#49; Apple Know How to Make a Man ‘Appy

It’s been nearly 2 months now since I purchased my iPod Touch, a purchase that to this day I still find myself dazzled with bliss and happiness because it has provided many hours of, well, awesome! If you remember back to when I first got it, I blogged about it here on ToaTA as an after effect of the happiness at finally getting an iPod Touch. Of course, one of the biggest factors of buying this device was the Apps that Apple had released for this and the iPhone, so here’s my favourite apps and games I’ve bought and loved since my purchase… (although you soon may realise these will be balancing more towards my favourite games rather than apps, but still!)

Beneath A Steel Sky
Price: Currently on offer at 59p
Genre: Point and Click adventure game

If you love Broken Sword, Monkey Island or any of the old LucasArts adventure point and click games then this is an absolute must for you. I’ve loved the game way before it was on the iPod Touch and have played it many times on SCUMMVM but it’s a perfect companion for the Touch/iPhone. You get a distinct feel of 1984 and the whole dystopian vibe of a new world from the game, and the voice acting and addictiveness of it is second to none for me on the format. I think this was the first app I actually purchased and I certainly recommend it to all who enjoy these type of games. It works well, it looks fantastic with the Dave Gibbons cartoon cutscenes and the voice acting is absolutely spot on. If you want a game that makes you think in order to solve a problem, then you should give it a whirl too – just be patient and think smart. Such a great port of a great game.

Fling
Price: 59p
Genre: Puzzle game

Here’s one for the more casual gamer out there who wants a quick puzzle game to drive them mental but still be brilliantly addictive. Fling seems you, wait for it, flinging little furballs off the screen so you work it out that you only have 1 furball left. It sounds easy but it’s far more difficult that you imagine at times and will get you thinking! It’s a great little app, have several modes to keep you amused, all whilst being ridiculously adorable and fun at the same time. The impressive thing about it is that it stores thousands upon thousands of puzzles so that you’ll probably never get the same puzzle twice! It has stumped me plenty of times and it’s just a great little app. If it does drive you to the edge of desperation at times it does provides hints but handily pops up with the message ‘are you sure you want to cheat?’ – fantastic way to send me on a guilt trip and making sure I end up not cheating!

Canabalt
Price: £1.79
Genre: It’s a game… but… I dunno what genre?

Yeah, explaining the genre for this is a good start. Ignoring that though, Canabalt is brilliant. It is evil, and so frustrating, and it gets on your nerves, but it is fantastic. It’s basically an app port of a free browser based PC game and even though it’s not free it’s still well worth of the price. Your goal is to get the little guy who is running across falling buildings as far as possible, by tapping the screen to make him jump. The further he gets, the faster he runs, so from time to time you will need to slow him down by running into obstacles. It will drive you nuts as you start getting really far then mess it up by misjudging the timing of a jump but I love it nevertheless! also, recommended you play with headphones on as it has a wonderfully made soundtrack that gets you really into the game. Not sure what’s with the robots in the background though…

TheTrainLine
Price: Free
Genre: Train App

Look! an actual app! And it’s free!! Moving away from games on this format, the Trainline app is immensely useful if you find yourself on the move via trains at all. It’s able to check train times for you, save journeys, search journeys, search stations, tell you the nearest station based on your location, etc… basically, for a free app, it’s been an immensely useful tool to have in my pocket just to reassure me in strange, unknown stations. It’s probable more beneficial to iPhone users with a 3G connection rather than iPod Touch owners depending on wifi such as myself but I’ve still depended on it when I’ve had such wireless capabilities at certain stations. When you consider the official National Rail app comes at a hefty £4.99 I can’t see why you’d at least consider this if you need one for your journeys.

And finally, of course…

The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition
Price: £2.39 until Dec 1st
Genre: Point and Click adventure game

Oh you thought I was going to get through this without talking about what is probably my all-time favourite game on the iPod? No chance! What can I say about this genius few hours of gaming? It’s smart, it’s funny, it’s so well written and it deserves it’s status as being a legendary game to those that have played it. Sure, it has a bit of a hefty price (buy now whilst it’s on sale!!) but my word is it worth it. You control Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate™ in his battle to become the Caribbean's most famous pirate! I don’t think I can actually say anything bad about this game. It’s ridiculous, I know, but it even works well on the iPod/iPhone. Its only right I end this section by saying ‘You're no match for my brains, you poor fool.!’.

So this is my roundup of what I’ve really, really enjoyed or found useful on my iPod Touch so far. I’ve got quite a few more games and apps than this obviously, but these are definitely the stand out in what I’ve used the most over the past few weeks since purchasing the Touch. I’m surprised from a gaming point of view how well it works as I was definitely a critic of such a format being a gaming handheld but, look at how many games have gotten into this blog entry. I think that says enough to me.

And yes, that was the best I could think of for a blog title. I’m sorry. As my regards, please be nosy and look at what actually takes up the contents of my iPod Touch…

#48; Fail.

Whilst I’m struggling to fight through this C++ assignment I’m working on, I find myself easily distracted today by the Fail Blog. Now we all probably know what the site is about and the whole internet meme of ‘Fail’, but it still makes me laugh ridiculously at times in terms of what you can find on there.  just wanted to share some of my favourites.


Using Photoshop so much makes me appreciate the amount of fail in that even more so.

 

You heard the sign, men worldwide. Don’t get pregnant.

 

I’m sure the city of Denver is proud of its’ Brians.

I don’t even know where to begin with that.

22 years of life experience necessary too.

So that’s what they’re used for!!

Rubens would be proud.
And finally, an epic video that just screams fail but yet win at the same time…

A truly wild Space Odyssey. I like how by the time it gets to the end it’s just an array of high pitched noises.

You can find much more FAIL over at the Fail Blog if you’re as easily amused as I am, of course!

#47; Water Always Wins

Photograph – BBC

WARNING – POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE EPISODE AND CHRISTMAS PREVIEW

The beginning of the end. That’s what it was hailed as, the start of the trio of episodes that sees the exit of the great David Tennant from his role as ‘The Doctor’, and without an episode of Dr Who since Easter us Who-fans were just dying of anticipation for Waters of Mars. It had been massively hyped up by the BBC, Tennant has been flying about from show to show getting the word out and about 40 minutes before I write this up, it finished. 60 minutes of Dr Who. Was it worth the wait? To quote The Doctor himself… ‘ohh-ohhhhh yes!!’!

To put it simply, the episode was even better than I was expecting. It was written by Russell T. Davies, and his episodes for me tend to be over written in content and story at times so I had that on my mind. I will admit – towards the end I did wonder to myself how long it was going to be before RTD involved some over the top, unnecessary addition to the action unfolding in front of us. It kind of happened, but it stayed far less ridiculous than previous ‘RTD moments’ and it ruined nothing for me. Add that to the fact that there was no Dr Who for the majority of the year; this episode had a lot to live up to! As ever though it prevailed with flying colours and a sense of utter wanting from myself for the next episode to be screened at Christmas. I can’t wait just over another month!!!

So what made it such a great return to form after this unnecessary absence? The story, and characters involved, worked wonderfully well and they had their reason to be there. We were given their stories oh-so briefly through the Doctor and for the most part they all seemed vital to keeping the story and show watchable. Adelaide Brooke was a fine leader for her team, and almost companion, in the epsiode and the way her history was affected by what choices were made by the end of the episode – her own choices included as we saw. I found it quite smart how the whole history aspect of the story changed a few times depending on the Doctor and what he did, and of course, for the first time we saw a new side to Tennant’s Doctor. Plus, the return of the Ood that, previously a while ago, mentioned a song relating to the end of The Doctor… lots of little callbacks to references previously mentioned made it even better!

How weird was it to see Tennant turn his lovable cheeky-rascal character into a malicious, arrogant, power-mad creature? For me seeing the Doctor go from a down-trodden, defeated friend into an unlikeable fool was quite something. It was a side we’d never seen before – whereas the Doctor knew he had his power as a Timelord, the limits were always there and boundaries more than existed in his mind. By the end of the episode, these boundaries were more than gone, the power had gone to his head and it was bizarre to see his unlikeable quality of him that, for me at least, I did not expect to see. Despite that, it was pretty wonderful to see how easy it was for Tennant to flick the switch and decide to take everything into his own hands, and give a fresh angle for the Doctor before his time is up.

So that leaves us waiting with much exasperation for Christmas. The preview showed so much – the return of Donna Noble, the legend that Donna’s grandfather Wilf (cheers James!), scenes of mayhem and chaos, the Doctor continuing his new line of power and, of course, the return of The Master.  Yes, we knew it was happening, but my god was it good to see. The mention of the four knocks, the sinister laugh, and John Simm in tow to take this Doctor’s era out with a bang…

Christmas can’t come quick enough…

#46; Why The Office is better away from the UK

Ricky Gervais is a bit of a marmite type of guy for me. See, I love his stand-up shows and he is undoubtedly a very funny bloke whether you like him or not, whether his arrogant humour is your thing or not I mean. He of course grew into the world of super stardom via writing his huge, huge hit TV ‘mockumentary’ The Office. In case you’ve never seen it, it followed the every day lives of a series of paper company workers in Slough, England and just basically followed around the workers and most prominently boss David Brent, played by Gervais. It’s a good show, don’t get me wrong, but the cringe worthy nature of Brent (despite that being the entire point of him) makes it a tad unwatchable at times because he does drive me up the wall. A few years ago, a good time after The Office was super popular in the UK, it was announced that The Office was making it’s way over to the American side of the pond. Initially, I met this with utter discontent because the humour in the show is very, very British. However, it seems that 6 seasons into the show, it for me is the utter highlight of the two by a stupid distance.

                      
David Brent                                                     Michael Scott

For starters, I am a huge, huge fan of Steve Carell. Whether it be his legendary performance as Brick in Anchorman, Evan in Bruce/Evan Almighty or the depressed Frank in Little Miss Sunshine, he has starred in many films where he has made the film for me. Once again, he did the job with the transition from British humour to American humour with The Office. Much like Gervais, Carell finds himself in the role of boss Michael Scott, who simply put just wants to be a nice guy! The first season of the US Office sees it basically copying everything that had been done in the original, and it was good don’t get me wrong. Michael had his loyal (to a point) kiss-ass sidekick Dwight, his ever-admiring Jim being the witty output of his office and a whole host of characters that were included. The thing is, if you saw both the original and the US Office, you could tell it wasn’t working as well in an American context. That’s why, from Season 2, the show absolutely went into overdrive into how well written, well acted and well received it became. To put it bluntly, it became bloody brilliant.

The thing is with the US Office is that it has been on our screens a lot longer now than the original was. Gervais’ creation only lasted 2 series, and roughly 12 episodes as well as few Christmas specials along the way, whereas the US Office sees it currently running through it’s sixth season in the US and well passed the 100 barrier. The characters have grown and grown, they have left and they have come and the series has expanded way beyond what was seen in that first season of the US Office. Because it has been on longer, you do know the characters a lot, lot better. You gain a greater amount of understanding between the relationship of Pam and Jim, that Dwight has his innocent moments in a sea of utter Dwight moments (it’ll make sense if you see it), that the various smaller characters like the lovable Kevin and his habits, Angela and her stern attitude to absolutely everything (except cats). and so much more. Each character has their own personality, their own story to tell in the office, their own part of the show, and it works so beautifully well because as you keep on watching you really get to know everyone as part of the office. For me the original UK version had a few characters that were worth watching, whilst the majority of the office didn’t really add much to the show.

The humour too is much more suited to my tastes. The biggest difference to the two is the fact that the UK original includes a lot of swearing as is the case with normal British banter in modern conversation, whereas any acts of swearing come at very minor opportunities or are bleeped out from the US equivalent. Furthermore, the humour as I’ve previously stated is completely different in my opinion for reasons already stated – the writing in the UK original very much seems to be based on the antics of David Brent and his judging of his office, his employees and his decisions with a back story of Tim and Dawn and the general British banter humour mixed in with Brent constantly trying to prove his comedy value, whereas the US Office is much more orientated towards the stories of the office in general with all it’s characters running around the main characters of Jim, Pam, Dwight, and of course Michael in charge, not to mention how Steve Carell makes Michael Scott a much more likeable, lovable boss despite his many flaws including his greed at times and ignorance, yet comes across as more innocent, naive and just wanting to enjoy what he does with who he considers his friends. That, for me, makes the offices of Dunder Mifflin in Scranton (US) just so much more enjoyable and warmer to feel involved in than the colder environment that is the Slough offices of Wernham Hogg (UK).

So that’s why I prefer the American version to the original. They say a lot of times that remakes of a classic TV show/film should never be done, as they inevitably end up being an embarrassment to the original; even more so most of the time when it jumps over the Atlantic I find! This however proves that, every once in a while, it’s worth going for if the outcome is as good as it became here. The show is probably my favourite comedy TV sitcom considering – it’s without a doubt up there with Scrubs and Arrested Development in terms of how fantastically done it all is.

How do you feel if you have watched both the original UK and new US series’? Are you sticking to your guns with Gervais’ creation, or more than happy to embrace our American cousins into The Office?