Torchwood: Miracle Day get’s it’s UK air date!
Torchwood: Miracle Day will air in the UK - 14th July 2011, 9pm BBc1
Finally, after dithering about and causing panic and confusion amongst the UK Torchwood fans that made the series a success in the first place, BBC have got round to revealing the UK air date for Torchwood: Miracle Day. And it’s the 14th of July 2011 at 9pm on BBC1.
You see how easy that was Beeb? You give us the date. We report the date. Done job. And i hope someone stomped on the toes and stole all the jelly babies from the idiot reporter that decided to say Torchwood would air ‘later in the Summer’ rather than ‘later in July’, or even ‘the following week’ in the article posted on the BBC website…
I know there will be some people out there that still have issues with us getting it after the US, but that was always likely. Starz part funded the show – to exactly what percentage, we don’t currently know, but i suspect it was a sizable chunk. And if it aired on the BBC on the 8th, the same as on Starz, that would mean the BBC would get it first due to time differences. Starz is a commercial channel reliant on advertising, so if the 2 channels are partners, it make more sense for Starz to get first airing of it, as the BBC isn’t affected by advertising revenue. Having said that however, it is slightly annoying that we’ll still have to spend 6 days dodging spoilers online between the US and UK air dates… Still at least it’s back!
Torchwood: Miracle Day airs 14th of July 2011 at 9pm on BBC1.
Review: Robot Chicken Star Wars: Episode III
Robot Chicken Star Wars: Episode III
Once again, Robot Chicken are back with their 3rd genius Star Wars special edition of Seth Green & Matthew Senreich‘s stop-motion animated tv show! This time round we open Emperor Palpatine coming to his unfortunate (for him anyway) end, just like in the movies. But as he hurtles down into oblivion, he has time to reflect over what bought him to this point in his life. This includes some great sequences, such as Anakin having to explain to Palpatine that his face may just have, you know… caught… just a tiny bit… of the force lightning deflected from Mace Windu’s lightsaber… Palpy dealing with daily life on board the Death Star, and an explanation of some of the other orders that came before Order 66.
There’s some old favs back too, such as Gary the Stormtooper (voiced by Scrubs’s Donald Faison 
trying out a speederbike for the first time on Endor, and visiting the Lar’s homestead on Tatoonie; and the brilliant Boba Fett (voiced by Road Trip’s Breckin Meyer , this time sporting a rather awesome tshirt cannon. Once again they’ve managed to rope in some of the original Star Wars cast to reprise their roles including Billy D Williams (Lando), Anthony Daniels (C-3P0), & Ahmed Best (Jar Jar). All working along side the RCSW regulars Seth MacFarlane (Palpatine), Zac Efron (Anakin) and of course, Seth Green himself.
Robot Chicken Star Wars: Episode III doesn’t skimp on extras either. There’s the usual commentaries, along with 3 ‘For the Love of…’ featurettes (called …Toys, …Star Wars, and …Film Making) talking to the crew about the things that inspired them to make these specials. There’s a bunch of ‘Deleted/Unused Animatics’ introduced by the Seth, Matt, and the writers. Featurettes on the writing and the voice recording. Footage from the Star Wars Celebration Panels and the premiere at Skywalker Ranch – this is where you get to see just how big a bunch of SW geeks the Robot Chicken team really are! There’s also a fascinating chat between Seth and some of the writers and Mr. Star Wars himself George Lucas, who really goes to show how much he loves and supports these specials.
Overall, it’s another fantastic Robot Chicken take on Star Wars, and I’m already looking forward to them making Episode IV!
Robot Chicken Star Wars: Episode III is released in the UK on July 4th 2011.
9/10 – More fantastic Star Wars parody from some brilliant geeky fans.
Star Wars Galaxies To Shut It’s Doors
I was somewhat predictable this day would come. In some respects, i’m surprised it didn’t arrive earlier…
$OE have announce that on December 15, 2011, Star Wars Galaxies will shut it’s doors.
As long time reader of this site may know, fellow Geektowner Daryl and myself were huge fans of SWG. D had been playing since beta, and I joined a few months after launch. The original SWG was my first experience of MMOs, and, unlike a lot of modern MMOs, SWG wasn’t just some leveling treadmill that you played with lot’s of other people. It was a genuine virtual world/galaxy, and set in the Star Wars universe. What more could a Star Wars fan ask for!
SWG player built city
You could build your own villages. And i don’t mean like in most MMOs that have player housing where you stuck in a predefined area. You could ride out on your speeder into the countryside, stake your claim to a spot of land, and build a community. And in those early days, people did that in large numbers, creating huge cities, each with there own houses, mansions, shopping malls, garden areas and shuttle ports.
SWG was set in a time period between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back. The idea was to put you right in the middle of the Empire/Rebel war, allowing you to fight on the side of Vader and the Emperor, or Luke, Han, and their merry band of rebels. This means Jedi were extremely rare. It was possible to become a fabled Jedi warrior, but not without an awful lot of hard work. For most people, they would be playing characters such as bounty hunters, rangers, creature handlers, or scouts. You could also take on professions to help support the player run economy, such as architect, entertainers (people even formed bands), droid engineers, doctors, or farmers. What was unique about SWG was the skill system. You didn’t level from 1 to 60 in one pre-selected profession. You had a pool of experience points, and could pick and choose pretty much any combination from any of the skill trees. Want to be a droid engineer that’s quite handy with a pistol? No problem! Sure, your not going to be as adept as someone that dedicated their time to pistol training, but then they don’t have a bunch of cool droids following them around!
SWG space combat
The first expansion – ‘Jump To Lightspeed’ – added space combat into the mix. This not only gave you a brilliant ‘X-Wing v TIE Fighter’ style space battles, but also meant you had your own ship to explore the galaxy in. A ship you could also walk around in, and customize with player crafted furniture. You want your own X-Wing, luxury space cruiser, or even Millenium Falcon, that was all possible.
Then came the cursed NGE (that stands for ‘New Game Enhancements’) patch $OE inflicted on the community. This was Sony’s attempt to turn a unique and interesting sandbox MMO into a more level driven World of Warcraft model. It failed… horribly… and in the process alienated a large portion of the player base. Partly due to the fact that they added Jedi as a ‘starting class’, meaning there were suddenly enough Jedi across the galaxy to have brought down the Empire in no time at all… What made it worse was this was actually the second time $OE had screwed over players, having made a massive change to the combat system with the Combat Upgrade (CU) patch only a few months earlier. For many, the NGE was the final straw.
Star Wars Galaxies
Over the following years, D and I would get tired of whatever MMO we were playing, and one of us would suggest going back to Galaxies. We’d load up the game only to be really saddened by what was there. Once thriving player-made cities, now nothing more than ghost towns, with empty shops, and not a soul in sight.
In all the years i’ve been playing MMOs, i’ve yet to find a more immersive online gaming world. I’m in no way saying Star Wars Galaxies was perfect… It had some dodgy mechanics, server problems, and other glitches. However, I salute it for trying to be different, at least in the initial pre CU and NGE game design. There is another Star Wars MMO on the horizon of course, in the shape of Star Wars: The Old Republic, which I am very much looking forward to, despite the fact I suspect was the last nail in SWG’s coffin. As good as I hope SWTOR is, it will be a very different game to the one SWG was… I’ll leave you with a quote from a little green friend of mine…
“Soon will I rest, yes, forever sleep. Earned it I have. Twilight is upon me, soon night must fall.”
- Yoda
Top 9 Star Wars Parodies
To celebrate the release of Robot Chicken Star Wars Episode 3 on July 4th, we have pulled together our top 9 (you know how much GeekTown dislikes a top 10) favourite Star Wars parodies on the web.
From Eddie Izzard’s infamous ‘Death Star Canteen’ scene, to Darth – I mean, Chad’s – foray into Supermarket management… Star Wars always been ripe for some spoofing!
9. Chad Vader – Day Shift Manager
Darth Vader’s brother Chad Vader rules his empire, the local grocery store, with an iron fist.
8. Empire State of Mind
Darth Vader has the Empire on his mind. And he is going to sing about it.
7. Eddie Izzard – Death Star Canteen
There must have been a canteen on the death star. With lego people no?
6. Trooper Coffee Run
3 day journey across the death star…for coffee.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbG3KNpytYQ
5. Darth Vader Rap
Vader lets everyone in the galaxy know what’s up.
4. Thumb Wars
The Phantom Cuticle
3. Injured Stormtrooper
The troops become confused when a trooper is only injured, rather then dead. This has never happened before!
2. Robot Chicken Star Wars – Don’t Tell Vader
The council make it known that Darth Vader does not have the power to strangle.
1. Star Wars – TROOPS
The classic. The one. The only… TROOPS!
Torchwood air date ‘later in the summer’ in the UK…
Torchwood NOT airing in July?
UPDATE HERE: Torchwood gets it UK air date!
GeekTown has just read something rather disturbing in a BBC news article…
As we all know Torchwood: Miracle Day is due to be airing soon. We have the US air date - 6th July on the Starz network. We’ve been seeing stories saying Torchwood wouldn’t be airing simultaneously with the US as they did with Doctor Who earlier in the year. So, the assumption was it will air during the week following the US air date. It now seems that is not the case…
In the article it clearly states, ‘The series will air in the US in early July and be shown later in the summer on BBC One.’ So, it looks like Torchwood is not going to be just after the US air date, but rather several weeks behind it! What has prompted this rather odd decision from the Beeb is as yet unknown. I have requested a response from the BBC but so far they are silent on the matter.
Given the heavy amount of promotion and hype Torchwood has been getting online, this seem like a massive misstep by the BBC, and is only likely to eat into the viewing figures as fans find “other ways” of watching the show… Which is a real shame, as lower viewing figures could effect Torchwood’s chance of renewal. *sigh* I am getting rather sick of TV networks shooting themselves in the foot with bizarre scheduling decisions at the moment…
Thoughts? Comments? Leave them below…
Star Trek Online: Re-Review (PC)
We first reviewed Cryptic’s Star Trek Online back in Feb last year a few weeks after launch, and whilst (like every other MMO player) i’m waiting for SWTOR to be released, I’ve decided to revisit a few old MMO’s to see how they’ve changed.
Is It more Star Trekky?
Story driven episodes
One of the key issues I had with STO during the first review was it’s over reliance on combat for missions. If there’s one thing Star Trek was never about, it was killing everything you came across. And, whilst there is still a lot of combat in STO (there is a war on after all), Cryptic have also added a lot more non-combat/puzzle related sections to it’s missions, along with dedicated ‘diplomatic missions’ which have no combat at all.
It seems in the 16 months since the game launched, someone over at Cryptic suggested the wacky idea of actually watching some episodes of the various Star Trek tv shows, and the penny finally dropped on how they should be writing missions. The Romulan based ‘Cloaked Intentions’ and the new ‘The Devidians’ series of episodes, are a huge leap forward in storytelling from the early ‘go here > kill that in space > kill this on a planet > kill that in space again’ mission structure. The new improved STO has some great, well written stories, that really pull you into the game and actual feel like Star Trek.
So there’s more content?
Star Trek Online
In addition to Cryptic adding more stories, there’s also a slew of new content added by players themselves through the new Foundry mission builder. The quality does vary somewhat between episodes, but some of them are really well constructed, and vastly entertaining. There’s a simple, player reviewed, 5 star rating system which helps you to filter things down and find the better missions. Some are somewhat like the filler episodes of the show (entertaining, but you could live without them), but as players have got more competent with the Foundry system, they are now producing epic, linked episode arks, that almost match the new stuff Cryptic are writing.
Interface immersion
No more astrometrics
One tiny change which made a huge difference to me, is the ability to switch off the ‘astrometrics’ layer on the space maps. Previously, when you warped from system to system, you got thrown onto a stylised tactical map interface, which jarred horribly with the beautifully crafted spacescapes you get inside a system. Now, you can turn off all the extraneous stylised graphics, leaving you to warp about a far more pleasant environment. It’s still not the vast and open space that you’d get in a game like EVE, but that minor change does really help with the games immersion.
Another addition, is the ability to wander around your ship, rather than just your bridge. You still can’t access every area, but you can visit the crew deck – which has sickbay, crew quarters and a lounge – and you can also get to the engineering level. It’s a small thing, but it all helps sit you in the Star Trek world.
The rest of the interface is as generic and functional as it was previously (i still think they missed a trick not using a LCARS interface). However they have tweaked some things by adding some some long overdue filters onto the HUGE list of items in the shops/skills windows. I’d still like some decent filters on the Exchange (aka auction house), that allow you to look for things by function rather than just by name, but it’s a start.
What about the combat?
My 'helpful' crew
Space combat is pretty much as it ever was, and that’s fine by me. It might not be perfect, but it’s entertaining, and there’s enough skills and variety in the ships and officer choices for players to find a fit they’re comfortable with.
The ground combat sucks a bit less… That’s not to say it’s good… it just not as bad as it was. Your away team seem a little less stupid than they were. They still get stuck on things – although not as much as they did. They still run around and jump about like they’re being controlled by an 10yr old child who’s just downed 3 bags of Haribo and a litre of Coke. They still don’t care if your stood next to the enemy when they decide to throw a plasma grenade at them setting you on fire as well. Honestly, if Starfleet saw some of the antics your away team got up to, i’m pretty sure every one of them would have been court martialed a long time ago!
And how are the Graphics?
Star Trek Online
Due to the fact that STO is built on Cryptic’s MMO engine, it’s still got that horrible floaty feel to it, same issue they had with City of Heroes and Champions Online. Until they decide the build a system that doesn’t feel like everything is held together by elastic bands, i guess that’s always going to be the case.
There’s also issues with the graphics themselves. I have a relatively new PC and reasonable graphics card running up-to-date drivers, which should be able to cope with STO without any issues at all. However i’m still really struggling if the shadows are turned onto high, or if there are a lot of lighting effects on screen. I’m beginning to suspect it’s just that STO is not that well coded, and that’s causing issues on certain graphic cards. I can’t see how a rig that runs newer games like Dragon Age 2, or other MMOs like the visually stunning Conan, without so much as a glitch, still struggles with STO’s graphics.
Conclusion
Danube-class Runabout
Despite Cryptic’s engine, and some graphical issues, Star Trek Online is a really fun game. Over the last 16 months Cryptic have worked hard to make STO feel far more like Star Trek than it ever did before. The addition of the Foundry means their is always some new story to play through. And if you want a take a break from playing, you can always create your own episode. It’s not perfect, and i’m still not a fan of the ground combat, but the new ‘out of combat’ stuff is wonderfully written and engaging, and far more like what i wanted it to be in the first place.
