Doctor Who: Return To The Loading Screen

It's taken me a bit longer than intended, but I eventually got around to buying Doctor Who: Return To Earth for the Wii. I'd like to say it's been worth the wait, much like I'd like to say that right now I'm being fellated by an attractive young lady. Sadly neither of these statements are strictly true.

To be fair, it's not that the game exactly AWFUL per se. It's just... not very good. It is not, for example, a patch on the adventure games for a variety of reasons. Aside from being not as fun to play you have to consider that the adventure games are FREE, whereas this has an RRP of £30+. You don't have to be Adric to work out the maths.

To be fair, even Adric doesn't want to be Adric

Still, lets break it down and try to work out where it all went wrong. Graphically the game is nice enough, and looks pretty good. The art style does seem a little odd though, the big headed proportions making the Cybermen look more like Lego men, and Amy look like... well, jailbait.

The really crazy part being that somehow the Doctor himself looks fairly normal, thus proving that Matt Smith is in fact a weird looking guy.

Then we have the gameplay, which I suppose is where it all falls down. Initially it seems like the game might be building on the adventure games template of stealth / puzzle solving / almost exploration. However it adds to this mix, rather bizarrely, balloon shooting and platforming. Along with a pretty dire camera and a lot of frustration. The shooting part is the vaunted Sonic Screwdriver action promised on the back cover. What it works out to is you have to sneak up on a dispenser to get the right coloured ammo, and then shoot the corresponding egregious smiley faced balloon which is for some reason floating over the point of interest, thus activating a platform or putting out a fire or whatever. Whilst this may sound okay on paper the reality is often rather different, as most of your time is spent running around trying to get to get the camera to show you the security field of the dispenser, filling up on whatever ammo, trekking across the room to the bit your meant to be zapping, missing all your shots, and then trekking back to the dispenser to start the whole process again. Of particular note are the blue crystals, which not only activate the marble run puzzles, but act as lives within them. Some of there little assault course can be okay, but they're not without issue. For example, I accept that if you hit something you lose some health. That's fair enough. But what seems to happen most of the time is that the hazards are coated in superglue, so that rather than knocking you out of the way or even being able to outrun a slow moving fan blade you just stick to it and then explode. Even though it's moving around in the same direction as you and you can move faster than it. Then there's the time when there's an EVIL marble in the run with you. This would be less annoying if maybe it didn't start about a second after you and was actually impeded by the obstacles in some way. So for example why you get to sit waiting for a sequence of gates (thus having the evil marble instakill you) on  the rare occasions you do make it through it just ghosts through like there's nothing there.

Then there's the platforming. You don't get to do any jumping of course, but there's several sections of moving platforms that need to be navigated with impeccable timing lest you plummet to your death. I'm not quite sure what game design school whoever is responsible for some of these graduated from exactly, but I'm guessing he skipped out on the days they discussed camera placement. Suffice to say it is not best helpful to place the camera as far away from the character as possible when navigating a split second jump, neither is it a great idea to have the camera suddenly change position in the middle of said crossing, thus changing the direction in which the stick is moving your character.

All these problems of course lead to my main gripe about the game: The loading screen. The loading times are, it has to be said, a tad overlong. In some section I was spending more time loading than playing until I finally managed to overcome whatever it was that was killing me and move on to the next part. They may not seem long at first, but after the first few times you notice that the amount of time you've spent waiting to load has crept up and up into the minutes rather than seconds. Although I suppose if you're a lot better at the game than me this may not be so much of a problem.

Even after spending half my time dying like a bitch I can't say that the game felt particularly long. I mean, I only started playing it Saturday evening, an I completed it today. And that includes time for Guild Wars in between. It has to be said that this isn't entirely a bad thing though, as the game does feel a little stretched out as it is. I don't think there's enough ideas here to sustain it for any longer.

This I suppose leads us to the plot. I suppose technically there is one, though you'd be forgiven if you missed it. It's not often that you find a game that really needs MORE cutscenes, but this really does. A few lines of disjointed voiceover is the best you get, often referring to things that simply haven't happened. There's little to no context in any of it, and rather than advancing any sort of story you just find yourself crossing rooms, because there's a star on the shitty next to useless radar that you're apparently supposed to be heading for. Quite what was stopping them getting a proper cast here I don't know, but the voice acting isn't really up to much. Even Matt Smith and Karen Gillan seem to be rather phoning it in for what is maybe a couple of hours studio time, tops.

All in all I have to say that this is rather a failure. When you think about the sort of thing you could do with a Doctor Who game, the sort of game the franchise really DESERVES.... Well, this isn't it. It could be worse, but it SHOULD have been better. Sadly though it seems they operating to a rather fast schedule judging by the amount of time between the announcement and release, and in these sorts of circumstances somethings going to give. Unfortunately what gave was the gameplay and storytelling.

Now, if you'll excuse me I'm gonna go play Guild Wars.

It's Coming Back Up: Final Thoughts

It occurs to me that I have been a little tardy in writing up this, the last entry in this particular series of posts. It seems customary that I finish off these little series with some sort of summary. But I must confess, I am somewhat stumped. I mean, what CAN you say about these books? Would it be going to far to say that this entire genre serves as proof, if proof be need be, that feminism is not so much dead as firmly shut in the goddamn kitchen making a sandwich, and apparently happy to be there.

Which is not nearly as cool as the Godman Kitchen

I was juggling the idea that maybe the whole thing is secretly about periods, only backwards. You know, we have the leading lady who is normally all violent and bitchy and irrational, and then she's given an anti period and turns into weak and submissive "proper" woman for a while. However I quickly realized that this wasn't quite right, I was overcomplicating things.

Via genital bleeding

At the end of the day the day the message, should you wish to take one away, is that ladies will never be truly happy until they're in thrall to some man. And in order to attract one you must be weak and USELESS.

Seriously, I've seen rape porn that had stronger leaning towards female empowerment than this. I mean, yeah, they're male power fantasies in which women are objectified as purely sexual objects, but at least the characters are enjoying themselves. Eventually.

Well at least I won't be saying it with my mouth full

So, leaving aside the subtext, what of the actual plot? Well, there's something that's been bugging me there. I mean, there are many things that bug me, but one I feel the need to mention right now. The plot hook for this book, as stated on the back of the cover, is that after all that business with the brain AIDS, Binty awakes mysteriously on the street covered in blood with a dead whore at her feet, right? Not only is this particular plot line never explained or resolved, it is never mentioned again. Save once, where we learn that there was someone else in the room. Quite who that was is open to debate. maybe it was Santa. This would perhaps explain that crushed to death guard that everyone forgot about. I guess he was standing to close to the chimney.

I mean, there's only some sinister conspiracy going on, with the fingerprints of evil all over it. Should we investigate? No. let's go to the country so that Binty can swoon heavily and change her underpants twice a day whilst the latest in a long line of Sanchos broods and masturbates on her head whilst she sleeps. THAT'LL CLEARLY SOLVE ALL OUR PROBLEMS.

This is the major problem. It's not so much that the author is completely bereft of good ideas, she just seems irrationally determined to avoid them. All 3 books have followed to some extent the same basic pattern:

1. Something bad happens
2. Ignore it
3. Do nothing
4. Continue to do nothing
5. For eons.....
6. and eons...........
7. Oh, are we running out of space?
8. CONVENIENT COINCIDENCE!!
9. And then they bad guy died and they lived happily ever after.

The actual PLOT of the book is given such a cursory treatment it's a wonder it's there at all. I realize that these are (allegedly) "romance" novels, and as such those elements are going to be given some degree of priority, but seriously? Firstly, I've read plenty of other books that featured romance and sexy times as part of an actual story, thus imparting context and validity to such matter. And secondly, if this is romance then I'm Baltan Seijin.

And that would make it a bit hard to type

I admit that I'm not really the most qualified person in the world to comment about matters of the heart, but I'm pretty sure it's supposed to involve a little more conversation and a lot less rubbing your penis on peoples heads. About the only positive thing I can say is that this one somehow came of as a bit less rapey than the last volume. After all, it really only involves sexual assault. I'm not quite sure what it counts as when someone wants to have sex, but you just come on them and then leave precisely, but then that's for the courts to decide.

I'm guessing that this is probably the last of these books, what with the big bad guy suddenly turning up and then promptly dying without any sort of real fight or drama. Quite frankly I don't know where else they could go with it, having run out of characters to make me hate. The only one that achieved any level of interest was that of Pandora, and she got blown up. As is the habit of this author, a promising idea is introduced and then immediately discarded, however I suppose we should be grateful. After all, it's only when the characters spend most of their time offscreen that they achieve any sort of interest. Once their lives start getting written about in detail they are reduced to mere ciphers for whatever weird crazy pseudorape fantasies it is the author is apparently entertaining. In the hands of a competent author I feel there may even be stories worth telling that could be taken from some few of the ideas in here, but sadly that's decidedly NOT the author that we've been given.

And anything else would basically be Night Falls Darkly fanfic, which is possibly the most terrifying thing I've ever thought of.

In summation then. This book, like those that went before, is a horrible non-story, terribly written, and should be avoided at all costs. The rare flashes of interesting ideas that occasionally surface merely serve to counterpoint the overall ineptitude of every other aspect of the piece, and frankly there's no statistical evidence to support the fact that these rare instances are anything more than random chance. Give an infinite number of  monkeys typewriters and perhaps one day they'll produce the complete works of Shakespeare, but I doubt that any of the rest of the random crap they produce will be more painful to read than what I've experienced with these tome of iniquity.

It's Coming Back Up Part The Last: Rise Of The (Sex) Machines

And so it's come to this. At long last we have reached the final installment of this journey through perdition. I'm not quite sure if there's a circle of hell dedicated exclusively to illiteracy and sexual assault at the same time, but if there is then I've got a pretty good idea of what it looks like.

But oh have we got a treat for you. Brace yourselves, it may be a bumpy ride and I haven't got an unwitting somnambulist to frottage.

At the apex of our last installment you may recall that Sancho V3 had been lead to the not at all obviously evil Mrs Sinister by a totally not suspicious robot snake. And that she had some special sex incense on, ready to brainwash him into what we shall euphemistically describe as "Seduction". What this basically means is she leaps on him with the force of an electric kangaroo and hangs on like a magnetic remora. And I have to say that sounds like a far more entertaining story premise than what we got going on so far here.

Admit it, you'd watch the shit out of this

So, there he is, being set upon by a fervent admirer, and yet.... Something's wrong. And I don't just mean that it's the guy being sexually assaulted for once. No, despite the confusing drugged up sex incense and vice like grip of unnatural thighs, Sancho notices something important.

Women did not whir or ping. Not natural woman.

Ladies and gentleman, our intrepid hero just got raped by the Terminator.

Strangely, this a more realistic depiction of the eventual robot rebellion than many of us would like to admit

But please friends, save your cries of "lol wut?" for a moment, for this isn't just ANY Terminator.

THIS. IS. PANDORA!!!

Yes, THE Pandora. The actual one. Only she's really a robot. From ancient Greece. Obviously.

Now, We all know the legends about the nasty things contained in Pandora's box, but this really puts a new spin on things. Not wanting to catch a dose of gonhorrific scabicrabaids Sancho politely declines her advances by ripping of her arm and beating her with it until her hair falls out and she runs away.

It's only a.. OH WAIT I'M A ROBOT

Okay then.

Meanwhile, behind the facade of this innocent looking garden, yet more sinister shenanigans are afoot. Binty has been being seduced by Mr Sinister offscreen whilst Sancho was looking for someone to play coconuts for him. However things are far from sane. You see, whilst Mr Sinister has departed stage right to get Binty a special present, Binty is standing around admiring the huge flowers. As in, they are almost the size of her head. Now, giant flowers, fair enough. That's not so unreasonable. But then she picks one and tries to wear it in her hair.

A FLOWER THE SIZE OF HER OWN HEAD. IN HER HAIR.

One can only assume she tries to wear it as a hat or something. Luckily Sancho turns up at this point to kidnap her before she tries to weave the local moss into a cardigan or something. It's at this point that we discover that whilst they went after Sancho with the sex incense, Binty has been given a full dose of the petulant five year old incense, and has a complete stroppy tantrum in EXACTLY the way some ghastly little bastard does when denied candy.  However Sancho is able to shock her out of it, surprisingly NOT with his penis.

Well, not immediately anyway.

No, he confesses / lies (delete as appropriate) that he LOVES her. And then not only does she stop acting like a goddamn baby but she suddenly gets all her powers back and grows knives out of nowhere for some reason. Just like that. She's healed with the power of LOVE.....

I'd puke if it wasn't all so completely half assed. There's no real build up, no REASON ever given. It's just 3 words spoken and suddenly she collects her next power up. Never mind that they've spent the whole book up to this point staring at each other with thinly disguised appetite. Never mind that they have, according to the book spent most of the past week boning like rabid mongooses. Never mind that Sancho V3 is clearly a sociopathic sexual predator with only the dimmest awareness that woman are even people.

And the knives. She just gets her set of +1 daggers out of nowhere. They just appear in her hands when she levels up. Isn't it a good job that Sancho decided to make up some feelings here, rather than in, shall we say, a more intimate situation. Though actually that would be fucking hilarious, but I digress.

Needless to say they then have violent sex right there in the carriage, whilst allegedly fleeing the bad guys. A totally appropriate reaction I'm sure you'll agree, especially considering that poor K9 is trying to drive the damn thing back whilst they're rolling around grunting. There's a time and a place is all I'm saying.

Anyway, back at the castle, all is not well. The obviously not significant stained glass window that was found over the obviously not significant mural has been broken, the faux steampunk fax machine has been broken, and the department of child slavery has retreated to fortified positions in the face of a strong wind. But, you know... It was a SCARY wind.

Having come all the way back Sancho and Binty immediately turn around head back the way came, stopping only briefly for Binty to pick up her snake WHO IS NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. So that was worthwhile then. Back at the Sinister residence the party is winding down a bit. If by party you mean drug fueled orgy. Seems like Sancho wasn't the only one to get a dose of the sex incense. Still, our intrepid heroes venture down a convenient trapdoor into Pandoras' secret lab of DOOM. It's here they find what the sex incense really is.

No, I'm not joking. It's tasty black pudding. I guess we've been in Scotland all along. I'm not joking either, apparently it's all made from boiling up blood and bits of dead person. Quite how you get that to smell all sexy and alluring instead of like, say, boiling offal I'm not quite sure, but then I'm not a prehistoric terminator. The other important thing that is discovered are Pandoras' diaries, which are written in code, but have some pretty cool pictures. Further investigation is rather curtailed by the building suddenly burning down, so they have to leave.

Once outside Binty realises she's dropped the diary back in the burning house, so she goes back and gets it. It doesn't take a minute. So that was worthwhile then. Totally not a waste of time or anything. They follow the sinister circus off into the night, only to find they've all jumped into the river or something and disappeared.

And then, in the curiously stilted fashion that these books evidently take so much pleasure in, we cut to two weeks later back in London. Because one thing can never just lead to another in any sort of natural or coherent narrative flow. And just to illustrate this point is randomly revealed almost in passing that Mr Sinister is, in fact, Tantalus himself. The big bad who has apparently been causing all of the nasty happenings as part of some convoluted plot to free himself from the depths of the abyss where he has been imprisoned for millennia. Apparently he gave up on all the grand scheming and just slipped out the back door when no one was looking. Bearing in mind that there exist whole organisations of spooky midnight warriors whose sole purpose is to prevent this from happening you can't help but wonder why it was nobody noticed this. I mean, seriously, this has been explicitly referenced as the worst case scenario, the one thing that must never come to pass. AND NO ONE EVEN BLOODY NOTICED.

Seriously, fuck ALL these guys, in the eyes and ears, with red hot spiky things covered in fish hooks.

Anyway, according to Sancho Junior (remember him? He's a RAPIST!) back in the dawn of ancient prehistory someone spent far to much time playing Tomb Raider and JRPGs, thus there are numerous powerful artifacts hidden behind cryptic and arcane puzzles. No doubt most of which involve pushing blocks around a room. Just for example we're told about a special power up crystal for that idiotic mirror thing from the last book. I WONDER IF THIS WILL BECOME SIGNIFICANT?

What IS interesting (and thus barely touched on for the remainder of the story) is Pandoras' diary. Now she's some sort of ancient robot thing, but she apparently wants to become a real person. In the same way that Buffalo Bill intended to become a real woman. She's been trying to graft on bits of chopped up people, and use their bits to try and make herself into a real boy.

I feel pretty, oh so pretty...

This has been going about as well as you'd expect. What's also interesting is that she apparently doesn't feel that Tantalus loves her properly because she's not real. Now, what we have here is the seeds of a pretty good story when you think about it. A crazy ancient artificial creature desperately trying to turn itself into a natural organism by committing hideous murders and performing cruel experiments and vivisections, all trying to win the heart of some nutter who will inevitably turn out to be a shallow git who never loved her at all and was just using her for his own ends. If written well you could get a compelling piece of literature with all sorts of thinly veiled comments on the nature of abusive relationships.

Sadly, this is not that book. And thus we instead go out to wander the streets until we bump into the plot. AGAIN.

"Patrolling" the streets out intrepid heroes discover a week old mutilated corpse with a flyer for the circus. They discuss the possibility that the bad guys have some affinity for bodies of water, as they seem to base their operations around them or disappear mysteriously into them. However I wouldn't worry about that to much as the author evidently forgets about it not long after. Instead they split up again and go back wandering around, until Binty finally stumbles on Pandora trying to kill some whore or other. Seems to me that the whores around here spend more time getting stabbed than fucked. It's a living I guess. Chasing her off into the night Binty then discovers a coach load of Renfields, who invite her to a part. As this is clearly a good idea she goes with them. NOTHING COULD GO WRONG.

At the party she of course runs into Mr Sinister AKA The biggest baddest big bad in the history of history, AKA a fucking idiot. To say that he's thinking with his dick would imply SOME level of thinking. Long story short, he wants Binty to have his babies. Pandora is obviously a bit put out by this, but he just throws her out, so thats fine. Binty then goes on to play along in the most transparently fake way possible. The only thing worse than her "yes, I'm totally seduced" acting is the fact that Tantalus falls for it. So of course he leads her off into his secret lair. His secret lair which, we are told, has been built from the bottom up, out from the depths of Tartarus itself. So he didn't just escape whilst no one was looking, he DIYed an entire secret base on his way up as well.

Anyone else reached the point where you just stop wondering whats going on and reach for the cyanide capsules?

Moving on, Binty is taken to the... BEDROOM OF THE DAMNED!!! It is here that dickbrain reveals his big surprise present, and surprisingly it isn't his penis. Not at first anyway. You remember that special mysterious crystal thing that was oh so subtly mentioned earlier? GUESS WHO'S GOT IT? Turns out it was hidden in the stained glass window of the mural of ultimate destiny. Who'd have thought it. That's why he was up around Sancho V3's neck of the woods to start with.

SEE, THERE'S A PLOT. WHO SAID THERE WASN'T.

And, as a bonus he apparently has all the bits of the mirror thing that was chucked into the Thames at the end of the last book and we've already been told the good guys have been recovering. He totally faked them out with bits of an ordinary mirror! How cunning.

Just consider that for a second. He pulled a switcheroo somehow. On shattered bits of glass that were lying scattered over the bottom of the Thames. Now, since we're told this is a special magic mirror we'll allow that someone could use their special magic powers to home in on the bits, that's fair enough. But once he's got there first, what does that leave for the good guys to recover?  EVERY SINGLE SLIVER OF GLASS ON THE BED OF THE RIVER THAMES.

ALL OF THEM.

And THEN they have to sort through them for the ones that may, when arranged properly form a round mirror. And in amongst all this nobody thinks to cast detect magic on any of the six tons of razor sharp sewage encrusted shrapnel they've been dredging up. NOT ONCE.

Moving on, Mr Sinister is thwarted in his evil plans to do.... Whatever the fuck it is that this mirror thing is supposed to do by the realisation that he doesn't in actuality have the true crystal of plot contrivance. So if the plots not going anywhere for a minute, what are we gonna do?

That's right, it's RAPEY TIME.

Mr Sinister tries to get it on with Binty, as a way of "proving her loyalty" However she has other ideas and instead tries to stab him up some, thus finally proving that there IS in fact a use for hair chopsticks. Well, almost. This works about as well as one might expect, but at least she gets to rip his face of. Because since he's evil he must of course be UGLY. Attractive people are ALWAYS good after all. Anyone who appears both attractive AND evil must logically be an ugly person in disguise.

It's at this point that Pandora enters the fray once more, bringing with her the chained and captured rescue party of Sancho V3 and K9. And, so she claims, it's K9 who has the bauble. Somewhere on his very person!

Let us pause briefly for a tangential discussion of robot dogs. K9 was a popular character of course, but eventually he was written out as he had a tendency to turn up and solve all the problems by simply blasting them with his laser, be those problems barriers or assailants. Now when I dubbed this character with the moniker of K9 it was partly due to his know it all status, but mostly due to a tangential connection of his name. I never expected the connection to go beyond that.

I also don't think I ever mentioned that he wears an eye patch. Can you guess what happens next?

Yeah. He hid the Macguffin in his empty socket. Once in front of the boss he flips up his eyepatch and totally pwns the enemy with eyebeams.

FUCKING EYEBEAMS PEOPLE.

After that it's just a matter of everyone else quickly sticking the boot in so they can say they helped and then running away before the boss explodes. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of Tokusatsu will of course realise that this is what most foes do once defeated.

At which point you strike this pose

Turns out K9 swapped the magic crystal for a childs' marble earlier. But just because the window needed repairing, not because he was stealing it at all. Anyway, that's the ultimate evil blasted to a smouldering fuck in about 30 seconds. Which is, sadly, true to form for these books. It's all build up and then disappointing brevity. Much like the described sex.

Anyway, having slain the "mighty" evil we cut to the palace where the queen is about to hand out rewards, having mistaken this for the end of Star Wars and herself for Princess Leia. It's interesting to note here that part of Bintys getup for this glorious occasion is a tiara given to her by Marie Antoinette, proving that she REALLY knows how to pick friends. Anyway, Sancho V3 turns up having decided not to play Chewie for this particular ceremony. Only he's not here for the medal, oh no. He's here for Binty. The Queen wisely leads a retreat before the fluids start flying.

Then they got married and fucked happily ever after. The end.

It's Coming Back Up Part 5: A Fete Worse Than Death

So, to recap our last chapter:

Or, if you want to know what happened in the book, as opposed to what happened to the poor fool reading it, they invented a new kind of sex crime before tea time. Tea time in this case being a visit from the TOTALLY OBVIOUSLY NOT THE ENEMY YOU GUYS, NOT EVEN SLIGHTLY Mr and Mrs Sinister. Tea in the Sancho household proceeds pretty much as you'd expect. They sit there being sexually tense at each other until someone gives up and leaves, presumably for a quick wank. I suppose it's like a game of psychological chicken. Only with genitals instead of cars. Unfortunately for Mrs Sinister Sancho V3 is far to bust staring at Bintys tits to get seduced by her (although she's obviously been designed to be his type) and Binto is I guess to busy having tits to get seduced by Mr Sinister (even though he's obviously been designed to be her type), so it's the Sinister Siblings who blink first and leave.

This is what passes for character building.

What's really important to bear in mind here is that although Mr Sinister is clearly there purely as some evil ploy to get to Binty, she'd probably be far better off taking that option. I mean, he hasn't even rubbed his cock on her once. I guess the bad guys realized they couldn't ever compete with the heroes for sheer depravity and decided to just give it up and do something else. I guess they worked out that you can't solve your problems by rubbing your dick on them.

BE GRATEFUL

 After doing some bonding with the indentured servants (see? it's totally NOT kidnapping) it's time to head off to the Church Bazaar. Truly a tale of supernatural horror. Or, you know, not that. The church bazaar is about as exciting as one might expect, but at this stage I'm willing to take anything that doesn't involve a tedious weight of sexual tension.

Which as a shame really, as true to form Sancho spends the whole time staring at Bintys tits.

The world according to Sancho

Which is a bit of a shame really, as if he'd been paying attention then maybe he'd have noticed the conveniently abusive stepfather coming to conveniently abuse his conveniently kidnapped children. But he doesn't, so it's Mr Sinister who gets to deck him, thus adding another +1 to the "jealousy" subplot meter.

It is at this point that the village is invaded by clowns.

No, really. It was.

A circus just turns up out of nowhere. You know, as they do. Now, consider how difficult it must be just walking from town to town over all the blasted heaths and moors or whatever suitably dramatic terrain it is one finds in these places. Must be pretty tiring, right? Now consider what it must be like doing that walking on your hands whilst playing a flute with your feet in full clown make up. Why is it that sinister circus' ALWAYS enter town in the form of a parade? They never ride in and THEN set up do they? They're always in mid performance. All I'm saying is that it doesn't seem like the most practical way to travel.

Anyway, suddenly the streets are full of clowns and bears and shit, thus giving Sancho V3 and Binty a minute to see if by adding the Jealousy subplot modifier to the sexual tension condition track they can level up the plot to actually getting on with anything constructive for once. 

Turns out no as it happens.

Oh, and on the way home from all that insanity they find a dead body. You remember how about sixteen years ago someone was mentioned as missing? Well I guess this is Chekovs corpse.

I said CHEKOV

Shockingly she's dead as fuck, having been slit up a treat by unknown assailants.Then, because this scene was apparently directed by Michael fucking Bay, Conveniently Abusive Stepfathers shack which has been sitting innocently at the back of the shot explodes.

Because farmhouses do that.

However, we can't allow the plot to be derailed by actually being allowed to happen, so let's skip over all that and go the circus instead. And that's not me doing that. This is what actually happens. The whole business is cursorily skipped over and no one can be bothered to note that any of this shit is highly suspicious and should be investigated.

Not when there's a dancing bear to look at.

Turns out the terrible danger of immortality isn't the whole emotional detachment from your surroundings as everyone around you ages and dies leaving you a dead hearted uncaring husk or anything. It's going fucking SENILE. Shit could not be more obviously afoot if I rammed my boot up your arse, but none of these highly trained superpowered investigators of dark deeds and sinister goings on bats a fucking eyelid. Because that might involve interrupting their fixated stares at each others genital areas.

Seriously people, THERE ARE OTHER THINGS IN LIFE.

Anyway, the circus. They go there. The acrobats are creepy, unsmiling, child size old men apparently. This is reassuring, because I was starting to think that there might be something dodgy going on. Anyway, The Sinister Siblings are also in attendance. Which I'm sure is lovely, if you happen to like this whole contrived jealousy subplot bollocks. Which personally I don't, but whatever. So yay, things go just as you might expect, with yet MORE sexual tension and robot snakes.

Wait, what?

There is a stall at the circus that sells robot snakes. ROBOT SNAKES. At the circus. Sold at the merch stand by a band of travelling clowns. IN THE VICTORIAN ERA.

Robot Snakes, How the fuck do they work?

See, Mr Sinister buys Binty a robot snake from the robot snake stand. And it is later on, whilst squabbling over the robot snake like a pair of five year olds that Sancho V3 and Binty finally manage to fuck.

Just like that.

They're rolling around, he gets a flash of minge and then they're boning in all the ghastly "poetic" detail that we've come to expect. Metaphorically I suppose it's like a microwavable kebab. Looks rather unappetising, but at least it only takes a couple of minutes. Notice how the "climactic" sex scenes in these books always leave one with the impression that it takes longer to clean your teeth than to make love?

Ah well. the important thing is that they're totally fucking now, and thus Sancho can at long last reveal his deep dark secret.

See, there was this woman, and she totally died.

May I just say that I totally called that one right there.

To be fair, it a little more complicated. It was his wife, who tired to poison him, then told him she was pregnant and jumped of a cliff just to fuck with his head. And after that he decided to become immortal and suffer forever from the grim bleak ravendark dimnity of sepulchral gloompain supreme tortureguilt graveyard midnight suffering ANGST of it all. 

Ignore the cover illustration, THIS is what we're dealing with.

He's not even a proper immortal. He's an EMOmortal. Christ, he even has the whole raven wing tattoo thing on his back. Just as well girls jeans haven't been invented yet, or Binty's wardrobe would be under assault as well as her ass.

Anyway, back from these startling revelations new orders have been received to pack up and head back to London. Oh, and K9 found a hidden stained glass window that makes the mural of destiny glow. Bet you'd forgotten about that. That's fine, so Had Sancho apparently, since he claims not to know anything about it, despite it being stated previously that he'd had the whole edifice built in the first place. ah well, it probably isn't important. 

News travels fast it seems, and soon Mr Sinister is throwing a party to try and impress Binty before she fucks off back to London on the end of Sanchos' cocks / enact some evil scheme (delete as applicable). Sancho agrees to go as he figures Mr Sinister is gonna get turned down, what with him boning Binty every night, albeit mercifully offscreen. But Binty is all full of doubt since her powers haven't come back yet, so if he were to ask her to marry him she might say yes because..... Fuck knows. Shits and giggles? This whole line of non reasoning makes no sense to me whatsoever. I mean, I get there are reasons to get married, but just because you were randomly asked doesn't seem like a valid one to me.

Whatever. Let's just get on with it shall we? At the party Sancho once more spends the whole time staring at Bintys tits and not paying attention to anything else, so is a little surprised when the circus turns up. Apparently as the pre booked entertainment and not as evil minions or Juggalo invasion.  Mr Sinister whisks Binty off for a bit of a dance, and Sancho is left to wander around avoiding old men trying to bone acrobats. Moving rapidly in the direction of away Sancho encounters a robot snake, and follows it to an encounter with Mrs Sinister and her Sex Incense of mind control.

Oglaf for the win

DUN DUN DUNNN.....

It's Coming Back Up Part 4: She Wore BBBBBBBBBBLLLLLLLLLUUUUUUUUUUUU.....................

In our last episode Binty had just been molested by some sort of mysterious Death Worm. Seeing as how they're arcane avengers of the night who regularly fight the unclean supernatural denizens of hell itself and fully cognisant that not only is the big bad planning a comeback but that Binty herself has been at least somewhat embroiled in his evil machinations Sancho V3 dismisses this as simply a nightmare. And Bintys' reaction to this particular postulate?

Yes. That Makes Sense.

She goes along with it. I mean, what does she know, she's only a girl.

Yeah. Okay, fine. Whatever. I went into this fully expecting her to undergo a total character implosion and emerge a drippy and useless sack of fail. I really shouldn't be complaining about this so much, or we'll never get on to the REALLY traumatic bits. So maybe we should skip the part where she gets down on all fours and begs for him to stay like a needy bitch? Because at this point we really need more of this tedious sexual tension, right?

Anyway, next day Pinky & Perky are recalled to London. Seems everyone else is trying to deal with plot whilst the writers attention is focused elsewhere. It must be nice to be able to get on with your job without having to sit having erections at things for DECADES at a time. Oh, speaking of erections did I mention that the very first thing Sancho V3 does after extricating himself from guilt trip pillow duties is slink of for a furious WANK? Because He totally does. Consider that one bishop that has been well and truly bashed.

They do say life is in the little details.

Anyway, back to the plot. Or at least as close to one as we're going to get. The hired help having fucked off with highly suspicious timing which I'm sure is nothing to do with the bad guys sending fake messages or anything, Binty and V3 head into the village to do a spot of grocery shopping at the local slave market. But are somewhat disappointed to find that there isn't one. Seems the NOT SUSPICIOUS AT ALL Thrall and Company came through the village before and hired all the eligible servant types first. Shocking that. See, this is the sort of thing you can do when you're just sitting around trying to build the sexual tension. You can go out and actually get shit done.

Such as getting yourself invited for tea by Binty, who it seems is bored of not getting any action at all to the point where she is willing to settle for tea and biscuits instead. Needless to say, V3 is just thrilled about this. Here's a tip mate, stop spending all your time trying to be brooding and tortured and maybe you wouldn't have any reason to get jealous. YOU ARE NOT THE GODDMAN BATMAN. Get over yourself already.

Pictured: NOT YOU.

On the way home from totally failing to hire any servants however our intrepid duo manage to stumble across a convenient scene of domestic abuse. Some idiot farm boy is having the shit beaten out of him, so Sancho leaps to the rescue in a homicidal frenzy in order to show that he has ISSUES YOU GUYS, ISSUES!!!!!! But is still actually some sort of good guy. Whatever, you're still not the goddman Batman. So saving the conveniently abused urchin from his conveniently abusive situation they return to the castle with plus one slave. Funny how things work out isn't it?

Later, having dumped their latest acquisition in the servants quarters the two plot crossed lovers almost mange to have a conversation. Except of course that Sancho doesn't talk much about his past and all that. BECAUSE HE HAS ISSUES. DID WE MENTION YET THAT HE TOTALLY HAS ISSUES ABOUT SOMETHING? BECAUSE HE TOTALLY DOES YOU GUYS, HE HAS ISSUES OUT THE WAZZOO.

Night falls, slave boy heads off to gather the rest of his conveniently abandoned and bereft siblings for their shot at indentured servitude and Sancho has a bit of a dramatic swoop about in the night, because I guess he still hasn't gotten the message about not being the goddman batman.

That kid you just picked up is more Batman than you will ever be

Having failed to quell his sexual frustrating by dramatically swooping through the night like an insomniac starling on PCP Sancho returns to his room, realising that there is only one way to calm his tremulous passions (by which I mean HIS PENIS. It's a metaphor). Hold onto you're sick bags guys and girls, because it's RAPEY TIME.

I know you've been looking forward to this part almost as much as I have.

THERE IS NO GOD

So yes. Sancho deports to Bintys chambers with a gleam in his trousers. And Binty, is of course well up for this, having been yearning to be dominated by a nice strong man and all. But we can't just have a simple scene of nice normal consensual and not creepy intercourse can we now? Not in this series. So how can I describe the events that ensue?

DON'T LOOK AT ME!

Yeah. Like that. She is pinned down on the bed, actually INSTRUCTED NOT TO LOOK AT HIM OR EVEN TOUCH HIM (which to me seems a little tricky during sex), and then he slips his throbbing manhood between her thighs and uses her to jerk off.

That's right. He doesn't fuck her. There is no penetration whatsoever. He doesn't actually show the least concern for her experience whatsoever. He just rubs his cock on her until he's done, and then buggers off for a brood.

Once again ladies and gentleman, this is apparently THE HERO of the piece. A man who's just used the woman he is allegedly meant to be romantically inclined towards like a cheap sex toy. In fact, not even that. A fleshlight gets more than poor Binty does, and least it gets cleaned up after.

And people WONDER why I make this face so much.

Now, to her credit Binty is actually a bit miffed at this treatment, and even manages to work out that she was just employed as a masturbatory aid. However V3 is to be having yet more ISSUES at midnight on the top of dark tower to give a shit. He's totally tortured you guys, thus apparently justifying his actions somehow?!?!?!

I don't even know anymore. It's times like this when you just lose the ability to process whats going on. Especially when you realise how much of the book is left to go. I am not however quite so foolish as to say that it can't get any worse. IT WILL. IT ALWAYS DOES.

Anyway, the next day arrives, though quite how the sun can bring itself to shine on this den of iniquity I simply do not know. Still, there's at least some good news, as apparently K9 himself has been sent to help out piss off Binto. Assuming you don't remember from last time K9 is the original Sanchos secretary. He and Binty don't get along for some reason. He was also the other character from these books that I almost liked, since he normally managed to avoid being in them enough to get crippled with unnecessary sexual tension. Anyway, he's here to take care of the admin, thus providing V3 with some much needed extra brooding time. The slave child has returned with his sisters in tow who are quickly pressed into service as maids. Everybody then proceeds to sulk around until Mr & Mrs Sinister show up for tea.

Don't feel bad if you forgot they were coming. So did everyone else. I guess all that rape does get a little distracting.

It's Coming Back Up Part 3: My Kingdom For A Horse

As you may recall, at the end of out last installment we were poised to hear shocking revelations of Sancho V3s sexual escapades. Are you suitably braced for this?

Turns out he's been knocking off Helen of Troy.

Now, frankly this almost comes as something of a disappointment. That the mythical Helen should turn up as some bitpart cumdumpster isn't really all that shocking. I mean we've already had Queen Victoria and Bram Stoker, and Bitchy herself is the spawn of Cleopatra and Mark Anthony. So whatever. It's just that the some upshot of this startling revelation is that a guy has been having relations with a lady. I'd ask if we were reduced to playground gossip, but even playgrounds wouldn't consider this all that big of a deal. What IS interesting is how low the face that launched a thousand ships has apparently sunk, chasing after some creepy weirdo who's only willing to screw her at all because she reminds him of someone else when she's got her hair down.

Not quite

Anyway, since she's apparently infatuated with our closet rape case protagonist for no good reason whatsoever that has so far been identified Bitchy is all like "dat helen iz such a bitch i hate her soooo much lol" and that's the end of the conversation as it's at this point that Sancho V3 enters the kitchen to point out that maybe putting random mushrooms you found on the hillside into the stew isn't the worlds greatest idea. I have no doubt that is mainly due to the fact that Rohypnol isn't a mushroom. Still, you gotta wonder about these elite shadow guard types who, whilst being humanities defenders against the forces of nasty don't even know that you shouldn't just pick shit up off the floor and eat it. Something your average 6 your old has grasped.

She's better trained than a whole platoon

After this little diversion into the realms of the after school special, Bitchy is taken to see her snake, who it turns out hasn't quite yet been written out, but is living in a crack in wall somewhere offscreen, possibly holding out for more money. The only reason I mention this at all is that on their way to the plot Bitchy and Sancho walk over an ancient mural depicting both Ravens AND a snake. Foreshadowing, clever misdirection or incidental detail? Only time will tell.

Anyway, as I said some plot happens! Turns out the plot has been sent down the wireless telegraph contraption which for some reason we now have, possibly so the book can get tagged as steampunk. Turns out the CSI: goth drama department has been busy. Firstly it seems that the knife that killed the hooker was different to the one that Bitchy woke up with. This is reassuring news, since it's not like anyone could ever use TWO knives, right?

LOL

Plus corpse mutilation isn't a crime or anything. The second piece of evidence comes from the room in which Bitchys sleeping body was kept masturbated over (delete as appropriate). It seems that she wasn't alone in the room, as there were a number of other mysterious persons there. We know this by all the footprints left in the fine layer of sand that they coated the floor in.

Isn't it reassuring that the bad guys are almost as incompetent as the heroes?

Oh, and finally the dead ranger apparently had all his bones crushed, thus leading me to the inescapable conclusion that someones sexual tension fell on him.

Thus "conclusively" "proven" "innocent" Bitchy heads off to bed. Because that is apparently where she belongs now. On the way Sancho V3 decides to try it on with her, and she of course is totally up for it, what with having contracted a dose of GOTHIC DESTINY™ and soiled undergarments. Unfortunately he seems somewhat put off by her acquiescence, and storms off in huff.

I guess it's just no fun when they're awake. The only thing better than hot naked sexy times is a dramatic and tortured sulk.

Now, I've made it a habit in these recaps to change the names to protect the guilty. Aside from the fact that it allows me to avoid using any of the stereotypically ghastly names given to the character I find it amusing to do so. However I'm going to have to break this habit for one very special case. See, we are no introduced to the just recently moved to the area in a shocking coincidence that I'm sure doesn't relate to the disappearance of that girl that hasn't been mentioned yet but we'll get to soon enough Mrs Thrall.

MRS THRALL.

You couldn't be more obviously the bad guy if you tried with a name like that. I mean forget sounding like the secret identity of a bad marvel comics villain, she sounds like a DC villain.

though to be fair, maybe it IS a marvel villain.

As to whether anyone is going to make a pun about someone being in thrall... Your guess is as good as mine. Point is Mrs Sinister shows up being all like "we should totes be bffs" to bitchy and bearing tidings that some random bint from the village has gone and disappeared. Though luckily she is but a peasant and thus no one feels compelled to go look for her.

later that day Sancho heads out for a sulk, and Bitchy decides to follow and have a bit of a spy. Which is probably a good idea, all things considered. After all, if she's determined to involve herself with this nutter maybe the sight of him skull fucking the fossilised remains of his centuries dead childhood sweetheart will provide her with some much needed context. Sadly all does not go according to plan as she gets pushed off a cliff. Now, despite being PUSHED OFF A CLIFF Bitchy decides that she must have just slipped, or perhaps been caught squarely in the small of the back by a particularly strong and hand shaped gust of wind. After all she's just a girl, and thus cannot trust her own judgement.

I AM YOUR FUTURE 

I mean, it's not like all the enemies thus far encountered have unnatural powers or anything, nor indeed that Bitchy has lost all of her own abilities (apparently due to some hormonal issues). So no, when you're standing around and someone clearly pushes you off a cliff it's best to assume that you were simply mistaken. After all it's not like some mysterious stranger will just show up out of the blue.

OH WAIT IT'S JUST LIKE THAT.

Enter Mrs Sinisters' brother, stage cliff. Isn't it CONVENIENT how he's shown up to help right now?

Gods, I bet these people couldn't even SPELL suspicion.

So yeah, he goes to work obviously NOT trying to seduce her or anything, but luckily Sancho V3 shows up just in time to act suspiciously possessive. Did I mention earlier how they'd all told the local vicar they were brother and sister? No? Ah well, I'm sure you'll cope somehow.

Since she's done her foot in Mr NOT sinister (wink wink nudge nudge) gives Bitchy a ride back to the castle.

And I've just now realised that I'm going to have to stop referring to her as Bitchy. Because she just ISN'T anymore, not now that she's found a nice MAN to submit to. She's just another Binto clone. So I guess we'll just have to call her Binty from now on.

Anyway, Binty is shipped back and Mr NOT Sinister tries to steal one of her shoes. Still, better a foot fetishist than whatever the hell it is that Sancho V3 is into. After yet another bout of sexual tension before bedtime Binty is put to sleep and Sancho heads off for a brood. Which appears to be his default reaction to everything. Seriously, I bet every time his D&D character goes up a level he goes and stands on a storm wracked midnight clifftop to darkly brood what feats he should take.

Anyway, are you ready for the tangles workings of this guys mind? See, it turns out that it wasn't that the reason he was knocking off Helen of Troy was that she reminded him of Binty. No, she reminds him of his OLD girlfriend. It's just that it's Binty who he thinks about when he's fucking. Who he ALWAYS thinks about when he's fucking. Ever since that one time hundreds of years ago when he saw her across a BATTLEFIELD. Just try to get your head around this: here we have a guy who can only get of by screwing girls who look like his ex whilst thinking about a woman he saw one time ages ago but had never actually met.

I'll be the first to admit that I suffer from a number of complicated and painful emotional issues, but seriously guy? SERIOUSLY?

And if all that wasn't quite Jerry Springer enough for you, allow me to add a direct quote from the book

"...his dreams had always been claimed by a Saxon beauty with blond hair - the jealous, possessive ghost of his past. The one who still demanded his complete and unwavering fidelity."

Complete and unwavering fidelity. Aside from all those times you were off screwing other chicks whilst thinking about someone else.  Sir, you wouldn't know fidelity if it murdered your parents right in front of you when you were a child.

Now, whether the ex turns out to be a literal ghost remains to be seen, but it would explain all that Harry Potter exposition a few chapters back.

The dark musing are however interrupted by a cry of alarm from Bintys' room. She is adamant that she was disturbed by some hideous THING in the bed with her. Some, pale, worm like thing. That smelt of graves....

Well, Sancho is denying everything, but draw your own conclusions.

It's Coming Back Up Part 2: Thomas The Wank Engine

So, last time we were in the middle of a shocking legal struggle of epic proportions.

Okay, not really. Brought before her peers to answer for crimes that she may or may not have committed, the grand jury of idiots finally comes to the conclusion that there may or may not be something dodgy going on so maybe we should wait before having you executed. You know, just in case. Since the mysterious masters of the outer darkness also think sexual tension is really, REALLY funny Bitchy is sentenced to go stay with Sancho V3 in his remote country estate.

NOTHING COULD GO WRONG™.

She can't be kept at Casa Del Sancho since Binto is apparently pregnant. And whilst we all totally believe you didn't kill those guys and aren't going to crazy and murder everyone around you and we totally trust you GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM US RIGHT NOW!!!

Also: baby Sanchos. EWW. This will not end well.

Moving on, Bitchy is bundled off the next day onto a slow train to the middle of fucking nowhere. She's still fairly out of what with the whole being pumped full of experimental drugs and all, but that's okay since it means V3 can sit there staring at her sleeping form and being MASSIVELY CREEPY.

Why do I have to point out that THIS IS NOT NORMAL?!?!

How creepy? Well, it is now revealed that Sancho V3 has actually seen Bitchy TWICE before in the past. That this is presented as evidence of their GOTHIC DESTINY™ and fated juice mingling is actually MORE creepy than if he'd spent the time just straight up stalking her. I mean, just SEEING a woman a couple of times and then deciding "YES, WE WILL FUCK" is just a little... Off somehow. At least a proper stalker will put in some effort and send you a bouquet of rat skulls or something. Especially when you remember that on these magical prior occasions Bitchy DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE.

Moving on, eventually after some MORE sexual tension the train arrives at it's destination, and it's time to embark on the next leg of our journey. or would be if Bitchy could be bothered to wake up, which she of course can't. One might almost think she was recovering from some sort of illness or something. So V3 has his minions put up the cloaking device so he can carry her out without anyone noticing. Because if there's one thing dodgier than carrying an unwell and unconscious woman from a train it's carrying an unconscious woman from a train in secret with no witnesses.

Loaded into the carriage for the next leg of the journey into whatever equivelent of the Carpathians it is we have in northern England things go from awful to worse pretty quickly. Now, there's no real way to sugar coat this or put it poetically, so I'm just gonna have to say it outright.

He spends the trip rubbing his wang on her head.

Can I go now?

She's all passed out with her head on his lap, and he's all like " I has an erection and a bumpy road. NIIIICE".

I mean, seriously. I have no words. I don't even know what's going on anymore.I've COMPLETED Rapelay and it was still LESS WRONG THAN THIS GUY.

This is closer to a normal healthy relationship than anything I have yet read by this author

Fuck, now my brain hurts. I mean, it did anyway, but when you're reading you can just sort of gloss over it a bit and move on to the next part. it's when you have to then recount it that it really starts to burn holes in your already fractured sanity.

Anyway, eventually we arrive at the castle Dracula or whatever this remote and dilapidated manse is supposed to evoke. Handily Binto had managed to pack up and ship off some of Bitchys stuff to be picked up at the station, including one of her various pet snakes. Only of course now that Bitchy is suffering from limp woman syndrome it bites her, and V3 is obliged to suck the poison out. Note that it bites her ON THE HAND, so quite why he felt the need to rip open her top is a matter best left to the police.

The castle or whatever the hell the place is supposed to be is a rundown shithole infested with cats and generic root vegetables. Not necessarily in that order. Bitchy once more flakes out and Sancho V3 has some tormented thoughts. See, he's not creepy, he's TORMENTED. No doubt he has some dark secret in his past which totally justifies his appalling and frankly illegal treatment of women up to this point.

It would perhaps help if he wasn't staring at her tits whilst he's doing it though.

Anyway, Bitchy awakes refreshed in the morning. maybe this is due to V3 going off and being tortured in a corner somewhere rather than stalking her somnambulent corpus, thus finally allowing her a decent nights sleep. Perhaps she'll start sucking a bit less now. One of these seems more likely than the other, I'll let you guess which.

So, here we are, in our remote and isolated local. Population: Sancho V3 (and his issues), The Countess Bitchy (along with her and V3s sexual tension) 2 other goth rangers henceforth referred to as Pinky and Perky, an indeterminant number of cats and one snake (missing, presumed written out). And some potatoes.

The potatoes are a bit of a problem, as it appears that, firstly they are the only source of food, and secondly there is a lack of proper cooking utensils. So Pinky get in a huff and wanders off since apparently it's hard to make chips with only a sword, and Bitchy has a bit of a chat with Perky. In which is it is revealed that maybe V3 has... you know... been there..

Been a bit of a man of the world. If you know what I mean.

Bitchy is, of course, shocked. A man that surreptitiously rubs his penis on the face of a sleeping woman having engaged in such behaviour?  Shocking.

At least you better hope it is, otherwise this will prove to be the worst cliffhanger ever.

well..... almost

Tune again next time for sordid secrets of Sancho V3s love life. Which I'm sure won't be that he totally fancied some chick, and then she totally died or anything.

Bugz On my Nugz [1]

As you may aware, I have been known in my time to play FAR more Guild Wars than is generally considered healthy.

HELLO!

Now, you may also be aware that Guild wars had a big update recently, introducing many changes which basically gave me a plus one erection of time slaying. Now of course, whilst my own personal opinion is that the changes introduced are generally positive (I.E. entirely) it is the nature of such things that not everyone may agree. So when I saw a link to an article which purported to regard the update in a negative fashion I was intrigued. After all, it's always good to get a different angle on things, and I was interested to see how exactly it was that someone could regard the changes in such a way.

And that's as far as it would have gone if not for the authors rather baffling choice of terminology. He thinks one thing, I think another. That's fair enough, and I'm not going to start arguing on the internet. But it got me thinking about the notion of such changes and updates to games, and the inevitable backlash (however muted) that follows. Thus I am compelled to write down my thoughts so I can get back to running Sorrows Furnace in peace.

So what was it exactly that raised my ire?

This is Guild Wars no more

After discussing each point and why they feel it impacts negatively on the game, the author insists on repeating this statement. The obvious implication being that the game has been so irrevocably altered from it's previous state that it can no longer be regarded as a continuous experience. You know what I say to that?

Eh, close enough

Now, obviously the game is DIFFERENT in some way, otherwise there wouldn't BE any update. But to say they have essentially destroyed the core experience seems, to me at least, disingenuous at best. Now, there are 3 significant areas of this update, so I'll tackle them one by one, though not necessarily in the same order as my proclaimed nemesis.

Firstly, the titular Embark Beach. This is an area which links to and from all the mission zones in the game, and contains all the various town services you'd want for before and after a mission. The idea being that if you can't find people to team with wherever you are you can come to a central location. Sounds good right? Maybe there isn't anyone doing the bit you're stuck on right now, but will help you if you help them with something else. To be fair, the guy does go quite easy on this part, but to close your argument with the statement that the only thing the area does is make it easier to group, which is after all the explicitly stated function, seems a bit odd. Yes, you COULD look elsewhere, but now you don't HAVE to sit in town for 3 hours trying to find a group heading in your direction. The other argument he gives is that the area is immediately redundant due to....

The 7 Hero party update. Now, again for those of you who are not familiar with Guild Wars and thus stopped reading several paragraphs ago, a hero is a special type of customisable NPC you can fill out your party with. As you play the game you can unlock various characters of different professions and customise them
 to your taste and ability, should you have the appropriate resources. Previously you were limited to only 3 heroes. Now you can fill out your entire party should you so desire, and play all on your own.

Needless to say, this is how I roll, and I have been waiting for this update for long time.

The argument here being that you can just fill out your party with powerful heroes and overpower everything in your path thus making the game too easy.

Spot the player character compitition!

Now, I have to admit that yes, having 7 heroes DOES seem to make things easier, possibly due to my insistence on breaking the game with pets. Does it make easier than running with a decent team of coordinated players? I doubt it. For those of us that prefer to play solo this is a godsend, opening up myriad new opportunities for play. For those that prefer to team this makes no fucking difference whatsoever. Now, maybe if I put in a huge amount of effort farming items and elite skills I could make an uber team of ultimate death, but that would require quite a bit of effort. Just as much, if not more, than would collectively go into building a full party of high end players.

So far from signalling the deathknell of the game this gives more options to those that enjoy solo play with many team building options to play with on top of all the character building, whilst taking nothing away from the social players (you only need 2 humans to fill out the rest of the party with 3 heroes each anyway).

Now onto the final section, and the one that really got me thinking. Titles. And you may note this is where most of the ire in the other article seems directed. It's also here that we're able to link what we're saying to the more general area of gaming. Pretty much EVERY game has some sort of title system these days, MMOs most particularly. And when the requirements for a title are changed for whatever reason there will always be someone who whines that now it's too easy and your not just cheapening the achievements of the older players you're actually spitting in their faces and sending their families off to death camps or whatever hyperbole seems fashionable at the time.

Godwin'd

The problem here is that a few title "achievements" have gone from "Retarded" to "Possibly Doable With Sufficient Effort". The problem here (as in all similar cases) is that those that already have the titles will inevitably bemoan that the title is far too easy and thus no longer means anything.

Now, please remember that I myself play FAR TOO MUCH Guild Wars when I say this, but these titles normally only mean that YOU ARE WASTING YOUR LIFE.

Challenge, they always say. CHALLENGE?!!?

If you want a challenge, a difficult, time consuming task, go cross the sahara on a pogo stick.

And that is, suprisingly, a fairly good analogy for a lot of in game achievements. You are basically only doing it in order to say that you have. At the end of the day it achieves nothing in any real sense, outside of a PERSONAL sense of achievement. And that's fine. Nothing wrong with that. But just because you did something the hard way doesn't mean you should begrudge someone else doing it a different way. Maybe they're crossing the sahara on rollerskates. It doesn't change the fact that you did it on a pogo stick, but opening up the experience to others is not a bad thing.

Let's take a specific example here; the Legendary Defender Of Ascalon title. Now, Ascalon is the human kingdom where you start out in Guild Wars, and before it gets *SPOLIERS* blown up forms the starting area. Since it's a closed area you can't get back to some characters like to stay there. But since it's a starting area this limits your max level, as you will EVENTUALLY outlevel the available foes and stop earning experience. But it turns out some masochistic genius discovered a way around this that let you get up to the max level of 20. And that's what Legendary Defender is. You hit Level 20 in old Ascalon.
You wanna know how you had to do it? First find a foe, lure it to a resurection shrine. Then sit there and let it kill you over and over and over and over again for HOURS. Eventually the monster will level up high enough that you can kill it for XP. The do it again. And AGAIN. For MONTHS.

Whilst I respect the cunning that went into forming this strategy I have to say that this is the MOST RETARDED THING EVER.

Now they've put in a daily quest that scales to your level. So you can eventually gain the title by actually PLAYING THE GAME. And this is supposed to be a bad thing how? That was the issue with all the titles that they tweaked. None of them involved actually PLAYING the game. Well, except maybe Survivor, which involved playing the game in constant fear of having to restart your whole character from scratch. But now there are nice SANE ways of doing these things if your so inclined. And this is, I think, the key point. Because if an in game achievment looks like it might be actually doable then more people are going to be inclined to maybe have a go at it, and thus more people will be actually playing the game.

That is what games were for last time I checked.

P.S. After rereading that article again for purposes of moaning about it I have to say I'm not all that convinced the dude is 100% serious and not just trying to play devils advocate, as the arguments are rather weak. But who knows, different strokes and all that.