True Hopey

A slice of perfection, 25 April 2009

I don't write reviews very often but I just had to for this magnificent album. I can honestly say there isn't a duff track on it.

What we have here are 11 guitar-driven instrumentals (on the whole) and each one has more ideas in it than most albums have in their entirety. The band do the quiet-loud-quiet thing to perfection and have a fantastic ear for melody. Songs constantly surprise you, never going quite where you expect them to go. There are no vocals as such, just the odd shout to drive the song along. Although, on "Don't Waste Time Doing Things You Hate" they... well, I won't spoil it. Suffice to say that it sent shivers down my spine when I first heard it.

If… Read more

Pretty graphics and totally unbalanced AI, 28 Jan 2006

Yes, this game looks gorgeous and runs smoothly. It's fast and great fun in the two-player modes. Just don't expect anything other than stress from the single-player.
The difficulty curve is off the page. The computer opponents punish you if you try anything more than button mashing. They will take half of your energy away while you are on the floor and cannot block. The counter system is good but hard to get right. Perhaps the game will improve once I've memorised every player's movements so I know how to counter them? What's fun about that? Especially when the moves look so similar to each other.
The final boss, Alpha-152 is broken beyond measure. She cheats, teleports and… Read more

Am I missing something here?, 16 July 2005

I will be totally honest and confess that all the hype about this book put me off reading it for a long time. However, it was given to me as a birthday present and it would have been rude to not give it a try. Well, I've read it and I really can't see what the fuss is all about.
The writing style is stilted and clumsy. There are many errors and don't get me started on the way in which Mr Brown continually manufactures cliff-hangers for almost every chapter.If that is the only way he can make his readers want to read on then so be it, but it annoyed me beyond measure. I mean, how many times can someone open a box, gasp in disbelief at the contents and then not describe them for another… Read more