Early Reactions to Dragon Age 2

Now this is a mixture of a review and a preview, mainly because Dragon Age 2 is such a large game that i haven't had time to finish it.
Firstly i am a HUGE and i mean HUGE fan of Mass Effect 2, so when i began playing the new Dragon Age i was delighted by the fully voiced main character and conversation wheel. Then came the combat...
I have to admit after putting in around 10 hours i have a love/hate relationship with the direction Bioware took with this. The original dragon age had a wonderful but very complicated combat system in comparison, and whilst the action is heavy, well paced and sometimes it features gratuitous awesomeness this sequel has turned into a button basher. Mass effect 2 had a similar streamlined experience, however it worked much better there mainly because it was a 3rd person shooter rather than a hack 'n' slash.
This being said i do relish the combat, getting covered head to toe in the blood of my characters opponents but they did take it too far in my opinion with the bodily explosion. Sometimes on the final hit your enemy will literally explode into little bits. Which for me is slightly too OTT and unneeded.
The story is also slightly lacking in comparison to Dragon Age Origins and the Mass Effect series. They were epic in scope stopping the blight/reapers, this one however i found myself not getting involved and desperate to finish the tale. The characters i have encountered so far are neither here nor there, unlike say Morrigan from Origins or Mordin from Mass Effect 2.
I shall put out some more on my thoughts about this game once I've got further into it but so far i give the game a score of roughly 7/10. Not because its bad but its a big disappointing so far considering its pedigree.

The Day I Decided The Blog Would Change

Good evening/morning/day, ladies/gentlemen/transgenders the time has come for the blog to shift in its focus.
No longer shall you listen to the boring details of my day/night/dawn/dusk.
No now you shall listen to the boring things i think of all manner of entertainment. REVIEWS ladies and gentlemen, REVIEWS!!!
None shall be safe, be it game, film, tv show or musician you will all face the the wrath of my writing and you shall not care because this blog is fairly lonely on the internet. To be honest i don't think anyone reads it.
But anyway later on this evening i shall put a review up, not going to tell you now because that will ruin the surprise.
Do you want your surprise to be ruined? That's right i thought not
Anyways later nerds i need to play more video games .... that doesn't work at all

The Day I couldn't think of anything witty to put into the title

Ladies and Gentlemen, today we are coming up to the deadline for when this whole blog is due to be presented to the powers that be.
In honor of this wonderful and important occasion i thought we should begin with some ranting, whilst keeping the tone light of course. Don't want to scare of the zero followers that I have on this blog you see.
Well first things first I went home to the capital city of London, some of you may have heard this place. To get home I had to use the tube, now I usually have no problems with the underground, sure its crowded and sure it can smell quite bad but it gets you where you want to go sure enough.
However I discovered to my horror that in order to get a ticket from London's Kings Cross to my home station of Oakwood I would have to spend eight pounds. Eight pounds people! Now I know this isn't that much, but it is for just a one way journey, its not a day travel card. For eight pounds I'd like seats that don't have chewing gum ground into them to be honest, I mean is that a completely ridiculous suggestion?
Right well without wanting to come across as a lazy bugger I'm all ranted out right now, I'm tired and (don't tell my parents) slightly hungover. Yes I know its three in the afternoon but a man needs his sleep!
I bid thee farewell, and we shall talk soon.

The Day I Payed For My Second Year

Huzzah! I have handed in the details and now shall not be forced to live on the streets of Lincoln for my second year of university.
Not only is it actually quite a nice day but one of the my assessments is done and finished. Unfortunately as being a hand in on blackboard I have to admit I am fairly worried.
Not because i doubt blackboard's capabilities but technology and I have a love/hate relationship. Mainly I love technology but technology hates me, so it is now in the hands of the great supercomputer in the sky as to whether my lovely essay reaches techno heaven or if it falls into windows vista hell.
Now what else is there, right, getting train home today just hoping its not too hot on the tin can and should be seeing Battle: LA later on. I have heard its really bad from many places but my friends saw it and said it was pretty awesome so I'm going to give it a shot.
But yes whilst in a good mood now I'm sure i wont be happy once I've endured my train journey.
This is Matt signing off.

The Day I Almost Drowned in the Shower

So my wet room has decided that it doesn't want to drain the water from the shower anymore, and as such has made my morning routine much more exciting.

Now until they fix the problem I have to make sure when having a shower that I don't fill the room up with too much water or it will overflow into the main room causing all kinds of horror.

Took another weekend off, and managed to achieve the feat of visiting McDonalds three times in three days, I definitely look after myself well.

I also picked up my census form today, I was going to do it but then realised that I hate filling things out, especially when on the front it says 'get this wrong and you could be fined'.

But as you can  tell I've been leading an extremely exciting and fascinating life recently, I think that they should definitely make a movie about me.

The Day I finally wrote a new blog post

Greetings to anyone who may read this!

I am not dead but merely been distracted by this particularly annoying and downright troublesome thing called 'real life'. 

But fear not for I am back, first things first I think I did quite well in my predictions of who would win what at the Oscars, sure I may have gotten director, film and supporting actress wrong but we can't all be perfect now can we. 

The big debate for me right now however is the question of home, and whether or not I want to take this weekend off and have a nice couple of days back in London. Biggest problem is that it’s pretty damned expensive and also that I’m coming back in like two weeks for a friend’s birthday anyway. 

But I guess that once I have made my mind up as to what I am doing I shall post again, and I shall also be trying very hard to get in a post at least every 2-3 days at the most :)

Talk soon my internet comrades. 

The Day I Correctly (this may be subject to change) Predicted the Oscar Results

Ok i failed at the reviewing thing, my bad, i apologise  etc etc
But onto the main event
shortly before the awards begin which i wont get to watch as i have to get up very early tomorrow (like eight o'clock!) i shall use my mystical powers to guess... i mean correctly foresee the results to the academy awards in the main categories of Best Film and the acting awards.

Best Actor - Colin Firth for The King's Speech (lets face it its kind of the shoe in)

Best Supporting Actor - Christian Bale for The Fighter (i would love Jeremy Renner to win though)

Best Actress - Natalie Portman for Black Swan (see Colin Firth)

Best Supporting Actress - Hardest one to predict in my opinion, Hailee Steinfield for True Grit would be my choice but its kind of cheating to put her in this category as she was clearly the lead character in front of both Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon

Best Director - David Fincher for The Social Network, the fact that Christopher Nolan for Inception was looked over in this category is a (excuse me) effin crime against humanity.

Best Animated Film - Toy Story 3 (i won't be wrong)

Best Film - The Social Network (i really really want Inception to win but it won't happen, and lets face it people kinda got all obsessed over this Facebook flick, it will deserve it if it wins don't get me wrong, its a bloody great film)

The Day I realised I failed miserably at doing what I set out to do

If you're reading this then you may realise my promise to review the films nominated for best picture at the academy awards has fallen flat on it's figurative face. But there is no time for that!

It's time for a rant my friends, basically being forced to pay ridiculous train prices in order to get home, I found myself having a first class train ticket being cheaper than the standard counterpart.

Now that I have experienced both standard and first class I can say one thing. Rich people do not waste your money! I don't know what my expectations were going into first class but in all honesty it was no different from standard, you got the same selection of food from the trolley, the same seats, the tables were the same size I mean I don't get it, where does all the extra money go.

Next time national rail i want to see fireworks and a personal butler goddammit, I wish to be treated like royalty rather than spend the whole journey trying to avoid eye contact with the rather peculiar man sitting opposite me .

The Day I Reviewed 127 Hours

Danny Boyle’s latest outing after his runaway success that was Slumdog Millionaire follows the story of Aron Ralston, a mountain climber who (SPOILER) has to cut off his own arm after a hiking accident. Now it’s debatable how much of this is a spoiler as even with just a small passing knowledge of the film the horrific event is already spoiled.

Now do NOT let this deter you from seeing this film. Danny Boyle does a fantastic job at directing a film that at its core is about one man trapped under a rock for the majority of the films 94 minute running time. This is done through the excellent technique of using flash backs and hallucinations to portray what is going through the mind of the trapped hiker.

Ralston is played by James Franco, known mainly as his role as Harry Osbourn in the Spiderman films and the loveable stoner Saul Silver in Pineapple Express. Here he takes on the role of the somewhat doomed mountain climber, and he holds the film together with a really great performance. Talking to the audience through the medium of his portable camera which acts as a way for him to record, what he sometimes believes is his goodbye message.

This technique is a very good way at getting the audience to connect and empathise with the character, allowing us to see every subtle facial movement as he realises more and more what he may have to do to escape, or indeed that he may not make it out at all. The entire film is not filmed like this though; it sports some great shots of the mountainous area including some great sequences as the small crack in which Aron is trapped is lit by the sunrise.

If you were being very picky you could say the supporting cast is clearly overshadowed by its main performer. However that is a very big stretch, as this film is driven by its brilliant central character, and you find yourself willing him to escape, almost as desperate as he is to see him get out of that canyon.

Now back to the issue of the amputation, if you dislike disturbing scenes you better steel yourself before you go to see this film, as said though do NOT be put off by that. The scene in itself is brilliantly done, convincingly acted by Franco and excellently shot by Danny Boyle, it is an extreme assault on the senses, the imagery and the sound almost make you uncomfortable much in the same way that the last scene of Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for the Dream is. It demands your attention and as horrifying as it is, you can’t help but stare at it.

This is a very well polished film, and should be recommended to anyone who hasn’t seen it. It combines all of the elements needed to make a great film, acting, direction, musical score and effects to create a heart-warming, moving, tense and sometimes weirdly enough, funny story of one man’s desperate fight to survive.

An all round 5 star film.

The Day I (more like just after midnight) thought of something for the blog

Being a film nerd makes me happy, I honestly think they are the greatest form of entertainment, closely followed by music. So after seeing True Grit at the cinema and then watching The Social Network on DVD I thought, because the Oscars are coming very soon, in about eleven days I believe, I would write a review about each of the films nominated for Best Picture.

Unfortunately I have not seen every single film nominated (disgraceful I know) I have seen however most of them, so the only films I shall not be able to write a review for is Winter's Bone and The Kids are All Right. I shall write something about them once I get round to seeing them however.

Just before the awards are given out I'm going to say which films I think/hope will win, along with best actor/actress awards according to which of the films I've seen.

I'll be trying to get a review up every day/couple of days so that they are all up before the awards come out. The normal daily routine posts will still be going up, this is just a side thing that I want to do.

The Day I Saw True Grit

Today, or more specifically to be honest, tonight, i saw True Grit, the new film from the Coen Brothers, which you may know from a little film called No Country for Old Men.

I shall just tell you that it was freaking awesome, it was Jeff Bridges running around shooting the hell out of the wild west. Can you ask for much more than that? I think not.

Now what else did i get up to today? Ah yes now i remember, i managed in my infinite wisdom to book my train journey home for the weekend on the same day as my flat mates birthday, and i will be back in lovely London for her birthday party as well. Hopefully i don't look like to much of a jerk.

As for the rest of my evening i shall do what any true geek should do in these situations. Play Computer Games!

To save you all from my random ramblings (and some really bad alliteration) i shall depart, hope you all had a pleasant day after Valentines day, if you didn't i'm sorry, but there really isn't much i can do about it now is there.