Second Shot

Quit your jibber jabber, fool!

Ah, fantastic!

Go here and what do you notice? Go on, look at the date. Oh yes, indeedy. It’s…

Party Time!

Today is the first birthday of Second Shot and, boy, am I proud. The fact that I’ve actually stuck with this blog for a whole year is quite an achievement seeing as my previous blogs and attempts at making a long-lasting website have fallen face over arse. But here I have something that I actually enjoy plugging posts into, without too much of a care whether anyone reads it or not. Judging by the stats there’s either a few people out there that actually read my writings, or there are loads of unique robots slapping my site with hits.

Reading back on my first post, there’s definitely been quite a change to Second Shot since then. Redesign after redesign has finally landed with blogs within blogs (nicely hidden, if I may say so myself). There are still a few areas that need some TLC and I just keep forgetting to update them. Maybe one of these days they’ll get fixed.

So here’s to another year of random bleating and vague comments on world events. Let’s see if I remember Second Shot’s second birthday.

It seems that my games reviewing has paid dividends as I was picked by Thunderbolt Games from a multitude of Reader Reviewer within Eurogamer.net. I’ve no idea how many they actually looked through, but as soon as I got that email asking if I wanted to join their team I said yes.

But that doesn’t mean I’m leaving Gamesrant, oh no, not at all. And the main reason for that is because there’s a slight difference in writing reviews at Thunderbolt Games. Although they also do what we do for the love of gaming itself and similarly aren’t filled to the brim with advertisements, they do regulate themselves more than we at Gamesrant.

Firstly, they’ve got editors and have a system where the team check reviews before they are posted for public viewing. Compare that to our post-whatever-whenever style and… well… can’t really say either is bad or not. But there is a significant loss in spontaneity which is a slight kick in the teeth.

Secondly, they also require game scores with the reviews. Now, I’m not really one for giving scores because there is no way that a finite number can ever properly and accurately reflect how a reviewer feels. Numbers essentially tie the review down, when they should float-around and be interpretted by readers.

And lastly, they have a nicer website design. But we’re soon to have a refit and face-lift and make ourselves that little bit better than we already are. They also have PR contacts for promo games to review and we get to keep them! This is something that we really need to do for Gamesrant, but I don’t think that we can do that until we sort ourselves out.

Anyway, thought I’d let you know why my articles are popping up in different places, but if I get myself well known, well, who knows…

Another four-day weekend was had, and very slowly it was too. It feels quite odd having such a long break between working days, but I suppose I shouldn’t complain (although there is a lack of Bank Holidays this year – it might have been the same last year, but as I was unemployed I never noticed).

Went to watch Sunshine in the cinema yesterday, absolutely great it was. Danny Boyle has an excellent eye for vision and nicely contrasts the close-up, huddled nature of the space-craft interior against the extreme immenseness of the actual space-craft, the sun and space itself. Jumping between the two gives a great sense of ‘the possibilities of space travel’ in the future. Forget all the technical wizardry and gadgets; just being able to see the scale between a person in a spacesuit and the Icarus-2 space-craft is enough to feel fuzzy inside.

The story goes along the lines that the sun is to run out of fuel and vanish sooner than expected. The way to solve this is to throw in a large mass fuel-source into the sun so that its chemical reactions don’t die out. Simple, potentially feasible (what with Boyle having employed a proper scientist), nothing could go wrong. Except of course it does.

The mission of Icarus-2 highlights that there was a previous problem with Icarus-1. What it was, the crew don’t know but are about to find out when they discover its location during their mission. And this is when things go a little be awry. I’ve no idea what’s told in film magazines, but I’ll leave it that this doesn’t turn out to be that simple mission the crew were hoping for. It’s got the classic crew-turning-against-each-other moments, but those aren’t followed through because it’s not the premise of the situation they get themselves into.

I did find myself feeling sorry for the crew many-a-time, especially towards the end that turns into a race-against-time. But these feelings were kind of individual because for me there wasn’t a great amount of chemistry between the actors and actresses. Still, Cillian Murphy did a sterling job that got me rooting for him all the way (probably because I enjoyed 28 Days Later). (As an aside, its sequel, 28 Weeks Later, will be release on 11th May. The Americans seem to have taken over of England’s Armed Forces for some reason, and stars Robert Carlyle this time.)

Anyway, make sure you take some time to go see this because its promise and potential is best fulfilled on the big screen.

Apparently, it’s Easter weekend. I say that knowing full-well that it was so at the beginning of this week. Hopefully, that sentence made little sense but all I’m saying is that it’s already Easter and that the year had gone by a little too quick for my liking. Thought I’d post to say, don’t eat all your chocolate at once, you’ll only get fat and spotty the next day. Although it’ll probably have been worth it.

I think I won’t be having an Easter egg this year, at least in time for this weekend. I’ll probably get one of the millions that will be left over in Tesco during next week for half-price. Those Lindburgh chocolate bunnies are quite nice.

Well, hope everyone is well. If you’re feeling lazy this weekend, I’ve written up a couple of gaming reviews for you digest in between your mouthful of chocolate. Firstly, written a while ago, is Sam and Max. It’s a classic Lucas Arts game that has been revived into 3D and continues the good comical adventures of a dog detective and psychotic bunny. Hmm, how apt. Kind of.

And then there’s Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy. I have a backlog of games to review, but I’m being good and doing them in order. And hence, I was supposed to write this ages ago and so it seems, to me at least, a little bit hollow due to not remembering too much of it (or being as expressive as I would have been if I had written it soon after the game’s completion).

Also, this is my second four-day weekend in a row. Last week I went down to Southampton to see Kieran et al for his birthday. Very good it all was too.

Have a good weekend, all.