Doctor Who: Day of the Moon

As before, spoilers throughout. This is posted a little later than I would’ve liked, due to connection-related woe.

I liked this quite a lot, though it wasn’t quite as good as the first part. The strangely inexplicable hunting of the Doctor et al. at the start and the unexplained possession of the densest material in the universe (still light enough for humans to move by hand) did detract in a minor way.

However, the story generally was good. Moffat’s excellent at taking advantage of the show’s basis to create complicated and creative plots using time-travel. In addition to the future and younger Doctor, the use of the Silence’s own powers of hypnotic suggestion being used against them was a cunning plot twist, if perhaps contrary to the Doctor’s typically pacific inclinations.

I also loved the clever use of the markings and Amy suddenly discovering she’d scrawled all over herself. Bringing in the viewer by showing the markings but not the initial moments of seeing the Silence (for her and, earlier, Canton) was a good move.

There was less comic relief than the first part, and River Song’s slightly silly massacring of the Silence was a bit over the top. I did miss, previously, that the machine was the same as the one in The Lodger, for the very good reason that I didn’t see The Lodger.

Amy’s pregnancy wasn’t resolved. She both is and isn’t pregnant, it seems, and the little girl (still unidentified but possibly the daughter of Amy, or the Doctor or, scandalously, both) has some sort of regenerative power.

It also seems likely that River Song’s dastardly deed will soon be revealed, given the closing scenes. She also seemed surprised that the Doctor had never kissed her before, raising the interesting possibility that he’s an even earlier version that he ought to be.

Next episode sees swashbuckling pirates, a siren and Amy Pond with a cutlass.

Thaddeus

Kindle: first thoughts

After some prevaricating I decided to take the plunge and acquire a Kindle.

The screen is really quite strange, in a good way. It looks closer to paper than a standard screen and, naturally, is purely black and white. The controls are a little smaller than I’m used to (I have no mobile telephone or Blackberry) but easy to get the hang of.

The guide does explain things clearly but is a bit repetitive and probably twice as long as it needs to be. The inclusion of two dictionaries (a corrupted colonial version and an accurate English one) is a simple but excellent feature.

Initially, I’m going to use it for reading the first draft of a story I’ve been writing. That might not sound like a spectacular use of a pricey gadget, but given the alternative is printing off hundreds of pages and then daubing them with four highlighters and a biro it’s pretty handy and saves a lot of space.

I’ve downloaded an MP3 (Queen’s excellent but less well-known ’39), a picture or two and the first six chapters of my aforementioned story. Music-playing falls under the Experimental heading. It’s a crude system but a reasonable addition. Pictures get diminished in size, sadly, by the conversion process, but they still look quite nice. My chapters (originally Word documents) keep some formatting (the titles are larger and underlined) and lose other bits (indented paragraphs and speech is just left-aligned now, and the justified body of text is likewise).

The screen is substantially easier on the eye than a standard PC or TV screen. Text can be varied in font and size, and two people (one man, one woman, both tedious) can be prompted to read the text. Terms can be searched for within a document or all documents, or a definition sought from the dictionary.

There is a web browser but it’s rather clunky. It’s ok if you want to check something quickly but if you’re planning on doing much more then it is insufficient. [In fairness, this really isn’t the Kindle’s point].

So, what are the advantages?

Space is the big one. It’s very thin and no larger in breadth and length than a standard paperback. If you’re a frequent flyer or buy numerous books which would be just as good in an electronic format, it will probably prove value for money.

It’s also convenient, and in many instances cheaper than getting physical books. This won’t affect most people, but for me personally it’s quite nice reading my stuff on a Kindle rather than spending ages (I have an old printer) printing stuff out and then reading and marking it with highlighters.

I only got it today so I need to do a bit more with it (downloading an e-Book or two, most obviously) before reaching a firmer conclusion, but so far I’m quite liking it. I also need to work out how to either make my story formatted so I can just transfer files directly to the Kindle, or alter them so that when the automatic Kindle conversion e-mail comes back the formatting isn’t half-lost.

Thaddeus

Review: F1 2010 (PS3)

I wanted to wait until I’d completed a season before reviewing this, but even so, I can’t give a comprehensive review as I’ve not raced in a competitive car.

The game is solidly based on the 2010 season, in that the driver lineups only change if you change a team and shunt one driver into the wilderness, and the 19 circuits of 2010 always occur in the same order.

Certain features are not present. The formation lap, safety car and podium presentation/celebration are all out. The first and last are froth as far as I’m concerned, whereas the safety car’s absence is felt. It would be complicated to introduce, but hopefully the 2011 game will see it included.

Codemasters have included a lot of the features of F1 and have an excellent range of customisation options in terms of both car set-up and gameplay choices to make it easier or harder. I have all the raw pace of a sedated James May, so chose most of the easier options, only turning on tyre and fuel simulation. Damage can be non-existent, cosmetic or realistic, but needs setting from the menu.

Players can choose between a short race weekend (brief practice and qualifying, then the race) or a full one (3 practice sessions, full qualifying and then the race). Practices can be skipped, though some include R&D tests.

NB: this is buggy and will wreck your save. The problem can be resolved by switching off autosave, and, after doing the final R&D test, doing qualifying and saving manually. A hassle, but not an enormous one.

Car setups can be dealt with in three ways. Firstly, you can leave it as is. Secondly, your engineer can change the setup for you. Thirdly, you can tinker with a slew of finickity options, such as ballast and aerodynamics. It’s an excellent system that lets the lazy/disinterested (like me) do little or nothing whilst giving those inclined towards customising the car to eke out the maximum pace plenty of scope to do so.

Pit strategy is set pre-race, and ought to be amended because there’s a small but irksome pit bug. The lollipop man is a nervous Nelly, and won’t let you leave if there’s anybody else in the pit lane, potentially costing you multiple places. In a big race, moving your pit stop forward or back a lap will usually prevent this occurring much, if at all. However, this is a bloody obvious bug and should not have been left unfixed.

So, how’s the racing? Pretty damned good, actually. The tracks vary a lot, and it was interesting to find that there was a huge overlap between how much I like watching a track in real life and how much I enjoyed racing on it. Singapore was loathsome, and I absolutely love Interlagos. The only one that stands out as a track I love to watch but hate to drive is Silverstone.

The game offers a number of flashbacks, which are mini-replays and an opportunity to wind back time a short way to prevent a big mistake. These are handy, and entirely optional of course. I had races set for 50% real distance, meaning they last around an hour, and it’s pretty easy to make a few mistakes during that time. I was fantastically quick in places like Monza and Interlagos but appallingly poor in Singapore and elsewhere. The driving is not too difficult, though some of the long, slow corners were the bane of my driving career. It is much easier to overtake in the game than actual F1, and far easier for the lower teams to do well. At the sharp end, it’s more or less realistic.

A fantastic part of the game is the dynamic weather system. Codemasters made a song and dance about this, and it really lives up to the hype. Weather forecasts are pretty accurate, but not always right, and rain can strike during practice, qualifying or the race itself. Naturally, this alters the lap times and driving style required, and affords opportunity to leap up the table if you’re cunning with tyre choices. The first time it rained during my career I stayed out on slicks too long and ended up right at the back of the field. Similarly, when the rain stops a dry line emerges on the racing line, so overtaking (often through standing water) becomes much riskier.

After a session you can have an interview with David Croft, or Sarah Holt (I think) if you get a podium finish. The answers you give can determine who your rival is (beating him helps you get an offer of a drive), how much your present team likes you and your reputation with other teams. It’s a nice feature and means that there’s slightly more to securing a contract than just the race performances.

Overall, F1 2010 is a good game with nice driving, a plethora of options and a fantastic weather system, marred by a pair of obvious bugs that can be largely worked around but should never have been included in the game. There are a few more features that could be added, but the important stuff, save the safety car, is all there.

I’d give it 8/10. It would’ve been 9, but for the bugs.

Thaddeus

Doctor Who: The Impossible Astronaut

Enormous spoilers right from the off, so stop reading if you’re trying to avoid them.

I really enjoyed this episode. The Doctor, River Song, Amy and Rory are invited to the middle of nowhere (in America) by a mysterious chap, who turns out to be a Doctor from the future. Shortly thereafter, the future Doctor gets promptly murdered by a strange astronaut that emerges from (and then returns to) a lake.

His companions burn his body, only to bump into an earlier Doctor (still played by Matt Smith) later that day. Earlier Doctor has no idea who summoned them (he also got an invite) nor what’s happened previously (or later, in his timeline).

The scant information future Doctor provided before getting crispy allows earlier Doctor to take the TARDIS to the Oval office, where President Nixon is trying to enlist an ex-FBI agent’s assistance. Nixon’s being hassled, via phone daily, by a little girl and wants the agent, distinctively named as Canton Delaware, to find out how she manages to call him directly, wherever he is.

The Doctor’s cunning (and the President’s impatience) affords him the opportunity to discover the girl’s whereabouts and he takes off in the TARDIS, along with Delaware. Whilst in the White House, Amy encountered a creepy alien, the Silence, who cannot be remembered once you stop looking at him.

River Song and Rory explore underneath the building, which is filled with ancient tunnels inhabited by other Silence type aliens. They seem to be in some sort of trouble at the end, though it’s a little vague.

In the abandoned building the little girl is supposedly in the Doctor and Amy come across the unconscious body of Delaware, and are stumbled upon by an astronaut. Without thinking, Amy shoots him, only he turns out to be the little girl. At which point, the first part of the double bill draws to a close.

The episode was fast paced, made good use of the show’s temporal potential and was nice and dark, lightened by numerous witty moments throughout. I’m not generally a River Song fan, but rather liked all the main cast in this one. Looking forward to next week.

Thaddeus