Garwoofoo

I’m a bit concerned by the number of callbacks and old references RTD is announcing (Bonnie Langford FFS), given that part of the reason his original reboot worked so well was that he chucked most of that cruft out and effectively gave the show a fresh start. But I am hoping for the best, and it cannot be worse than the Chibnall era.

New(ish) trailer for Ahsoka just dropped - most of it is just recut from what we've seen already but there are a couple of new shots in there and now we have a date: August 23.

The Reluctant Traveller Breezy Apple TV travel programme starring Eugene Levy of Schitt's Creek fame, possessor of the greatest eyebrows since Groucho Marx. The hook here is that Levy is the "reluctant traveller" of the title, a pampered Canadian who enjoys luxury hotels and fine food and doesn't really have much ambition to explore anything else. Of course this allows each episode to follow a nice little format where he arrives somewhere, is really wary of everything but hey! it turns out it's all pretty great in the end. Unfortunately it also means that on the couple of episodes where they send him somewhere that's genuinely a bit more challenging (the opening episodes in Finland and Costa Rica in particular), he seems to be having quite a miserable time and comes across as a bit of a rude twat. He's much happier in Venice, or the Maldives. To be fair the dude is 75 so it seems mean to begrudge him a little bit of comfort on his travels. It's worth watching because Levy is an engaging, affable host and he does go to a couple of places you don't generally get to see on programmes like this. But you do sometimes wonder why they didn't just send someone who actually wanted to be there. 3/5

Cancelled today. Long overdue.

Started Judgment over the last couple of days, it's nice to be back in Kamurocho but slightly disorienting to be with this very different bunch of characters doing non-Yakuza things. So far I'm still on chapter 1 (it's a very long chapter, it seems) and it's still just running me from point to point as the story unfolds. I've seen a couple of "Friendship events" but nothing in the way of side-stories yet. I'm assuming these games open up in the same way main series titles do and I'll get access to side-stories and other activities in due course?

I, Daniel Blake No words. 5/5

John Wick The most surprising thing about this movie is that it took everyone so long to realise that Keanu Reeves would make such a good psychopath. His thousand-yard stare and complete inability to portray any recognisable human emotions (apart from maybe "gormlessness") make him the perfect dead-eyed assassin. Anyway, as I'm sure you all know by now this is a very silly film that's very much in the 80s action mould, featuring an unstoppable killing machine murdering fools for ninety straight minutes. The action sequences are impressive, the cast is good and unfortunately after a while I found the whole thing ever so slightly boring as it's basically the same thing over and over. Maybe people like that, but I found myself wishing we could find out more about the movie's strange hotel for hitmen, or the reasoning behind some of its weird religious iconography. Apparently there are three more of these things and counting, so maybe some of that stuff is explored in those, but I think I've probably had my fill. 3/5

They look more like the characters they’re supposed to be playing than SNW Spock, Kirk or Uhura ever have, so I’m sure it’ll be fine.

Well they got us. I was asked to confirm my Netflix household when I logged in and now my Dad is locked out. I’m going to watch the new season of The Witcher when it comes out then cancel. The block on account sharing in itself isn’t unreasonable but when you add in the fact that the 4K service is twice as expensive as any other streamer, is full of reality TV nonsense these days and they keep cancelling stuff I like (I’m still angry about Lockwood & Co) it’s unsustainable really. I’ll dip in for a month every year or so to catch up on the few things that appeal.

Practically at least that’s only the equivalent of losing a 2 week streak, so I wouldn’t worry about it too much. (He says, sitting on 164 weeks right now…)

The Mission Stories are your friend there. I know the purists always say to turn them off but they're designed to lead you into a level and take you through the more scripted kills - along the way you will no doubt get ideas for other approaches you could take. There is a middle ground in the settings menu which tells you what you need to do for each mission story in general terms without explicitly giving you a map marker, I find that's the best way to play as you get some guidance without feeling like you're being led by the nose. After that I normally dive into the Challenges menu and see what ideas I can get from there.

Sometimes, but usually these games have completely redesigned UIs for console which work really well with a controller. They’ve got very good at this sort of stuff lately.

Railway Empires 2 looks very much my thing. I hope it’s as good as it looks. I love the way all these quite hardcore PC strategy & management games are now routinely releasing on console these days.

I've been playing The Lord of the Rings Online for thirteen years now and I've only just made it to Moria. I dip it into it occasionally for a few days at a time but my completionist tendencies, ability to get sidetracked and love of playing multiple characters aren't really very helpful when it comes to saving Middle-Earth in a timely manner.

This really isn't for me. Long periods of pushing right on the control stick, interspersed with crate puzzles. Plus for some reason whenever the idiot cat thing dies, so do I (I was fine before it showed up, what even is this bullshit?) I think I'll replay Inside instead.

That V for Victory punch card is the most broken thing they've had for ages. I got 4 achievements in Star Wars Squadrons within the first couple of days of it popping up and none of them registered. This morning I noticed the requirement had dropped to getting one achievement instead of three, so I got an achievement in Guilty Gear Strive and, yep, that hasn't registered either. I'm just giving it up as a waste of time.

Rebels is absolute top drawer Star Wars, the characters, the soundtrack, the pacing, all of it. We started a rewatch too this weekend and like others have said, it's even better than I remember it.

Is that better or worse than his habit of creeping up behind Stormtroopers who are just happily chilling out in the wild somewhere, and using the Force to blast them off a cliff? I mean, that happens a LOT.

Supraland gave me appalling motion sickness, I'm not sure why as I don't normally struggle with that sort of game. I'm sure this is good but sadly I'll have to pass.

The album title alone suggests that this is going to be unbearable.

That really sucks - my son & I have been watching The Mysterious Benedict Society on and off, it’s not the best show ever but it’s entertaining enough with a good cast, and now we probably won’t get to finish it. I think the golden age of streaming is already over; what with this and Netflix cancelling everything good after one season, it looks like the money men have won this particular fight.

I love the blaster stance. It’s the only one that feels uniquely Cal. All the others are based on existing characters (Maul, Asohka, Ren etc) but the blaster & saber combo feels unique, and fitting for an ex-scrapper too. It quickly became my go-to, with double-bladed as a backup for clearing out crowds.

A hairy Jools Holland, basically.

When I watched DS9 a few years back on Netflix I definitely felt that the later seasons looked better than the earlier seasons, I don't know why that would be. The versions they used for streaming, even at their best, were consistently worse than the DVD rips that are floating around though and I would definitely advise anyone looking to rewatch either show to just download those (I would say "buy the DVDs" but then you get PAL speed-up which might or might not bother you). It would cost less to remaster each show in its entirety than they are spending on a single episode of Discovery, it's a tragedy that they are not/probably never will do this.

That is genuinely astounding. Clones are canonically Kiwi and this guy is voicing dozens of them in an accent that isn't even his own? Give the man an Oscar.