We’ve now had two episodes of the BBC’s latest entry to the “Doctor Who” Saturday teatime slot: Merlin.

The show is basically Smallville meets Arthurian Legend. A young Merlin is sent to Camelot by his mother, who is finding it increasingly difficult to help him with his growing magical talents. So she sends him to stay with Gaius, who appears to have some knowledge in the ways of magic although not a magic-user himself. He quickly identifies that there’s something different about Merlin, who is able to use magic without the use of potions or spells, unlike all other magic-users. However, with King Uthar having banned all magic in the kingdom on pain of execution, Merlin has to balance keeping his powers discrete, while at the same time, embracing them.

To me, this show has proved much stronger so far than the other “Doctor Who” slot candidate, Robin Hood. There’s a confidence in this show in what its trying to be, and the cast all suit their roles well (while I’ve enjoyed episodes of Robin Hood, and its got some nice ideas, its never quite gelled for me, although I did quite enjoy season 2). The first two episodes were good fun, with some nice character building, with the first establishing Merlin and the setting in Camelot, while the second episode took the arrogant young Arthur from the first episode and showed the pressure he’s put under by his father as prince.

If I have any worries at this early stage, its that there could be a trap of falling into a predictible pattern, with some magic-related threat to the kingdom, Merlin discovers it, however is angsty about revealing the threat without being able to use his own powers.  Merlin manages to discretely foil the threat.   However, as I say, its only two episodes in, and I hope that with setting and characters established, we’ll see some more arc elements start to emerge.   We obviously know the outcomes for these characters, so it’ll be interesting to see if Morgana’s villainous future is hinted towards, and you have to wonder how often Merlin will be able to visit the Great Dragon before someone notices…

Its great teatime TV, and its definitely something I’m looking forward to every Saturday.  I’m very interested to see how the storyline develops.

Playing catchup here a bit. Wizard Universe has a great glimpse at some of Shane Davis’ Red Lantern designs for the upcoming special.

I love these small sneak peaks, and enjoyed the Final Crisis sketchbook in the same way. It looks like Davis has had as much fun designing Red Lanterns as Ethan Van Skiver did the Sinestro Corps, and similarly, it looks like there’s some pretty nasty characters here.

As I’ve said before here, I was a big fan of Mystery in Space, and Shane’s artwork on that series, so I’m really looking forward to seeing his work on Green Lantern. One thing you’ve got to say about GL is that since its relaunch, its been attracting some of the best artists DC have. At least, its certainly been attracting most of my favourites.

Geoff Johns has also been dropping some teases about the Black Lanterns, and confirmed that Ronnie Raymond (the previous Firestorm) is going to be a Black Lantern.   It’ll be interesting to see how the various DC heroes end up encorporated into the various Corps.   Something I suspect will play heavily into the discussions that had been mentioned before (by Dan Didio I think) as to whether Blackest Night is going to remain a GL-specific crossover, or be branched out into a DCU-wide crossover.   While the prospect of seeing various familiar characters recruited to the various Corps could be fun, I’d hope that even if it gets pitched as a universe-wide crossover, the structure is kept similar to Sinestro Corps, with the focus remaining on the GLs and only a strictly limited number of books containing the meat of the story.

Well, last week saw the release of the hotly-anticipated new Star Wars game, The Force Unleashed.

I promptly picked it up for the Nintendo Wii, and had been looked forward to it. I’d also picked up the novelisation (as it turns out, a good move, since sections of the story have been cut or replaced in the Wii version of the game). While not boasting the next-gen graphics or physics engine of the 360 and PS3 versions, the Nintendo version at least finally offers us the chance to control a lightsaber with the wiimote, and get a pretty fair approximation for the next-gen version of the game.

Speaking more generally (spoilers ahoy), I can’t help but be dissappointed.   To be honest, it first went wrong when I read the novelisation.  The idea of Vader having his own apprentice was interesting (especially since it was a direct contradiction of the rule of 2).   I liked the character of Proxy and the idea that Vader had an unwitting hand in starting the rebel alliance is interesting, although it does paint a picture that most of the would-be rebels (ok, Bail Organa has a good reason for wanting to keep his head down and Leia off of Vader’s radar) spent a fair chunk of the dark times not doing much to combat the Empire.   Of course, perhaps I should just take the events of the game as the first time the rebellion became official and overt.

Sadly what annoyed me were just some of the really odd bits.  The Star Destroyer sequence is probably being debated to death, so I’ll just say it struck me as too fanfic-y, but the whole issue of Starkiller’s death and rebirth is really left far too vague for something that’s actually quite a big plot point.  I mean, Vader stabs him right through the chest, smashes him off a few walls, and then spaces him.  Frankly, I’ve seen it both in the novel and the game, and I’m still unsure how he could’ve possibly survived.

As for the game itself, its deeply flawed.   As a Star Wars fan, I’m always going to get a good amount of enjoyment running around hacking up Storm Troopers with a lightsaber.  And there’s no doubt that the implementation of the force in this game is a lot of fun (pushing with the nunchuck etc).  I can’t wait to play the next-gen version in that aspect.

However, in other areas, the game is really let down.  Again, most of these are common complaints.  The camera’s awful.  If you’re mobbed by enemies (frequently the case), then the on-screen action becomes a hopeless jumble, and you’re frequently being shot from somewhere off-screen with no clear idea where.   In one-on-one boss fights, similarly, keeping track of the boss is difficult.

The basic gameplay is also another issue.  While offing Storm Troopers Jedi-style is a lot of fun for me, even I can’t fail to notice that the gameplay consists of running in a straight line, killing wave-after-wave of enemies.   There’s a definitely repetative feel to it.

Controlling the lightsaber with the wiimote I’ve also found a mixed bag.  I love the lightsaber noises coming from the wiimote’s speaker, but I frequently find myself flailing the wiimote around in the vague hope that whoever’s infront of me will die from it.   I don’t really feel in proper control of the onscreen action, and the idea of me investing in any of the “do a 3-hit combo then press C” type powers just seems laughable at the moment.    I remain unconvinced as to how good the Wiimote actually is in action games.

One plus however, is that the Wii version doesn’t contain the infamous (and previously mentioned) Star Destroyer sequence.   As well as pushing believability, its my understanding that its a hellishly frustrating and buggy part of the next-gen version of the game.  Glad I dodged that bullet at least.

I recently replayed Jedi Knight 2 on my PC and to be honest, it beat the pants off of this.   However, if they sort out the camera issues, and make the gameplay a lot less linear, The Force Unleashed 2 could be something pretty special.  As I say, the way they implemented the Force is fun, and I’m intrigued to see what the PC version ends up like.

Some new pictures of the upcoming City Commander trailer for Classics Ultra Magnus can be seen here

I can’t afford it sadly, but its certainly drool-worthy, and hard to resist for a big Ultra Magnus fan like me.

On a related note, I’m really loving the Universe Classics. Prowl and Sunstreaker have both been released over here, and they’re ace toys. I really love the way that Prowl’s shoulder-mounted missles have been integrated in, instead of left as separate pieces. They’re great updates of the originals.

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As controversial as it is hotly-awaited, I picked up Spore the other weekend.

The latest game from Will Wright, it finds you guiding a new civilisation through all stages of its development, form the primordial ooze, through to its mastery of intergalactic travel.

Taken on their own merits, each of these five stages (cell, creature, tribal, civilization, space) could be viewed as a bit simplistic (although I’ve only just gotten onto the space stage, and my feeling is that its a very different, much more in-depth beast to the other four). However this is a game that’s more than the sum of its parts. While the gameplay might be simplistic in some regards, I’m not sure that’s where the focus is. Instead for me, its simplisity is part of the appeal, and guiding a creature up from being a single cell organism is incredibly satisfying, and really helps you bond with your creations.

A huge part of this game’s appeal is the level of customisation.  From the evolution of your creature in the cell and creature stages, to customising their buildings and vehicles in the civilisation and space ages, there’s a lot of fun to be had with the very flexible in-game editors.

I’ve only just started the space stage, but I’m really enjoying the game.  And there’s an added level of fun to be had knowing that the creatures inhabiting the game can be created by other players, all sharing their creations via the online Sporepedia.

The thing I find a real shame though, is that this otherwise great fun game is picking up a lot of negative publicity due to the draconian DRM restrictions EA have placed on the game.  Regular readers will know that I’m no fan of these kinds of methods, as they largely have no use, other than to punish those who’ve legitimately purchased the product.

In this case, Spore seems to be no exception.  While the box cover makes no mention of the fact, the story is that the game only allows you to install it 3 times.  After which you need to contact EA support to get the key reset to allow you to install it again.

This is frankly just rubbish.  I know I’ve got many games that I regularly uninstall, then reinstall to free up disc space for other things I’m wanting to play at that time.

According to Wikipedia, Spore is fast heading towards the honour of being the most bittorrented game ever.  Says a lot for the draconian DRM restrictions.  They’ve clearly not prevented the piracy of the game, so you have to wonder what the point was.  All its done is resulted in the game getting some really bad press.  Not to mention, you wonder how many of those downloaders would’ve bought the game legally, if not for those restrictions.

At the end of the day, its the devs I feel sorry for.  They’ve crafted a really fun game, only to see it crippled by the studio.

Last week brought us issue 6 of Secret Invasion. I’ll say this for Secret Invasion, they seem to be doing a good job of keeping the momentum going with releases.

To be honest, I found issue 6 a bit disposable. Whereas issue 5 felt like everything was back on track again finally, this issue seemed to largely serve to setup yet more big splash scenes. I don’t mind that for this issue, but if issue 7 doesn’t have a lot going on (and as the penultimate issue, I’d be surprised if it didn’t), then we’ll find ourselves back in the same situation as in earlier issues in this series, where one or two small things happening, doesn’t really seem enough to justify a whole issue.

We also finally get pay off for the Cap/Thor tease a couple of issues ago. Except that its basically a couple of panels with Thor commenting that Bucky isn’t Cap, and Bucky retorting that Thor’s supposed to be dead.

There’s also another reference to the Wasp, hinting back to the Hank Pym issue of Mighty (?) Avengers, and you get the feeling that whatever they’ve done to poor Janet, its going to be pretty nasty.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying Secret Invasion:The Event, but in many ways, the main mini-series seems to be in place largely for all the spin-offs to jump off from. Unlike Final Crisis, in which the story seems to be pretty well contained in the mini-series, Secret Invasion seems to require the tie-ins more to get more enjoyment from the larger storyline.

Singing the praises of Peter Tomasi’s work is a regular feature in this blog, and the latest issue of Green Lantern Corps is no exception.

If I was to make one complaint, then it would be that this arc felt a bit short. After the mammoth ring quest arc, the quick capture of the quintet was slightly jarring, but since we’ve got the Star Saphire arc kicking off next month, I won’t complain.

In truth, I’m looking forward to this next arc a lot. I liked the changes Geoff Johns introduced in the Green Lantern arc and I’m pleased to see them being picked up again. Not to mention, it’ll be nice to have an issue where the Sinestro Corps take a back seat. If you consider how much of this book was spent putting in place things for the Sinestro Corps arc (like Ranx) and now dealing with the fallout, I’ll be glad to see other factions in the Blackest Night getting some focus. Especially since I’ve been really enjoying the Red Lantern buildup over in Green Lantern.

This title was still good fun. I like the character of Saarek, and can’t believe I didn’t twig to how he could play into the Blackest Night until he was approached by the scarred guardian. There’s something going on there and I imagine it’s not going to be good for Saarek.

Nice to see Tora turn up on Oa as well. Nice and unexpected since our focus had been on Guy counting the days till their date

I downloaded the Wordpress app for my iPod Touch a while ago, but I’ve never gotten around to testing it out.

So here we are. A bit of a pointless post, granted. But this app does seem like a nice way of blogging on the move. I especially imagine it’d be useful at conferences and conventions.

So this week brings us the penultimate part of Secret Origin.

I’ve been very hot and cold on this arc. The initial issues didn’t really work for me, and it wasn’t until Sinestro turned up that I started getting into this story. This issue is another great part of the Sinestro/Hal story. We continue to see them bond as good friends, as Sinestro forces Hal to take a good look at himself. Leading to a poignant scene between Hal and Carol as Hal’s forced to admit he’s never been there for his family, and making piece with the memory of his Dad.

There’s some good comedic interplay between the two GLs as well. The power battery scene from the preview is a great laugh, and helps to build the respect these two have for each other.

The only real problem I had with this issue is when Hal manages to save Sinestro by overcoming the yellow impurity. I’m really unsure where Geoff Johns is going with this. I preferred the Parallax retcon when the idea was that it was just accepted there was a yellow weakness, and no one could overcome it. Given that Hal overcame it here, you’re left wondering why he never overcame it again and got closer to figuring out what it actually was. I’m inclined to think this was something best left as it was. I have to wonder if its meant as an analogue to Emerald Dawn’s scene where Hal absorb’s the power of the central battery. An indication of just how good a GL Hal will become.

The issue ends with Hal and Sinestro recalled to Oa, as Sinestro’s lingered in sector 2814 too long and must face disciplinary action. There’s been no hint as to what’s actually going on on Korugar, and I must admit, I hope that it doesn’t come up in the next part. Whereas Emerald Dawn II had Sinestro being discovered shortly after he meets Hal, given the new relationship between them, I think it’d be more fun to leave that part of the story for a follow-up. Let’s have Hal and Sinestro as comrades in arms for a few months. Potentially, it could play that Sinestro’s dictatorship of Korugar comes about as a result of his run in with Atrocious and the Blackest Night prophecy.

Overall, I suspect I’ve probably been a bit harsh on the early issues of this arc. I think that re-reading it, I’m going to enjoy it a lot more and that part of my bad reaction was that I felt that it was going to be too much of a diversion from the Blackest Night build up and I’d have preferred looking forward rather than back. Of course, as it turns out, this series is a key part of that build up, and I’m left a fairly silly-looking fanboy

I’m a glutton for punishment I think. I’ve blogged about this before, but I’ve been having another crack at getting the wifi to work on my laptop under Ubuntu again.   I really can’t figure it out.

With ndiswrapper, I get my broadcom card’s drivers installed.  Near as I can tell, this definitely works.  The blue light comes on, and I can get my laptop connecting to my wifi either unencrypted, or using WEP.

However, I use WPA on my LAN, and I’m not particularly wanting to compromise it’s security.  And it seems to be at the WPA authentication that everything’s falling apart.  I’ve tried both ndiswrapper and the fwcutter drivers automatically installed by Ubuntu.  I’ve even borrowed a kernel-supported wireless PCMCIA card from a friend, and that had the same problem.

I’ve tried different distros, broadcasting my usually-hidden SSID (and that was a story within itself), and nothing seems to work.

At this point I’d be suspecting my router of being Linux unfriendly, except that my Xandros-powered EeePC talks to it no bother (after installing some of the updates).

Its been really doing my head in.  I’ve tried both the gnome network manager, and last night I tried wicd (which, having now played with it, I actually think is a bit nicer than the Gnome version).  At this point I’m wondering if manually configuring my wlan settings by hand is the way to go…

I reckon tonight I’ll need to sit down, note my network card details etc, and put a post up on Ubuntu Forums pleading for help.