Anyone else remember the Big Al game on the BBC website

Anyone else remember the Big Al game on the BBC website

So recently I was shockingly at a friend’s house and we were looking for something to do after playing many hours of Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer. Suddenly we remembered a brilliant little game on the BBC’s website about Al the Allosaurus. We went onto the internet, found the link and discovered it had been replaced by a boring game where you out a tree on the floor and then come back later to see if your Dinosaur has eaten it. Today I will reminisce about Big Al and hopefully someone from the BBC will see this and bring Big Al back. That’s likely right? Maybe …

 

 

Big Al was created in order to promote The Ballad of Big Al, a special episode of Walking with Dinosaurs. It was a text adventure/Role Playing type game where you play as Al, a baby Allosaurus newly born into the late Jurassic period. The premise was simple, survive and live the life of an Allosaurus.

 

At the start of the game you’re in a nest. You then need to go and find food you can hunt. Naturally as a baby you cannot be hunting big dinosaurs straight away but after you start hunting small insects you move onto bigger and bigger animals until you get big enough to leave the starting area and attempt to cross the river to where the big Jurassic dinosaurs live like Stegosaurus and Diplodocus (If you were thinking T-Rex when I mentioned Jurassic dinosaurs then you go to the back of the class). Chances are you’ll eventually die of starvation but the games aren’t long enough to make starting again feel like a chore.

 

My memories of the exact game mechanics are a bit hazy as it’s been so long since I played it but I remember them being easy to use and pick up. It wasn’t a long game but was highly replay-able and an excellent time filler and it would’ve been fun to play now. So where has it gone?

 

The BBC for some strange reason has taken the Big Al game away and made it completely inaccessible to anyone wanting to play it. The Planet Dinosaur game that has replaced it is by contrast a dull program (I don’t want to say game) where you pick a dinosaur and check on it every few hours. Instead of the genuinely difficult and engaging Big Al game we have a boring thing where we watch a dinosaur walk up and down.

 

Did you ever play the Big Al game when it was still available and what did you think of it. Finally are you a member of the BBC? If yes do what should be done and bring Big Al back to us.

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A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) Retrospective

A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) Retrospective

 

Nostalgia is a wonderful thing. Nothing beats going back to that happy place from long ago where unlike the present which is tainted and despicable everything was perfect. There is a catch of course to the great nostalgic love we have for things. It is just that, nostalgia and thus our views are often tainted and thus it’s perfectly possible to go back to it years later and find something that does not even come close to being that great thing we remember. Being the genius I am I decided to revisit one of my favourite childhood shows, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, specifically the 2003 series. How was it? Were my childhood memories punched in the gut like they were with the recent movie? The short answer is at the end of the post, the long answer starts now.

 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is funnily enough about the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They become mutated by a strange ooze that somehow mutates them into giant walking turtles. A similar thing happens to a rat name Splinter who takes them in as his sons and trains them in the art of ninjitsu which he learned from mirroring the moves of his owner while he was a simple pet rat. They fight crime such as street gangs and the evil foot clan along with their master, the infamous Shredder.

 

That was obviously a very basic outline to the show and many more allies and villains were introduced and many story arcs happened along the way.  The most important aspect of the show were the turtles themselves and naturally if they were bad the show would be bad. Fortunately this was not the case. What was so well done about them is that they each had a very distinguishable personality but it was never forced down your throat with out of place lines or just one character trait. Generally we think of Leonardo as the leader, Donatello the brains, Michelangelo the joker and Raphael the one with some serious need of anger management. While each of these traits does exist they are not all that exhibit personality, you’re very aware that they are still teenagers. Leonardo isn’t immune to having a light hearted moment and Raphael could have a logical and well thought out moment every now and again. Not so often to break their character but often enough to make them feel like they really exist and are not just bland stereotypes.

 

Having good main characters is well backed up by some excellent side characters. Master Splinter stands out as the significant side character and for good reason. Interestingly this was the first Splinter to be called Father by the turtles and this shows in their interactions. They’re a family, a dysfunctional one but a family none the less. We had human characters too and unlike Megan Fox they’re not annoying! April O’Neil isn’t a reporter in this version, she starts out working for Baxter Stockman and is a tech savvy scientist but ends up running an antique shop. She acts as sort of an older sister character to the turtles. The other important human character, Casey Jones is introduced and I think we all thought he was there to be a token love interest for April. To start with the only turtle he really interacts with is Raphael and then the obvious getting on each other’s nerves happens with him and April. What we get however are two likeable characters who are not only likeable for separate reasons but likeable for being individuals. They have their own storylines and episodes to develop them as characters who aren’t there solely for the reason of benefitting the other.

 

Villains are important and the Shredder is a very well-known villain. If I told you the Shredder in this series, at least at first was a small alien squid thing inside a robot suit would you be confident of a good villain? I certainly wouldn’t but I really like this version of the Shredder. In the armour he looked badass and while slightly cartoonishly evil at times his motivations for wanting to get back home and take revenge are at least understandable and not simply to destroy the world for no apparent reason. He also had an interesting backstory and overall made a cool villain and not to mention had one of the biggest plot twists ever when he picked us his disembodied head. I won’t discuss all the villains as I’d be here for hours but I do want to mention Baxter Stockman and Kurai who were both interesting for their inner turmoil and struggles.

 

This host of characters made for some really great plots and episodes and the icing on the cake was how dark and gritty it could be at times. There were plenty of cheesy and silly moments, it’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, it’s impossible to bot have them but this show showed us that this was a series that could be taken seriously in terms of its plots and themes. I’m surprised 4Kids got this dark in a show they were involved in. However while it as gritty and serious when it wanted to be it was never to a point where it was no longer fun. However the dark moments were certainly there such as Baxter Stockman’s ‘punishments’ by the Shredder or the episode where an alien creature messes with our heroes heads in a horrific way or how they were perfectly willing to kill themselves in order to stop the Shredder to name a few. There was a perfect balance of dark and serious with some humour and silly moments splashed in to keep it serious and gritty enough while still being fun. Above all else this is what I think the show does so incredibly well, the tone and character.

 

The animation still looks great too, it’s sharper and more anime like than the original series and I think it works well. The fighting and action is great and while it is kind of noticeable how characters with blade weapons rarely hit enemies with them it still works well as a spectacle. The voice acting is good (An interesting thing I found that was funny is April has the same voice actor as Ash Ketchum from Pokémon) and while not the greatest in the world the opening theme song is catchy and it did have a very cool video playing in the background. So what was wrong with the show?

One thing. It didn’t know when to stop. You could argue it should have been after series 3 but I personally think series 5 should have been the final series. At the end they had just taken down the ultimate evil and most characters had their closure.  Sure not all of them did but the next series was set far in the future anyway so it hardly matters. While we don’t lose out on anything by having a couple subpar extra series I think it would have been a great send off to finish on series 5.

 

When I was younger I liked Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles because it had cool action, a bunch of awesome moments which were funny and action packed as well as thinking the turtles were really great. Now I still think those things but I also enjoy the plots, character’s development and evolution as well as the darker moments and personality to the show. In other words I think that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is better now than I did back then. So the short answer to my earlier question is yes, it holds up and then some.

Star Wars the Empire Strikes Back - Review

Star Wars the Empire Strikes Back – Review

After the trailer we all saw a few days ago I was really in the mood for Star Wars. It’d been way too long since I had watched the Empire Strikes back and I was curious to see whether it’s as good as I always think it is.  When asked my favourite film I would always proudly admit it was the Empire Strikes back so how was it now? Let you be warned there will be spoilers although let’s face it, everyone in the universe knows what happens in this film.

 

The Empire Strikes Back follows the aftermath of the Rebellion destroying the Death Star. A good film needs a good plot and this film definitely has that. The first film set a great foundation and Empire really ups the stakes. It would have been very easy to unite the same crew as last time and send them all off but instead after a short time our main protagonists get separated. This was a great move as not only did it allow more locations and thus show us more of the world that was being created but also meant the characters had new challenges to overcome.

 

If plot is the bread then characters are the butter and a sandwich with butter is a dry and thirsty experience, so how were the characters? We’ll start with our main protagonist Luke. A bit of a tangent here but when you think of the prequels what is one of the main things that sticks out? For me it’s how irritating Anakin was. I am not criticising the actor, honestly considering what tripe he had to work with I think he did a decent job. This is especially apparent in scenes with no dialogue but the point is he was whiney and stuck up and perhaps most importantly for this kind of story, completely unreliable. Luke could be whiney at times but it was never annoying because we could kind of see what he was saying. He reacted to how many people would but he was still brave and determined and all those good things you want in a hero. Unlike what the prequels did with Anakin, Luke was written to kind of stray the border at times with good and bad and it wouldn’t be unfeasible to see him go either way but at the same time we wanted to see him succeed.

 

The other two main leads, Han Solo and Princess Leia spend a lot of time together throughout the film and take up a lot of screen time so if they had no chemistry this would be a huge problem. Luckily they’re really enjoyable to watch. I’m a huge fan of Han Solo, he’s the kind of character I’d like to think I was similar too even though I know it’s definitely not the case. He’s if nothing else, really cool. More than that though he was a character I enjoyed seeing the growth of. He started out in the first Star Wars as just in it for the money and let’s face it, a bit selfish. He develops though from the guy who shot first into a genuinely good guy, one you could always rely on. He never loses that swagger and bravado that makes him such a great character to begin with.

 

Leia doesn’t quite have such an arc, she doesn’t change anywhere near as much as Luke or Han but that doesn’t mean she’s not interesting. She is strong and she holds her own and she doesn’t need to be rescued all the time. I also like the chemistry between Han and Leia, they do bounce of each other well and again unlike the prequel it is like a real romance. You do believe what’s happening, you don’t just have to assume they’re in love because George Lucas says so.

 

Now I need to talk about Darth Vader. Right. Do villains get any better? I doubt it, Vader was a powerhouse in this film. Like everything else he really stepped it up for the Empire Strikes Back. He was far more evil here and while we saw him do a few cool things in the first film we really get an idea of his power here. He executes people by choking them, he throws stuff at Luke and the lightsaber duel is superb, it really highlights how easy Vader finds it to block Luke’s assaults. Vader is powerful but he’s also complex and while his character isn’t explored that much there are subtle moments with him that I absolutely love. I loved it when we saw the back of his head and how it was all scared and I like seeing him bow to the Emperor. Little moments like that I thought did a great job of showing us a bit more without having to spell it out to us.

 

Of course there are so many great supporting characters it’s hard to fit them all in to one blog post. Yoda was a fantastic mentor character, we are always aware there is more to him but it never just gives it all away and equally we are shown how wise he is. Chewbacca has great interactions with Han, C3PO has some good lines (I especially like it when Han is making his move on Leia and runs charges into the room exclaiming about some random sci-fi gibberish). Lando is like more awesome cool smuggler character and Boba Fett for all 12 seconds he’s there is just plain awesome.

 

There are some amazing scenes in this movie, I’ve already mentioned the show down with Luke and Vader, the chase through the asteroid field is great, the battle for Hoth was cool and one of my favourite ever movie scenes is in this movie. It’s where Han gets frozen in carbonite and it’s a fantastic scene. The line I know was so fitting and such a great way of emphasizing the moment.  The music is perfect and then we see Vader’s helmet through the smoke! I love that scene.

 

There’s so much more I could talk about and I could go on for pages and pages but instead I’ll answer the question of is the Empire Strikes back as good as it has been in my head. Absolutely, the film is a masterpiece and if you’re one of the 3 people on earth who hasn’t seen it then I highly recommend you do.