Dr Who you said… Deep Breath S8E01 (Spoiler-tastic)

This will be a new thing I will be doing. Each week I will take a look at an episode from the current season of Dr Who. But to avoid spoiling it for everyone I will put a one week delay on it. So this week I will give you my thoughts and ideas on episode 1 of the new season. Following episode three and going forward I will also make a quick spoiler free review of that week’s episode. 

Now let me start this off by saying that I am in no way a Whoivan. While I have seen the entire new run and the odd old series episode here and there, I do not go in to this as a fan of the series. More like a casual observer. That being said I will not act ignorant or ignore things for the sake of playing the novice. I am the kind of person that tend to look things up if they puzzle me. And with such a complex and downright confusing canon as Dr Who… Some amount of wiki-browsing and web searching is needed.

So first off. The big thing… The era of young dashing hunky doctors are over. It is time for a new doctor and he is old and grumpy. And no offence to Mr Capaldi but maybe the make-up department did a tad too good of a job because you look like the show’s opening character stepped on you. She by the way is a T-Rex… In London… That is choking on the TARDIS.  I am not sure I was all that pulled in by the opening sequence. It was literally all over the place and Capaldi was chewing the scenery like they had not feed him since Matt Smiths doctor regenerated. We also meet the Who universe´s very own Batman… If batman was a Victorian era lady… and a humanoid lizard. Yes Vastra is back and with her the usual team of Jenny Flint and Strax. Last but not least we also have Clara.

So the stage is set and the story of the episode goes as follows.

The Doctor was using the TARDIS while regenerating and it went about as well as expected, they got eaten by a dinosaur and accidently pulled it with them as they did the timey-wimey stuff. And they ended up in London where they meet up with the dynamic trio. But the Doctor has yet to “re-boot” and Capaldi does his best to top any previous delirious doctor. But as usual mystery happens and a poor bloke get his eyes stolen by a mysterious clockwork man. 

Then the T-Rex combusts... The game is afoot. Some twists and turns and the Doctor and Clara end up in a very depressing diner that is in fact a front for the clockwork men. They are harvesting organs to replace their worn out parts and have been doing so for a very long time. The plan is for them to repair their ship and get to their paradise. The Doctor and Clara get captured but fortunatley the cavalry is not far behind. 

The Doctor gets his grim moment and the poor Clockwork leader falls to his death but thanks to the dialogue it is unclear if the Doctor pushed him or if he jumped. He wakes up in a lush garden with a mysterious woman who claims to be the Doctors girlfriend.

The game is afoot indeed.

So the big theme of this episode in my mind is doubt and acceptance. With Clara and Jenny being the primary “actors” who have to come face to face with different truths. Clara of course have the biggest hurdle to overcome as she watches the new Doctor who at a glance does not resemble the man she knew and loved. This is of course not helped by the delirious state that the newly regenerated Doctor is in. While some might call it a bit shallow to react like she does, putting so much value in the outer appearance it is worth to remember that this is not a new haircut and wardrobe. This is in fact a new personality, a new person even. This person just happen to have the memories of the old one. So I find it fairly natural that she is put off and very unsure of how she will deal with this situation. The Doctor on the other hand have to accept that the relationship he had just a short while ago is forever changed. And while he has more experience with this sort of thing it does feel like he is genuinely hurt by the chasm his new body have opened between them. But by the end of the episode thanks to deus ex Matt smith Clara finds a way to at least see the new Doctor as a friend and companion. 

Jenny on the other hand have to battle with doubts of if her workaholic wife has any place for her in the day to day life of being London’s own Batman, but when push comes to show she finds herself ready to fight and die for Vastra. While this is done a bit ham-fisted they work a good amount of character development in to the timeframe of a single episode and I assume it is a conflict that will be touched upon again in later episodes. Vastra on the other hand I like to say realizes that she have been taking Jenny for granted but I am not entirely sure, she seems more curious about Clara and the Doctor then her own household. Finally the theme is reflected in the monster of the week, the clockwork repair drone that the Doctor and Clara faces. Who is in the end defeated by his own doubts, planted by the Doctor and perhaps his acceptance that here is no great beyond that awaits him.

  

I hate Strax… There is no creativity in his writing… Not even by the standards of comic relief.

This episode like so many is peppered with nods and eastereggs to previous seasons. The biggest and most overt of course being that the drones are of the same type as the ones in “the girl in the fireplace” and as such make a nice connection to a fairly emotional episode and a personal favorite.

So for an opening episode I am a bit split. On one hand I like the new doctor once he calmed down and had his “re-boot”, going to be interesting to see what Capaldi does with the part. At the same time the first third of the episode was channel flipping worthy and heaven forbid that you are a new viewer as they would have been confused as all come fuck. Yes I know this is season eight and that every episode is someone’s first but a bit more effort to welcome new viewers could have been made. Also would it have hurt to push the reveal of Missy aka the woman in the garden (should we read this as an Eve euphemism) another episode or two… Just saying.

Also I am not entirely sold on the new intro and theme.

My run with The crew

So I just wrapped up my run in the closed beta of the new online racer from Ubisoft and Ivory Tower The Crew. I will be giving a quick summary of my experience with the game first and then go in to detail over a few subjects. 

 

Image courtesy of Ubisoft

The Crew does on many ways remind me of the old Test drive and Need for speed games and that is perhaps not all that strange since the team them self are a crew of racing game devs brought together to produce the next big thing. And that is kind of the problem. The game does remind you of a lot of other and in my opinion better games you could be playing. Now this is as I said a closed beta and there is still room over the next couple of months to polish this game up to a very good experience. The core of the Crew is a fairly standard “crook with a heart of gold”-story that have you, a street racer and Gordon Freeman like white dude working under cover with a government agency to take down a corrupt federal agent. Since the beta was limited to level 10 I have no clue how that part of the game pans out.

This single player part of the game is seamlessly married to an always online mode and a open world that let you drive in a compacted version of the united states. You can drive from coast to coast without any visible loading screens and see other players that also play the game, the world is also very good looking with a smooth transition from day to night and different weather. This way the game remains open and less repetitive as you can if you get bored of the regular races and challenges either just set yourself a goal or challenge some random person you meat to see who has the best car.

That brings me to the cars. Each car is fully licensed… No Gnord or Snubmarus here... and they look very good with a good level of detail even at lower settings. Each car can be upgraded both in the traditional way of putting in better engines and tires but also by kitting it with what is called a “spec” turning your car from a everyday supercar un to a track machine or a dune crawler ready for Paris-Dakar… And since I have seen a Ferrari in some of the promo material they could end up looking awesome. You also get a slew of visual parts tied and themed to each kit.

So if you are looking for something to scratch that TestDrive:Unlimited itch or just need a change from the latest Criterion offering the Crew could be a good alternative and if you pre-order right now you get some extra kits and a very cool Cooper Mini that might or might not be exclusive to the preorder deal. But at 50 euro retail my advice is that you take a look at the videos players have recorded to get a better idea if this game is for you.

So now let me get up close and personal with the Crew. 

Image courtesy of Ubisoft

Gameplay

As I said before this game is a weird mix of a single player and a mmo game that at strongly remind me about the old TDU games. Now the population was low, most likely because of it being a closed beta so it was hard to get any feel for how the co-op and PvP parts of the game will work. The single player racing follows the traditional structure of you starting out with a “crap” car.. if you can call a Ford Mustang, a Nissan 370Z or a ´14 Charger crap… But they are bone stock regular cars and behave like soaped erasers once you push them past 60 mph. Once you get to the first kit, street it gets a bit better and by then you have also learnt to adapt to how the game has its general physics set up. But yes your early races are going to be a lot of cursing and hitting retry as tiny mistakes avalanche in to what is in essence a lost race. Especially as many races are either timed or have you finishing first in order to advance. But if you muscle through it things will gradually get better and that same setup makes going off-road very fun as planning is wasted and you drive by instinct and measured insanity. So in this regard it is very much a MMO and a really unforgiving one at that.

So outside the normal checkpoint races you have what is called skill challenges, these are specific tasks you find in free drive and are set up in such a way that you can often do them as you drive from one place to another. They can be stuff like keeping as high of a speed as you can along a dirt or to drive slalom down a freeway. My personal favourite are the jumping challenges. The goal is simple, drive fast and jump really far… If you fly far enough you earn a gold upgrade part.

Now since the map is fairly large, even the regions are fairly big and driving everywhere would be very annoying. The game let you fast travel to any... and I do literally mean any part of the map that you have already visited. This make it easy for you to take a break from the story mission to meet up with some friends or take on a specific skill challenge. It also let you take breaks and resume your exploration of the world. And explore it you should. Beyond the simple novelty of visiting some very famous landmarks and finding more skill challenges there are car wrecks placed at obvious and less obvious places (don’t worry they will show up on your radar when you get close. No need to fear missing one) collect 20 parts from these and you will build special kit cars like hotrods and other oddities.

Image courtesy of Gamespot

Graphics

This game is beautiful. There is no denying it and there is actually a fair bit of ambiance driving from New York to Miami and see the sun set, night pass and the sun start to rise as you roll down to the beach and park your car looking out over the water. And this on a very mid-spec computer. I had very few performance issues (insert Viagra joke here... preferably a funny one) and apart from some weird graphics glitches at one time the game ran smooth and did not look bad even at low settings. Each car is really nice looking and while magic repairs it over time mud, dust and a nice selection of body damage all work to make you feel like your car is actually in the world.

Now as I said there is no permanent body damage, your “life” is a green bar and any scratches, dings and full on wipe-outs all fade away over time. I would have like to see them stay until I repair but since the car can´t break down all the way, and by extension suffer total body demolition it is a thing I can live with. Better this then it stopping at some weird permanent half-wreck but still drivable.  

All UI elements are well laid out and easy to read and you should have no problems finding your way around the game.

The game support five different camera setting with the classic bumper, hood, driver’s seat (with fully modeled interior), right behind read bumper and a further back up third person cam. So no matter how you like your driving the game should satisfy on the account.

Input/Controller

I hope you have a gamepad… Or a steering wheel because this game does not like keyboards at all. As most things that are also to be released on console the game pretty much demands a controller. But once you have one plugged in it plays very good. All menu interactions are fluid and buttons are very well laid out and mapped. Did not have any issues at all with the gamepad. Then ofc it might help that I have a PC with windows and a corded X-Box 360 controller. Cannot speak for how off-brand controllers work. I also assume the game would work well with a steering wheel but I have not been able to test that… H would have looked VERY funny at me if I said I had to buy a steering wheel to test a game…

It is at this point unknown to me if the game will support rift/TrackIR but since it has a first person mode it could be done I guess.

Music/Audio

Music is good with several built in playlists in the by now standard radio station configuration. Ambient audio is good but sadly car audio is very lacking. In fact the Nissan was so high pitch it became annoying after a while and none of the muscle cars really had the grunt you expect. Now this might be more realistic but as it often is reality does not always match expectation. But I am sure it is something that could be tweaked before it goes live. And honestly if it really bothers me I guess I could just mess around in the equalizer for my headset. But it is an issue none the less.

Image courtesy of Ubisoft

Conclusion

The Crew has potential and while it does inherit some of the bad from its MMO roots such as the grind and the double power creep it will have a Pay2Skip option that let you simply plunk down some money and buy the cars and equipment you like for real world money. If that P2S turns in to P2W we will see once the game is released but with UBISOFT´s willingness for DLC and micro transaction I am sure that more the a few people will feel that the label is deserved. Me I reserve my judgement for a later date. I had a fun few days in the Crew but it has yet to fully convince me that it is the right fit for me. I am holding off on any pre-order and see what they do with the feedback they got from this beta session.

A solid 6/10. It is fun but still have a lot of room to grow. But at least it is not another Criterion Need for Speed.

WTFIWWY Guns stars and other blunt objects.

So today I intend to write about three things that caught my attention over the last couple of days. Now the first story is one of rather light-hearted insanity that happens when nobody spend more than five minutes on a design concept. Recently the clothes retail chain of Zara introduced a new children’s shirt. It was a pretty run of the mill item, long sleeves and a white and blue horizontal striping… Now had it not been for the embroidery on it nobody would have raised an eyebrow. Unfortunately the company choose to put a “gold” sheriff star on the right chest… Even more unfortunate was the fact that the star in question had six points…

Here is an image of the shirt…

Here is an image of a similar looking item of clothing

As you can see some people felt this a bit too close for comfort. But fortunately I am inclined to believe Zara when they said it was a simple oversight and it was supposed to be inspired by wild west motifs. After all never attribute to malice what can be explained by sheer incompetence. After all this shirt must have taken a full 10 minutes to design and to ask that anyone spend even twice that doing research before they clear it is demanding too much it seems. Any way… What baffles me is that this went through the entire pipeline in to production and nobody ever made the connection. Makes me curious what other sort of shit you could sneak by the Zara QC department. I also understand that the designer might not be of European decent and thus do not have such a strong connection to the imagery of WW2 Jewish persecution. But as I said a bit of research goes a long way. Now I wanted to start this post of lightly as the other two items I have today just make me angry… On several levels.

The second story... well you know how teenagers can be all up in your face and have more attitude then is good for them… THAT IS NOT A REASON TO CHASE THEM AND TRY TO HIT THEM WITH BATONS…. Apparently two or more children got in to an argument with two adults who felt that the proper way to deal with the situation was to pull out weapons and chase the children all under the age of 15 around the yard of the school. Fortunately nobody was hurt and I would guess that the psychological trauma was kept to a minimum too. Now as I said kids that age think they are immortal but trying to prove them wrong on that account is not the way to go about it. Just step away. Now according to some accounts there might be some xenophobic asshattery involved too. I wish I could say this surprise me but let´s be honest… I grew up with news reports on the neo-“Nazi” skinhead movement in Sweden… That someone confuses a balled up first as a good way to express their xenophobic opinions is nothing new. But don´t pass your fucked up way of looking at reality to the very children who are going to try and change the world. And if you for some reason feel threatened by 12-14 year olds… Seek help.

Then again… Kids… Don´t harass people and if you get harassed… call the police or report it to your teachers. Trying to pick a fight is never a good idea.

¨

Now speaking of picking fights… My last story has a man who picked a fight with both fate and basic science. Also I like to say that any human life lost is a tragedy, especially to family and relatives… This is good dam Darwin award material…

As the story goes a Las Vegas gun-instructor lost his life after his customer lost control of their fully automatic Uzi sub-machine gun… The shooter in question was a 9 YEAR OLD GIRL… WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND LET A CHILD FIRE AN AUTOMATIC WEAPON…  Just because it is legal does not make it a good idea… Drinking drain-pipe cleaner is technically legal… But that does not make it you Friday night pick-me-up. So because some parent felt that eh best way to spend a Sunday was to teach little Suzie how to use a deadly weapon we have a 9-year old child that is scarred for life and a family who is one member short. What the fuck is wrong with you people… Seriously… And people ask me why I have such a strong stance on the whole “no guns” policy. It is because shit like this. A completely pointless death. Want to teach your kid to shoot, go ahead… it is legal… But let them stay at the .22 level of shooting until they are… oh I don´t know… 16 perhaps.

Now I like to point out that I am in no way against engaging children in precision sports, I did my self for a very short time practice archery and it is a good way to train focus and eye-hand coordination. But not with a damm Uzi… But I guess he saw himself as a responsible instructor… After all he did not put a MAC-10 in the hands of the child… Because that would have been irresponsible.

What´s next… letting 2-year olds shoot shotguns…

So yes I feel some sympathy for the man´s family but letting children on to a shooting range and you are asking for someone to get hurt or killed sooner or later.

Well… To next time. Keep safe and don´t give your children a Uzi.