THE SAMURAIS STING Part 4

THE SAMURAIS STING

September: September got off to a great start with XWA Last Fight at the Prom. The show including a match between the team of Deadly Serious as they take on Johnny Phere, Phere eventually won the match and was reinstated into British Wrestling, FANTASTIC, I mean Johnny Phere is my favourite British Wrestler. Also a match was held between the British Flyweight Champion Spud against the British Heavyweight Champion Sam Slam to which Sam Slam lost due to interference by some of Spuds Pals.  Also in September the Phenomenal AJ Styles won the TNA World Heavyweight Championship at TNA No Surrender. Also Fantastic, AJ Styles is a fantastic Wrestler.

 Also in September was one of the worst television shows of the year. It was about this bloke called Gareth as he tried to make a town choir. Ok its better than shows like the X FACTOR (I remember when the X FACTOR was an ingredient in washing up Liquid). What I did not like about this was the fact that they were not singing any descent music. No Aerosmith, no ZZ TOP, no Motorhead, that’s it really.

 Talking about bad television, September also saw the return of everyone’s favourite popularity contest Strictly Come Dancing. This is not a dance contest this is a show where celebrities are told to dance and put on a show to see who the best dancer is, but what this show really is, is a show where the viewer can vote for their favourite celebrity and not their favourite dancer. OK there may be some people out there that actually vote for the people who are good dancers, some. Also this show has no imagination, its all ball room dancing that’s it. I have actually come up with a better idea for a program like this. Its called Strictly Come Fighting where we get martial arts experts to teach Martial Arts to a group of celebrities and get these celebrities to fight each other and who ever loses leaves (No Phone Votes). Or if that idea does not work I will just bring back the greatest game show in the world, ROBOT WARS.

 During September I went down to Liverpool to go and see a friend who had recently started at John Moore’s University and I had a nice look round the city. Also on that day I signed up to FACEBOOK. After signing up it was easier to get in touch with friends who I hadn’t heard from in a while. Its pretty interesting.

In September I went to see what is in my opinion the 3rd best film of the year, DISTRICT 9. I would recomend this film to anyone who likes Sci-Fi films like Independence Day and Cloverfield.

 Half way through September I went back to college to start my second year in Video Games Development. So far I have made a game using Flash, made a website and I am currently designing a level in Unreal Tournament. The Level for Unreal Tournament is the assignment I have most been looking forward to and I am really enjoying it.

 September also saw the pilot episode for Charlie Brooker’s Gameswipe, It works alongside his other two shows (those being Screenwipe and Newswipe). The show included a look at game genres as well as celebrities talking about some of the Video Games they have played. A full series of the show has not yet been confirmed but I am hoping it will because the pilot for the show was very good.

  October: After almost a year with no word on a series a trailer for GAME DAMAGE (WWW.GAMEDAMAGE.NET) finally went on to the website meaning that a series should be on its way. GAME DAMAGE is a show hosted by Ben “YAHTZEE” Croshaw (from Zero Punctuation), Guy “YUG” Blomberg and Matt Burgess (from Australian Gamer) who present a show that talks about games and some other things that other gaming shows don’t do including some funny funny clips.

 Also in October UP came out at the cinema. Another Pixar film involving a house with hundreds of balloons attached to it to make it fly. A very funny film and the first film I have seen in 3D at a VUE cinema (in Lancaster).

 During October one of my favourite events of the year returned. The British Musical and Fireworks Championships in Southport. 3 displays on show with my favourite probably being the second even though it was close between both the second and third demonstrations. This was the third year I went and since going to this almost every other firework display I see outside of the British Musical Firework Championships (in Southport) are quite disappointing really, why? There is no music. Hopefully I may go and see next year’s fireworks.

 In October a brand new wrestler arrived in TNA from London, his name is Desmond Wolfe. Desmond Wolfe made a huge impact taking on Kurt Angle as soon as he arrived. It was good to see another British Wrestler go to TNA alongside Brutus Magnus, Doug Williams and Big Rob Terry.

 Towards the end of October I started to fill out my UCAS form for University (University not College, I am already at College). I went for an open day at Bradford University and I got to have a go in a MOCAP suit (Motion Capture), it was quite fun.

 In the end of October I went to the EUROGAMER EXPO in Leeds (across from the Royal Armouries) where I and my class and some other people from the general public got to play video games that hadn’t been released yet. These games included New Super Mario Bros Wii, TEKKEN 6 and MAG. It was one of the best days of the year for me. I hope I get to go again someday.

During October James May started his program called James May’s Toy Stories where he built amazing things out of some of the most popular toys ever made. His programs included a full scale spitfire made out of Air Fix, A full size garden made out of plasticine, A full size bridge made out of Meccano, A 2 and a half mile Scalextrick Track, a full size house made out of LEGO bricks and my favourite; a Hornby train set 10 miles long. The show was very good fun. I wonder if it is going to come out on DVD

THE SAMURAIS STING Part 3

THE SAMURAIS STING

June: June saw the annual arrival of My Birthday. For my Birthday I received Motor Storm Pacific Rift for my PlayStation 3. A really fun Racing Game with many different and fun vehicles including Bikes, Rally Cars, Big Rigs (TRUCKS) and Monster Trucks. That plus many nice presents from family and friends.

Three days after my birthday I went to see Terminator 4 at the cinema. The Best Terminator film by far because we finally get to see the war between the humans and the machines. Well worth seeing.

June also saw the return of Top Gear to our screens, its nice to know that there is still some Great Television on.

On June 19^th I went back to the cinema to see another big film, I had been waiting for this film to come out for 2 years. The sequel to the biggest film of 2007, the sequel to the only film to break into my Top 5 Films (Which were all Japanese Godzilla Films until July 2007). TRANSFORMERS 2: Revenge of the Fallen. After seeing this film my top number 1 film had become 3 films, they are Godzilla 2000, Godzilla Final Wars and Transformers 2.

July: The XWA returned in July with another show at the Morecambe Dome (in Morecambe) with XWA VENDETTA. The show included a Tag-Team match between the British Heavyweight Champion Sam Slam and Jonny Storm against Deadly Serious. The show also contained another appearance by Johnny Phere.

During July I also bought the brand New Wii Sports Resort (on the Wii). The game included the brand new Wii Motion Plus attachment for the controller to make the controller more responsive. It’s a lot of fun the game includes many sports including Archery, Frisbee, Wake Boarding, Bowling and Golf.

Also in July I started to paint War Hammer models again after some years of not doing it. My favourite army to collect, model and paint are TAU

July also saw the debut of Charlie Brooker’s own game show which went by the name of You Have Been Watching which had appearances from many comedians and showed clips of TV shows from the week, Very funny and a second series of this has been confirmed as well for 2010, can’t wait.

During July I held a BBQ at my house and had a few friends over from church. It was quite a busy day to get ready for but it was all worth it for a very fun day with family and friends.

August: The beginning of August didn’t start off too well, during the first week my PlayStation 3 stopped playing games. Because I was about to go on holiday I decided to leave it until I got back from holiday. When I went back to the shop I got it replaced for a brand new one, with this new one I have now got an account on PlayStation Network, just have to wait around until MAG comes out.

August saw the arrival of a new gaming show to the UK. The show is called Game Face (every Saturday morning on Bravo) and the viewers of the show get to choose which games are reviewed. The show came in as a replacement for PLAYR; another video game programme which stopped airing in April giving me a huge problem not telling me when it was coming back on air and to eventually get replaced by a brand new show. PLAYR had more in depth reviews than Game Face but Game Face is actually a good show.

During the summer holiday the England Cricket team won the Ashes. I don’t know why they even bothered to play mainly because the ashes is a rubbish tournament because the thing they are playing for is not allowed to leave Britain so there is no real point to fight over it. The biggest problem about this was the fact that they were not going to get knighthoods for winning something not majorly important, stupid really.

I spent the first 2 weeks of my holiday in Wooler (a small town about an hour’s drive from Newcastle) with my family. During this holiday I spent a morning learning how to Fly Fish, it was a lot of fun and I would quite like to take it up as a hobby. I also had a small boat ride around the Farne Islands and saw many animals including Seals and Birds. The one animal that I was most looking forward to see did not turn up however and had already left, the Puffin.

The third week of my holiday I went to Root Hill Christian Camp (near Dorking). It was one of my favourite weeks in the year (2009). I got to catch up with friends I haven’t seen in 51 weeks and I was able to become friends with a few more people as well. I spent the week doing many activities including a walk up Box Hill, a couple of games of Lazer Quest (Its no match however for the Mega Zone in Morecambe) plus a chance to have a look round Guilford, a walk up Leith Hill which is the highest hill in Surrey, a game of Bowling in Crawley with a chance to look around the town and chance to hand out tracts in Dorking. But by far the best day of the whole camp was the day I spent in Littlehampton with friends from the camp which included a walk around the town, a look through the museum and a round of crazy golf with a barbecue to follow back at the camp site. The camp was also a great opportunity to hear from visiting preachers to preach the word of God to us. Overall a very fantastic week and I am really excited to go again in 2010.

THE SAMURAIS STING Part 2

THE SAMURAIS STING

April: Many fantastic things happened in April. Two of the games that I was excited had finally been released, Tenchu 4 and Little Kings Story, both on Wii. Tenchu is a ninja style stealth game which revolves around assassinating certain in game characters, a lot of it looks and plays the same way Thief did on the PC but it is in fact quite a good game. Little Kings Story was one of 2009’s biggest releases. Created by an all star cast of video game developers including the games producer Yasuhiro Wada who created the highly successful Harvest Moon series. The aim of the game is to build up your kingdom while conquering the rest of the world. It is a very good game even though I still have to complete it.

During April the Curry and Quiz Night returned to my church with me as the Quiz Master for the third year running. A lot of fun and also a good opportunity to see friends I haven’t seen in a while.

April also saw the start of the Good film Season where the Good Films started to come out. The first of them being Monsters vs. Aliens. A fun film which pitched a group of monsters against an alien invasion, a very funny film and worth seeing.

Also during April I started to listen to other bands including the Likes of the Rolling Stones, ZZ TOP and Aerosmith.

April saw the annual return of WWE WRESTLEMANIA with WRESTLEMANIA 25. I didn’t really pay too much attention to it apart from the match between my favourite Wrestler The UNDERTAKER and Mr. Wrestlemania Shawn Michaels. During the year the powers had shifted between WWE and TNA with TNA becoming the better company out of the 2.

During April I saw what is by far the best show in XWA history that being XWA War on the Shore 5. The event included a match between British Heavyweight Champion SAM SLAM and Martin Stone for the British Heavyweight Championship. The show also included an appearance from Alex Shane and my Favourite British Wrestler Johnny Phere who was currently campaigning for a return to British Wrestling after being kicked out the previous September

May: In May I started a Christianity Explored course at church to help me understand Christianity a lot better and it has helped me to get to know God better and come closer to him.

Also in May the good film season continued with the release of X-MEN Origins: WOLVERINE. This film explored the background of probably the greatest comic book character in history. Hugh Jackman returned to the role (FANTASTIC) and was accompanied by a cast of characters including many legends in the X-MEN universe including DEADPOOL, SABRE TOOTH, EMMA FROST and my favourite GAMBIT.

May also brought the end of my first year in Video Games Development at Lancaster and Morecambe College (in Lancaster and Morecambe). This was quite sad for me but it was not the end of the course yet there was still one more year to go.

On the second to last day of my first year on Video Games Development course I went to the Urbis Centre (in Manchester) with my class and looked at an exhibition showing the history of Video Gaming in Britain from simple origins to a multi-billion pound industry.

May also brought back one of my favourite events of the year, The Eurovision Song Contest. This year it was a bit more fair thanks to a new voting system where 50% of the votes are decide by a panel of judges. The down side of this of course is that Rock Music will never win again. Britain did well coming 5^th overall and Norway’s song (Which was not very good to be honest) winning. I voted for Finland for the 4^th year running (they came 25 out of 25) because I liked their song more than the others even though it was pretty close. Norway’s song got the most number of points in the contests history beating (ANNOYINGLY) Finland’s Lordi who won in 2006 (and still the greatest song in the contests history).

At the end of May I went on a day out with my church to Brock Hole (in The Lake District) which was a good chance to meet up with some friends I haven’t seen in a while.

The following day after Brock Hole I went into town and Finally bought (after almost 2 years of planning) My PlayStation 3. With it I bought KILLZONE 2 and Far Cry 2, both of which are very good games.

Throughout the last few years many TV shows have been finishing including the likes of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and Blade; The Series. During May a new show arrived on Bravo, Sons of Anarchy. A brilliant show about a Biker Gang in America. The show was created by the same guy who created the American TV Crime Show The Shield (Which is kind of surprising seeing as Sons of Anarchy is a very good show and The Shield was PANTS). It’s good to see some new and original shows appearing to fill in the gaps of shows which are starting to finish.

GENEPOOL

THE SAMURAIS STING Part 1

THE SAMURAIS STING

YES after a 3 year absence I am back.

2009 has brought many memorable moments including ANIMEX, Transformers 2 and the final series of Battlestar Galactica but for the purpose of memorizing all this let’s look at my year month by month starting (OBVIOUSLY) with January.

January: The year started off well with me waking up early on New Year’s Day and walking through my home town (Lancaster) with my camera just to see how quite it was because everyone would be asleep with all the festivities the previous night. OK there were a few people in town and some cars but for a Thursday it was amazingly quite, you could probably hear a pencil drop (Not a Pin a Pencil, why do people say a pin when that is quiet in itself and you probably won’t hear that).

Later in the month a travesty returned to television, the second series of Gladiators (The new one). OK I liked it when it returned, it was fun but the second series came far too quickly I mean the first series started in MAY 2008 if they were clever and brought the second series out in May the following year (2009) it may have still been interesting. But in the end it got really, really boring. Even though it was bad some good news came out of it, one of the Gladiators whose real name is Nick Aldis (But goes by the nick name of The Big O) secured a contract with the second biggest wrestling organization in the world (and by far THE BEST) TNA, going by the name of Brutus Magnus.

During January I actually got the chance to see TNA live at the Manchester Evening News Arena (in Manchester) where I saw Brutus Magnus, the following Saturday was XWA GOLDRUSH live at the Morecambe Dome (in Morecambe) held by Britain’s number one wrestling promotion the XWA run by the brilliant Greg the Truth Lambert.

January saw the debut of one of the greatest cartoons of all time, Wolverine and the X-MEN. The show ran for 26 episodes with a long running story instead of mini stories for each episode, so each episode had some involvement with the whole story. It brought many famous characters to the series including the likes of Emma Frost, Bishop and my favourite character Gambit. The second series is currently in production and I can’t wait but in the mean time I can just watch the episodes on DVD which have recently been released.

January also saw the return of the greatest TV series of all time after a 2 year absence, 24. After just 2 episodes this was the best series since season 2 (this being season 7) with many new and brilliant characters introduced to the show. But I’m not going to tell you who because I don’t want to ruin it for you. Season 8 is just about to be released but is this going to be anything like season 7. We will have to wait and see.

February: February got off to a good start with a trip I went on with my Video Games Development Course to ANIMEX held at Teesside University (in Middlesbrough). OK we got there late due to the snow so we missed the morning talks but we did get some good talks from the head of Volition Clint Ourso and Ian Livingstone OBE who founded the company Games Workshop (The makers of War Hammer) and whose company Eidos Interactive launched Gaming Icon Lara Croft. Later that night my course went to the players’ lounge at the University and talked first hand to the people from the talks, which helped me to expand my horizon of what I want to do in the industry. That night we all slept at a Premier Inn hotel (one of the best night’s sleep I have ever had) the next day we heard some more talks from people within the industry including the Editor of Famitsu Magazine Hideki Osada as well as Ian Milham who was the Art Director of Dead Space and Doug Wood who was the Lead Animator on Left 4 Dead. That night we travelled back home. ANIMEX was a good show and I was very happy to find out that I was able to go again in 2010, I am so EXCITED.

ANIMEX also introduced me to one of the Greatest Bands of all time, METALLICA. It was during a talk from Free Style Games who showed an Advert for one of the Guitar Hero games called Guitar Hero Metallica. From this I found out about some of METALLICA songs and by the end of this year they became one of my favourite bands.

February saw the arrival of the Final series of the second greatest TV series of all time, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (The new version). The show went on for 10 episodes eventually finishing in March. It was a sad end to one of the greatest shows in the world but it didn’t disappoint. Especially with that GIGANTIC BATTLE in the final episode. What makes this a good series in particular is the political side of trying to run a colony in space that is currently at war. Great story and a Great Show.

March: In March I added a new film to my always expanding Godzilla collection, Godzilla Against Mecha-Godzilla. An epic battle between Godzilla and his Giant Robot counterpart. This was Mecha-Godzilla’s first outing in the Millennium series out of 2 the second being this films sequel TOKYO S.O.S. Godzilla Against Mecha-Godzilla is a very good film and goes along side all the other films in the greatest film series of all time GODZILLA.

March also saw the return of a BBC TV series that is better than Doctor Who, Robin Hood. This series saw the regular cast return along with some new characters. The show finished with a very good episode but there is no sign if the show will return or not in the future.

Another good show to arrive in March was Newswipe with Charlie Brooker. The show was very funny and revealed the truth behind the news. It looked into news scene in America (but thankfully didn’t say anything bad about the Daily Show) and also looked at how people send in their own pictures of snow men for the BBC to classify it as news. A second series has been confirmed for 2010, can’t wait.

Also in March the greatest crime drama in the history of television returned for its 5 season, NUMB3RS. What was most odd was this was shown before the fourth series was shown which was shown shortly into season 5 on a different channel. Season 5 is one of the shows best seasons alongside the fantastic series 2 and 3. All I need to do now is watch season 4 and wait around for the next series to begin, watch it, it’s Fantastic.

GENEPOOL

Coming Soon

Hello Everyone

You may remember on December 21st 2009 I announced the winner of  The Choice is Yours, The winner was Movie Games. Well I havent had time to write it up and post it due to the Christmas break, but during this time I have been able to think about it and make it better as a result. It’s on its way and you will be able to read it and comment on it.

But thats not all, After a 3 year absence the Samurai’s Sting returns with a brand new format as I talk about my year as I mention the stuff I liked and Rant off at the stuff I didnt.

That is just a little appetiser to what is to come in the coming weeks.

GENEPOOL