Ummmm. Wow. I really enjoyed Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. They were an excellent read, and the anti-Christianity sentiments in them that were bubbling just below the surface didn't bother me at all. Before watching the film I found it hard to believe that these sentiments would make it onto the big screen, but frankly it was hard to tell from watching the film. The plot of the books is followed, for sure, but there seemed to be a whole load of explanatory plot missing from the film. I really do think that if I hadn't read the books prior to seeing the film, I wouldn't have had a clue what was going on. So much explanation, plot, interest, excitement, enjoyment was missing from the film that I found it really hard to watch.

My impression was that the book had been read by whoever wrote the script, and they just thought 'that bit's good, and that bit, and that bit. The bits inbetween not so good. So let's just omit them.' No explanations, no exposition and as a result really not much of a film. In conclusion, read the books. They're very good. Don't watch the film. It's very poor.

I'm a big fan of Japanese Role Playing Games (JRPGs). As a kid I played computer games on first my ZX Spectrum + and then on my Atari ST for many hours. And then I lapsed for a good few years; I preferred to play football and rugby, and then I preferred to go out drinking. What bought me thudding back into gaming was Final Fantasy VII on the Playstation. It was glorious, and I've since played it to completion three times, despite it's hundred hour or so length.

As a result of this, I generally pick up any JRPG that comes out, in the hope that it will be good. The Xbox 360 has had 3 notable JRPGs come out on it. The first was Blue Dragon, which I found interminable. The characters were annoying, the graphics were way too bright for my liking and the story and gameplay did nothing to keep me going. I didn't even finish it, which is unusual for me.

The second was Eternal Sonata. The story was excellent and truly imaginative. It was based on the last night of Chopin's life, and is set in a fictional world that he dreams as he is dying. Sounds odd, in truth is odd, but works rather well. I enjoyed it quite a lot, and did get to the end of it. Despite this it was a relatively run-of-the-mill JRPG and by the end of it I was certainly not considering playing through it again.

The latest JRPG to come out on the 360 is Lost Odyssey. Perhaps the most traditional of these 3 JRPGs, it's produced by the creator of the Final Fantasy series. This might explain why I enjoyed it so much, but the story and characters also had a lot to do with this. The fighting, although random encounter based, was also involving due to the trigger system that ensured that just hammering A and then sitting back and letting the fight unfold was not an option. That said, one of my major frustrations was actually the lack of random encounters when trying to level characters up. It could take up to a couple of minutes to get into a fight. A minor quibble, but a time consuming one.

I really enjoyed the 'dreams' - little stories filling in pieces of the lead characters’' past. These were very well written, and the way the wrote themselves onto the screen with accompanying sound effects and music was delightful. I had read complaints that the game was too hard, but can't say that i found this to be a problem at all. There was a single, optional, fight that was pretty tough, but was still beaten on the first attempt and the final boss was harmless compared to this.

All in all this was an excellent way to spend 50 odd hours, and one of the few JRPGs I've played in the past few years that I would actually consider replaying at some point in the future.

Note I finished this game a couple of weeks ago, but as I'm currently engrossed in GTA4 I thought I'd put my impressions down before they got lost in the haze of my mind...

This one is an oddity. It's the follow up to a book that was my favourite of last year: The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by GW Dahlquist. The Glass Books was a magnificent piece of work - a piece of faux Victoriana written in both bodice-ripping and rip-roaring style (to borrow two well matched clichés). The action in it was non-stop, and it reminded me in a very positive way of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (the Alan Moore graphic novels rather than the rather turgid film of the same name).

As a result of this, I was hugely looking forward to reading the sequel, the aforementioned Dark Volume. I even went so far as to buy it in hardcover, which is something I very rarely do. And in all honesty I found it pretty disappointing. The ending of the first book was clearly setting up a sequel, which I could forgive as the preceding 99% of the book made up for this. Unfortunately, it feels as though 99% of The Dark Volume is setting up a further sequel, and the "ending" of this book does nothing to disprove this or even to try to provide a proper finale. There seems to be less action, less peril, less everything that made the first book so good in this sequel. Perhaps my expectations were unduly high having enjoyed the first volume so much. Or perhaps, just perhaps, The Dark Volume really isn't anywhere near as good as it's wonderful predecessor.

Why?

Purely as an aide memoir for the things I consume voraciously. Books, films, TV shows and games. I get through a lot of these in an average week and it would be nice to have a small reminder on a weekly basis of what I've read, watched and played and I guess whether it was any good or not.

The theory is that I will update this regularly. In practice that may not be the case. I may or may not tell people about this. Time will tell. For now, let's see how regularly I manage to keep this going and how useful it is...

Me?

If you happen to stumble upon this, chances are you don't know me. Perhaps you know my online name from somewhere, and if so hello to you! If you're one of the rare few who know both the online persona and the real me, be merciful eh? Remember, I know where you live ;p

You?

Hi there. Let me assume that I have an army of devoted readers hanging on every word and utterance I make. Please feel free to add your views. Of course, realistically, this is being read by the proverbial one man and his dog (bear in mind that the dog can't read, and I am the one man), and I really have no intention of commenting on my own thoughts.