it's not a race, but if Paula's going for that kind of gold, you can get the medal)!

More growling now as 24: The Game has been delayed by a week! I got all excited on Friday, bouncing along down Northumberland Street like a kid who has just eaten the Cadbury factory, and then... nothing. I returned the less-fun-than-smearing-jam-on-my-eyes-and-then-hitting-a-wasp-nest-with-a-big-stick Shadow the Hedgehog in order to get back my £20, then visited GAME only to find a complete lack of 24 related products. Then went to HMV, where they had cases for the game on the shelves saying "Coming 10th March, pre-order now!", so I took one up to the counter to buy it and then... "Sorry, it's been delayed by a week and we haven't updated those stickers yet." AAAAHHHH!!!! So to counter my 24: The Game withdrawl symptoms, I've now watched almost all of 24 Season Three on DVD, something I was going to do after I had completed the game to make the storyline flow somewhat. Still, not disappointed as the quality of the show is excellent!

I start essays tomorrow in the final slog before Easter, so will be in the library at some point ranting on about politics. If you're lucky, I might even provide a sneak preview of what my essays will contain... okay, maybe not! I wouldn't want you to suffer any more than me droning on about how I don't want to have to write them and would rather be doing just about anything else! But hey, I'll enjoy them when I get round to writing them, it's just the prospect of starting them that gives me a headache!

Until then, then, peace out.

"Nobody Leaves My Tequilla Warm, Dangling in De Wind!"

Apologies for the delay in posting, madcap Bonkers Loony Conspiracy fans. It's been one of those weeks where one who means to do everything on a long list ends up scribbling out "The Week Beginning 6th March" and replacing it with "The Week Beginning 13th March" instead. You see, what with Tuesday's strike adding to my usual Wednesday off, this has become the ultimate lazy time.

Of course, I've had things to do, and as the title/picture above will show, The Legend of Zorro was released on DVD on Monday! Okay, so I get excited about films, who doesn't when they're this good? Funny, tense, spectacular and touching, Zorro films have it all, and this latest one doesn't disappoint. Antonio Bandaras, while admittedly a little chubby around the chin area, still does fantastically well as the Mexican Fox and Catherine Zeta-Jones is a surprising strength of the film too, performing comedy just as well as action or dialogue. Add a wonderful new talent in Zorro's son, the ten-year-old Joaquin, and a comedy horse with vices like drinking, smoking and not being able to speak English ("Over the hill, to the Governer's mansion... I said, over the hill to the Governer's mansion!") and you've got a winner.

Thanks to Dad for dropping by on Tuesday too, and providing me with fish, chips and alcohol with which to jeer at half a football match! This Sunday I'm off down to Redcar to watch him run a half-marathon: worth the 06:00 start? Of course! Worth the 06:00 start on the second day after 24: The Game is released? Well...

In the real world (what's that, I hear you ask? Don't look at me), small traders are moaning again about supermarkets dominating the food market. Well, they're called "super"markets for a reason, fools! If I want food, I want to go somewhere that has a cool name like "super" and makes me think "Look at me, I'm shopping in the same place as Clark Kent!", not some backalley shop that sells carrots with dirt still on them and charges twice as much for the pleasure of washing it off (easy target)! No, give me cheap food pumped full of chemicals anyday, thank you very much.

Oh, and another thing (raised by Mum, confirmed by The Spectator): everyone's looking at Tessa Jowell and her ex-husband, shaking their fists and questioning their relationship with Mr. Handkerchief-Head Berlusconi and her ministerial integrity, but has anyone bothered to mention outside of a few closing lines at the bottom of a page that His Tonyness frequently uses Berlusconi's holiday home for free (leading the Italian press to call him "los scroconi"... no, not "a scrotum", or literally even "several scrotums", but "the scrounger")? Funny how he's now cleared Jowell of wrongdoing, because raking her over hot coals just might make people say "Hang on, didn't you go on holiday with Cherie to Tuscany at the expense of the Italian taxpayer?" Still, that's the New Labour government for you... seriously people, please: I don't want to sound like I'm telling you what to do, but for goodness sake get rid of His Tonyness and Henchman Brown at the next election and vote for someone worth voting for (ie, "Dave" Cameron)!

That was a contradiction, wasn't it? Hey, whatever, talk to the hand...

There will be no online diary entry tomorrow here at Bonkers Loony Conspiracy, madcap fans, due to my entire time being taken up with POL132 from 09:00 until 10:00 and then 24: The Game being purchased and played to death. Perhaps Saturday from Simon's computer if he lets me and if I'm not too busy muttering "This is the longest day of my life..." while shooting terrorists and inevitably rescuing Kim from some overblown hostage situation. And, now that Sunday is busy too, I shall probably make a massive blast at posting here on Monday.

Until then, ladies and mentalmen, peace out.

Feed a Cold...

Afternoon one and all...

Latest development: still no hot water. Several mildly-warm-but-boardering-on-cold showers and the fact that last night came with a free blanket of snow for Newcastle means I'm slightly chilly and subsequently slightly suffering from a slight cold. Lots of slightly there, but I don't want this to get out of hand, especially with Strike Day, Tuesday, rapidly approaching, and I don't want to be incapacitated if there's a chance to get on the telly. So I'm sitting tight.

Just finished watching 24: Season 2, then, and even though I've seen it before, I'm left reeling from the final few episodes, including a massive shoot-out and Matrix style fight between Jack and an armed goon followed by an assassination attempt on President Palmer... whoa indeed. Oh, and I've also been playing the rather excellent Sonic Gems Collection, featuring some of the "best kept secrets" (translated: old and naff) of Sonic's gaming history. I love 'em, but then as people know I love tat, so here's a screenshot for you all to make up your minds and see what you think:
That's the arcade "legend" (translated: not good enough for console release; can be found on the recreation deck of two cargo ferries; one has been out of order since 1998) that is Sonic the Fighters. I beat the single player arcade mode in all of twenty minutes with Sonic. Hmm... still, budget game, budget action, surely?

As promised, here's that snippet from The Spectator, dated 25th of February, about the United States which I find rather interesting. Alexander Chancellor writes that "...my great-grandfather Murray Finch Hatton... shot an African tracker in the leg while big-game shooting in Kenya. Mortified by what he had done, he rushed forward and gave the tracker a golden guinea. The man limped off, but soon returned. He had consulted his wife, he said, and wondered if his Lordship might kindly oblige by shooting him again. Dick Cheney didn't need a golden guinea to buy the goodwill of Harry Whittington, 78, the multimillionaire Republican lawyer he shot two weeks ago while quail-shooting in south Texas. In fact, it is hard to imagine circumstances in which Whittington would allow any anger he might feel towards the Vice-President to become public. For Whittington is a Texas Republican loyalist, and the 50,000-acre Armstrong Ranch, where the shooting incident happened, is a sacred place for Republicans. To be asked to shoot there means being admitted into the Republican inner circle. Regular guests have included not only Cheney but the two Bush presidents... and George junior's chief political strategist, Karl Rove. For a guest to publicise trouble or disharmony on the ranch would result in instant expulsion from this Republican elite. So Whittington, with up to 200 steel pellets from Cheney's 28-bore shotgun buried in his face, neck and torso, and recovering from a pellet lodged in his heart, left hospital six days later declairing that 'my family and I are deeply sorry for all that Vice-President Cheney and his family have had to go through this past week.' It was, he said, 'much more serious' than anything that had happened to him. He would have probably have said the same if he had lost an eye."

The times we live in, eh? Peace out.

Freezing Friday

Drumbeats... whoa...

That's the soundtrack to The Rock for you, which I'm listening to now in Simon's room (the only one of my CDs he likes and grew quite obsessed with a few weeks back, and subqequiently listens to repeatedly) as I type this... no, not an easy target moment!

Today's been a little out-of-sorts for those of us suffering with low water heating supply in Flat 19. Last night, the water wasn't only just cold but freezing, in which I reluctantly had to endure one of the quickest showers of my life. We've been in contact with Don "The Man, The Legend", who says the next time he can get his people out to look at it is Monday (because he's got a wooden leg, or limp, or bit of shrapnel from the war and takes him that long to climb the stairs)... yet so far, the heat of the water seems to be holding, so perhaps this weekend won't be as cold as I originally suspected! Anyway, next door have hot water just fine, so if push comes to shove, we can always nip (pun intended... you know, cold sometimes referred to as "nippy"? Oh, forget it...) next door.

Other than that, all I've really done with my time is hoover my room, get up-to-date on my laundry, some small amounts of reading and watching the excellent 24 and playing some equally excellent We Love Katamari and James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing. Of course, there's shopping to be done, which is next on the hitlist, and tonight Flat 19 might possibly sit down and watch The Rock (hence the soundtrack being listened to). I'm thinking pizza, or chicken, or pizza with chicken on...

I read a rather inlightening article in The Spectator about the American political situation within the Republican Party, specifically to do with Dick Cheney shooting his friend in the face with a shotgun last week... if I can drag it up, I'll include a brief snippet of intel (24 speak for "a few lines of it") in my next posting.

Until then, ladies and mentalmen, peace out.

Testing, Testing...

Hello one and all (that'll be just one, then):

Please ignore this test. Tell you what, I'll pass the time by telling you a rhyme...

"There once was a woman from Venus;
Whose body was shaped like a..."

Oh, test over! Shame, you'll never hear the end of that rhyme... oh well!

Peace out.

After a Strong Start...

Afternoon, ladies and mentalmen.

Hope this message finds you well: I'm tired and want chocolate, but I'm going to do this first because I know you're all dying to know how I've been the past 48 hours (in other words: hi Mum, hope your lunch hour isn't too boring)!

Well, my day away from University yesterday was eventful to start with: haircut time! With the colder weather up here in the north, half-an-inch of hair coverage over my entire skull isn't exactly survival kit issue... still, I stand resolute on my hat policy in that no such hat-based device will ever grace my bonce! No beard to stroke ponderingly, either, which is a shame because up until now people think I'm "academic" with a beard and therefore know my stuff. My grades will slip and people will start asking questions just for being smooth as the proverbial baby's backside... still, nice work with my new shaver (thanks Dad)...

In the world of the media, two outstanding franchises must be addressed without further ado: 24, both on television and on PlayStation2, is filling my spare time with suspense and intrigue. The build-up to the launch of 24: The Game next Friday is almost as tense as watching Jack Bauer's Power Hours rattle along on DVD, but hey, I've heard on the grapevine that it'll be worth the wait. A full report on that later, especially as promised to fellow 24 die-hard fanatic, Jill. Secondly, We Love Katamari, also known as Katamari Damacy 2, is a crazy Japanese PlayStation2 game involving a giant ball (easy target) called a katamari: basically, anything it touches can stick to it providing the katamari is big enough to roll it up. The entire objective of the game, as such, is to roll massive katamari balls that encompass everything from pencils to cats, people to cars, buildings to entire islands... all in a madcap Japanese techno world. I don't know what the makers of this game were smoking, but I bet it's got a street value of millions...

On to serious matters: politics, and David "Dave" Cameron has started in motion his plans for the Conservative Party to gain power at the next election (against Gordon "Trust Me, I'm Not Prime Minister Yet" Brown, who has been speaking about everything but the economy recently while His Tonyness has been globetrotting in an effort to make himself look like decent Premiere material. Nice try, mate, but I'm not buying it). Tuesday's news report from the BBC News website (thanks for the link, Mum), plus rumblings in the Tory press such as The Spectator (more thanks to Dad for that one) and Telegraph, show that Cameron is facing a battle within the party faithful. Old school Tory boys are withdrawing funds and making noises about Cameron being "too modern" and "too leftie"... I think it was a possible bad move of Cameron's to get behind His Tonyness' education reforms so quickly after taking the leadership reigns last year, as a lot of people saw this as the Bush/Blair relationship on a national scale, or at least the chance of it in the future. Bummer, then. But is it?

There are a lot of disillusioned ex-Labour supporters out there, according to The Spectator, who are uneasy about the Liberal Democrats due to recent events and are looking for a moderate alternative. Could Cameron's new softly-softly approach to right wing government grab the cash from them, make a mad dash for Number 10 and then slam the door behind him? I'm holding out hope.

I'll tell you one thing, though. "Beano" Boris Johnson, the shadow higher education secretary, better have a good deal sorted out for University teachers when he gets power. Striking doesn't work, we all know that, and yet on Tuesday my politics lectures have been cancelled due to the teachers creating a picket line and refusing to mark any of our assessed work. Joy of joys: how much does the average student pay for a course? Isn't this supposed to cover all costs? Then why the protest? If the Kremlin (sorry, I mean "New Labour government") are so proud of the education system, why are the staff striking? Who is to blame inside the halls of power? I've a sneaking idea that I'd like to go along on Tuesday and start my own protest, knock some heads together, end on a witty remark and then get arrested, but seeing as my actions may well come back to haunt me if politics really is my calling, I've got the second option of staying in my flat and watching The Legend of Zorro on DVD. Yep, I'm gonna sit in the flat...

Quick announcements: yay for a certain lady friend of mine who is having the time of her life with a new mystery man; rest in peace Goldfish #1, who Mum informs me died this morning; congratulations to Simon for working through two consecutive nights to get his presentation finished and in on time despite being part of an unmotivated group.

That's me for today, folks. Back tomorrow after my 09:00 lecture (I'm going to request that "Beano" Boris, when in power, makes sure that no student ever has to suffer such an early start again)!

Take care, peace out.