Robocop.

Me and the missus went to see the new Robocop reboot the other day and have to say that I came out of the cinema feeling a little bit... underwhelmed.

Robocop was an important movie to me when I was growing up,one of the first 18 rated films I saw (at far too young an age, truth be told) it left a lasting impression on me.

A very straight forward story, with subtle dark humour coursing throughout and satiric undertones about consumerism and global corporations in general. Add in great performances from Peter Weller and Kurtwood Smith, some of the most quotable lines from any film ever made and lashings of violence and drugs...yeah I loved it as a kid 

The new one is rated 12a.
Almost an immediate deal-breaker for me.
I remember the uproar when they announced the same about the Total Recall(another childhood favourite) reboot too and that turned out okay. Not great, certainly not as good as the Arnie original (imo), but not the complete teen-hugging shatfest that I had expected.

Almost the same thing has happened here.
It was okay, not a bad film at all. It focuses more on the effect of Murphy's tranformation has on his family and the blurring of the lines between man and machine. Rather than balls to the wall violence, this has stun bullets and robot enemies to keep the rating down to a wider audience.

The special effects were good, but it was missing something and it took me a while to figure out what it was...

A proper bad guy.

Clarence Boddicker made the original.
Die Hard had Hans Gruber, Robocop had Boddicker.
He was a nasty son-of-a-bitch. His up close and personal interaction with Murphy, his witty sarcastic lines, his utter cocksureness of himself...

The new film needed someone like him.
Instead it has generic enemies, no direct personal nemesis for Robocop and the film was lesser for it I think.

I ordered the remastered steelbook blu ray of the 1987 original the next day from Amazon and we watched it last night.
The original is still king, by a long way for me at least.

New film - 6/10
Original - 9/10 



Oh and they changed Lewis to a black dude.
Which was odd.

Okay, take 27 at this blogging malarky...

I know.

Before you say it, I know.

I need to make some time to do this like once a week, or maybe every other week as opposed to the current every other 6 months schedule.

What to say?

Hmmmm, not much has changed in the last 5 months.

Still got the same job, still plodding along in the same old way I did.

On the gaming front, my local CEX eventually got Dragon's Dogma, which I promptly purchased, played, loved and ultimately platinumed. Really great game and also due a huge expansion next year, so that hasn't been traded as of yet!


Had a few treats from my PS+ subscription. Hell Yeah Wrath of the Dead Rabbit not only receives a  "Possibly best game title ever" nomination, but mad for a thoroughly enjoyable (if short) title. Off the wall zany humour mixed with some old skool platforming goodness :)
Although it did have one of those random luck trophies, a slot machine where u have to get the jackpot for a bronze trophy... man these types of trophies suck balls. FF13-2 had one that was exactly the same, but at least I could rubber band my pad on that one and let it play itself until it decided to be nice.

Lots and lots of games I want in the big run up to Xmas. Borderlands 2, Darksiders 2, XCOM and Dishonored to name but a few. But I have mad a stout resolution that I shall not buy any games until I have played some of my (seemingly ever expanding) to play pile.

This was tested the day after I decided to do it as Borderlands 2 dropped to £20 on GAME's website! It's almost like they know!!

Looking forward to later today, one of my online buddies is coming to my home town of Bridlington. I've known Drac for years, though he has always been either a Skyrim character on his MSN pic or a dude in a warrior helmet (his PS3 pic), so meeting him in the flesh might be a bit weird. Whats the bet I fail to call him by his real name for the majority of the time?

Anyhow, that's all for now.
MadBo.

Nights, London & being the Best Man!

Hi there, been a while...again!

I've been working a lot of late, including quite a lot of nightshifts, which are for the most part pretty boring. But they pay well, so I cannae grumble too much I guess.

Best thing is being able to take my PS3 in to work as I am effectively on call for the entire shift. I managed to platinum inFamous 2 (awesome game btw) and dabble in The Walking Dead, Space Marine and Stranger's Wrath HD this past week...while being paid :D

Which made me feel like -

Also had a jaunt to London as I was Best man at my mate's wedding.

He and his lovely lady (now wife) Dawn, managed to pick the weekend of the Queen's Jubilee to get married. Which made for a rather expensive trip as you can imagine. Dreading getting my credit card statement next month.

We did get to see Phantom of the Opera while we were there, which was awesome. It's the 3rd show I have seen in London, after Lion King and Sister Act, all have been stupidly good too.

Waiting on my local CEX getting Dragon's Dogma in stock.

I would just buy it from play.com or somewhere similar but I have £62 in CEX vouchers burning a hole in my wallet!

Thats all for now

MadBo.

MSN Today!

Once upon a time I used to copy & paste my msn convo's onto the ALC (truly missed) forums.
I used to message my mate Binni and if he was afk, I'd then spam him continuously until he replied.

Anyways, was talking to my mate Scott today and this was how it went :)


John Burley says
Uncharted 3 = the fooooookan tits
playing it on crushing difficulty 
Fenix says
lol hard?
John Burley says
not so far no
just done the first "escape from the spiders" bit
I expected that to be a bastard bit
Fenix says
ah yeah they were annoying fuckers
WTF is minecraft?
John Burley says
old skool mmo
pixellated gfx
u can (in theory) build ur own mmo worlds
Fenix says
I see
there all raving about it on P4G
John Burley says
it was PC only for a while, but now its on xbla
I honestly don't see the attraction myself
Fenix says
can you fight on it?
John Burley says
u can do all sorts of shit
Fenix says
but can you fight  
John Burley says
google it mate
it looks shit
lol
I'd try it if I got it free on PS+
but doubt I'd wanna pay for it lol
Fenix says
lool
John Burley says
but then
its a xbla game thats not available on ps3
so Chunky will obviously suck its cock
Fenix says
lol 
lookin at it now
John Burley says
Uncharted 3 is clearly shit in comparison
Fenix says
Your right Miencraft does look turd
just seen a green cock shaped enemy
John Burley says
I was tempted to start taking the piss on P4G, calling it Meinkampf

Fenix says
think it was supposed to be a snake
John Burley says
but figured I'd get the "only cos its not on piss3" retort
Fenix says
looks like Doom
lol
GFX wise
John Burley says
it looks like a really really shit doom
doom looked better imho lol
Fenix says
LMAO
John Burley says
it might be addictive in a "yeah I look like an 80's heap of shit but I might actually really surprise you with my open gameplay" way...but I doubt it
Fenix says
yeah but it looks shit
shitter than normal
John Burley says
thats unfair
I think it looks really shit
waaaay shitter than normal
Fenix says
lol
ive had better looking shits
John Burley says
my shits had better textures to them than that heap of blocky pixellated shit
Fenix says
lol
John Burley says
3D Dot Heroes looked better
if they had copied that
then fair enough
but they didn't
they just made it look shit
Fenix says
Super Bomberman on SNES was better
John Burley says
snake on my Nokia 5110 was better
Fenix says
lol easy
John Burley says
u ever seen 3D Dot Heroes?

that took the pixellated shit
and made it look like shiny hd pixellated shit
rather than just
pixellated shit
smeared with shit
Fenix says
with a shit lookin pixellated axe
Pix axe hehehe
John Burley says
shit-pix-axe
shitty shit-pix-axe covered in shit
Fenix says
lol
John Burley says
like I said 
it might be good
in some fucked up way we know not of
Fenix says
Yeah i guess you would need to break through the initial omg this looks fuckin hsit barrier
hsit aka shit
John Burley says
hsit=scandinavian for shit
that Dragon's Dogma looks less shit
Fenix says
Website aint too clever tho
John Burley says
for wut?
Fenix says
Dragons Dogma
is it an mmo?
John Burley says
look up some gameplay vids on youtube
SP rpg, fight mythical beasts and stuff
demo was okay, combat was a bit wobbly 
Fenix says
bit like Skyrim then
John Burley says
yeah, bt 3rd person
and u can summon "pawns" which I think are AI companions
that can level up and stuff if you send them to other peoples games
or something like that
Fenix says
ah right cool
John Burley says
there's a demo on both PSN and XBL bud

copy & pasting this convo for my blog lol

don't worry, I'll edit the bit where you called Chunky a sheeplover

Fenix says
LMAO 
Really putting this on your blog?
John Burley says
yeah 
it saves me having to think of something to...errr...blog
bet ur re-reading it now
Fenix says
nope lol

John Burley says

hehe

Fenix says
where is your blog

John Burley says

http://madbojangles-blog.blogspot.co.uk/

Fenix says
Thought you'd already blogged our convo 
nvm lol

John Burley says

not yet

eating pizza

Fenix says
you gonna edit our names out?

John Burley says

why?

Fenix says
dunno
not sure i want a million facebook friend requests lol

John Burley says

in case minecraft creator pix-axes u to death??

not that many people read my blod dude

blog*

Fenix says
lol
Yeah shit Pix-axing ftw

John Burley says

lol

arrrrgggh
c&p its like the great wall of fucking china
Fenix says
hahaahaha

So there ya have it, my lazy blog update! :)

Once again, blogging slipped down the priority list!

Not played much on the gaming front in the last few weeks.
Uncharted 3 seems to get better and better the more I play of it, especially in 3D!

I downloaded the Dragon's Dogma demo too, yet ANOTHER game that I would really like to buy/play. I also have an external HD on the wishlist...aaaand I have to travel to London for a wedding and finally visit my son! I think I need to pack in some more overtime!!

I finally took the plunge with fibre-optic broadband this week too.
It literally costs the same as I was paying before, but the jump from a 2mb connection to a 63mb one is nothing short of astounding from a geek perspective. Downloads on PSN seem a trillion times quicker and when Lucy (11yr old stepdaughter) is constantly spamming Nicky Minaj videos on youtube, I get zero slowdown on any of my other connected devices.

Really looking forward to seeing the new Avengers film at the cinema!
We went to see The Hunger Games recently, the missus was bored feckless, the young un loved it...and I thought it was okay. It was like a kiddies version of The Running Man.

Anyhow, gonna leave it at that for the time-being as me and Lucy are watching Mr Popper's Penguin's!

MadBo.

Hello again :)

Soooo I totally lost the blogging impetus/mojo/whatever...
A shame too as I actually quite enjoy pouring my thoughts onto the page.

After reading Kama's (a zany bloke who I know from www.placeforgamers.co.uk) new blog, it inspired me to start again. So here I am :)

Not a great deal has changed since I blogged last.
My life has literally consisted of work and sleep pretty much.
As I have posted before, I love my job, hence I really don't mind working loads of hours...Therein lies the problem, as I have less time for gaming/blogging etc! However, I fully intend to rectify that and make a wholehearted effort to plunge once more into the mind-puke-process that I am doing right now!

I don't know if anybody actually reads my rambling nonsense on here.
And I wonder if that's why I feel less inclined to blog, I dunno.

In the world of gaming, I have done my usual trick of amassing too many games to play and having nowhere near enough time to play them. I dabbled on the 360 oh so briefly and played the Gears of War 3 campaign. I enjoyed what I played, the Lambent were particularly cool I thought, however the ending to the storyline was a bit rushed and...well... naff in a way. I'm not sure what I expected, or how I would change it tbh, but that's the way it felt at the time.

I have Halo Reach to play too and Homefront.
Though after Reach, I probably won't touch the 360 for a while.
Mainly because I have roughly 1 trillion games to play on my beloved PS3.
Okay, maybe not quite a trillion.
But it is a lot.
Trust me.

Not a bad thing by any means. But I would like to start rattling a few off the list :)
Recently played The Blue Toad Murder Files and Sly Cooper. Both PSN titles and both lots of fun.
Though some of my online friends are a tad confuddled as to why I would play such titles when I have the likes of Uncharted 3 and Mass Effect 3 sat under my tv.
The answer is quite quite simple... I am retarded.
No not literally! It's more because my gaming time is quite limited (as I mentioned earlier) and both the games I mentioned could be played it smaller chunks. I don't want to commit to the likes of Skyrim/ME3/UC3 when I can only play for an hour or so at a time.
I feel like I wouldn't get the most out of them by playing them so.
Is that retarded? Possibly I guess...

Anyhow, will leave it at that for now.
I will be back soon...honest...

MadBo.

New Job, Xmas and 3D goodness...

Bonjour :)

Yes, I know. It's been a while since I posted last.
I have practically no excuse this time! I have started my new job however. So far so good. Enjoying it immensely, even though I do look like a Policeman in my snazzy new uniform! A hospital Porter is effectively an in-house delivery man for said hospital, delivering patients, parcels/letters, equipment, dinner trolleys or just moving the rubbish/clinical waste from A to B.

Despite assurances that they were a rarity, I had to move 2 dead bodies from the wards to the morgue within the first week. I was a little unsure as to how I would react to this, as I have never had any contact with a corpse before (other than my Grandad, but that was very brief) and as it turned out, there was nothing to it tbh. I was impressed with how respectful all the staff were with the deceased.

My Mario Advent calender's doors seem to be opening at an incredible rate of knots.
This past 2 weeks have literally flown by and I have still got a few presents to buy. Last months wages have been obliterated already and luckily I will get my final Argos wage on the 23rd, which should see me over the finish line gift-wise! On the plus side, I have Xmas Eve, Xmas Day and Boxing Day off work. I honestly thought that I would have copped for them shifts as I am the new boy!

Now...onto my 3DTV!
Got this a few weeks ago. I have wanted one for aaaaaages, pretty much after seeing Avatar at the cinema in 3D and then seeing Crysis 2 running on my mate's active Samsung set. As I blogged last time, my missus finally caved and we got a passive 42" LED LG set. The 3D effect is literally amazing, I love it! Avatar looks as fantastic as it did at the pictures, even (dare I say it?) slightly better as the picture seems sharper on the smaller screen. Wipeout HD and SuperStardust HD look stunning in 3D too, my mother Goose has bought me Batman : Arkham City for Xmas and that has 3D, so looking forward to trying that :)

Also hoping to get either vouchers or Uncharted 3 too! The 2D to 3D setting works pretty well, adding depth to Portal 2, but not quite the full 3D effect as advertised.

Gaming-wise (non 3D), I haven't really played much. A bout of shameless trophy-whoring on the Sam & Max games aside, a little bit of a go on RAGE (which looks stunning on the new tellybox) and that's about it. Had a blast on Portal 2 co-op with my good mate Dracon Zeal, lots of fun, but got a bit tiresome with the incessant loading screens. The levels literally took longer to load than it did did to play at times!

Anyhow, thats all for now!

MadBo