Thursday, January 27, 2011

Dirty WHOers Podcast - Episode 22

Here we are again, finally.

Once again capable of movement after the excesses of the festive season and (4 weeks after ever other Whoovian podcast got theirs recorded and edited) ready to poison your ears with our review of the Christmas Special. Frankly, if The Prof hadn't stepped up to bat and given us a hand (again) this would still be waiting for the edit.

Brace for more profanity, bigotry, Krap Daleks (TM), and the usual pointless 30 minutes of arguments and cocktail abuse.

Also, a look at the new trailer. Included here in case you wanna play it at the same time as your listening (if you can be arsed) to our froth at the end?

Enjoy, get out more, don't forget to phone your mum, and don't take everything too seriously.

This is one of the LOST DirtyWHOers Episodes, no longer available for streaming from iTunes etc., but is available for download from our Dropbox archive HERE.

Friday, January 21, 2011

The Keys to Time and Space

My friends know that I just love the TARDIS key and all it symbolizes: a key to freedom, adventure and wonder. So I thought I'd share this lovely TARDIS key collection belonging to Police-Box-Traveler at Deviant art.

"...[These are] Tardis Keys I've collected and used in my photos and cos-play costumes and such. A few of these i have made, one was customized by me, and the rest are actual licensed collectibles." 

Visit the Police-Box-Traveler on Deviant to read more about each key.  :-)

Rose Tyler: Promise you won't disappear?
The Doctor: I'll tell you what. TARDIS key.
[hands her the key] The Doctor: It's about time you had one. See you later.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Twas the Night Before Christmas...

The Prof said I should do this review in rhyming couplets, as befits the title. I said he should bl**dy well write it himself, then. Funnily enough, he shut up at that point. Also funnily enough, I never actually got round to writing a review of the third adventure game installment "TARDIS", which is slightly unfair as it was a fun little game. Bit short, but fun.


There was a "greatest" hits (well, I say greatest...) of mini-games, which because you weren't subjected to them ad nauseum made them far less irritating than the first time around. There was also a new room on the TARDIS. Sadly, there was only one new room on the TARDIS, which is the biggest weak point of the game; it would have been much nicer to have a few more to poke round in. It might even have explained why the BBC wouldn't let Michael Moorcock give Amy a bedroom, but no, one it is. You do have to wonder if they all sleep in the one big bed, like Eric and Ernie. Oh, the slash fiction! Ew...

Still, you do get to drive the TARDIS (its been a while, so we can't remember whether its take off or landing, as if that's important anyway). Yes, that's right, drive it! You get to examine all the control panels in detail, not really take all that much notice of what you're waggling, then panic briefly as you have to set the thing away without crashing it, which was really rather good fun and definitely the highlight of the game. Overall it won't take up much of your time, but its rather sweet and you can do the sound effects if you like.

And then, around Christmas Eve, "Shadows of the Vashta Nerada", the fourth and final installment, turned up.


Basically, this is Pocket Simon meets Jaws via Cooking Mama for the New Who generation. Yes, the wiring game is still there, but now you get to remember number sequences whilst trawling round the world's most boring undersea research station. There's some lovely voice work from our last victim, er, interviewee Nick Briggs, but as someone on Twitter pointed out (and I can't remember who, sorry) I have no idea why the Vashta Nerada are there. There's even a token Santa in one room, just to remind you its Christmas, which you can't actually interact with, more's the pity.

Now there is a very interesting premise to the game (which I won't tell you because its worth seeing for yourself), but its thrown away apparently simply for the sake of crow-barring in everyone's favourite scariest new monster after the Weeping Angels. The shark's quite nice, in a sort of chaos-spikey-death-armour way, but it did at least make some sense for him to be there. Not so the walking diving-suits.

That's about it. It was a bit rumpty-tumpty really; not desperately brilliant, but not desperately annoying either (not like that chuffing DS game). The biggest disappointment was the missed opportunity afforded by the major plot reveal and someone surely could have written a better game to go around it. It wasn't as much fun as the other games in the series, with "TARDIS" being the best to play as it had the least monotonous & annoying mini-games (besides the whole driving thing) and "City of the Daleks" definitely had the most squeeworthy plot.

Are they worth having a look at as a whole? Yes, as long as you remember to set your graphics appropriately so you're not wading through treacle all the time. Are they a good representation of the series? Yes, in that there are some flashes of brilliance, some nice acting and a rather uneven level of quality to the episodes. In fact, play them on a Saturday afternoon somewhere between 6-7pm until the new series starts.

Because they are canon, after all...

WebMaster: Terry Lightfoot
WebDoctor: Oolon Sputnik
Blog by Terry Lightfoot
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