The first session of the Prometheus Institute took place on Sunday. Really enjoyed it. Some brilliant scenes. I probably have to admit I didn't fully understand everything that was going on both in the game and in terms of the system. As is the usual practice, I'm not going to give a detailed actual play as that's always done somewhere else, in this case it can be found on the GM's blog.

It was a brilliant first session. I really like the tone of the game, which feels like Heroes if the series was done by HBO, with a substantially larger budget, and written from the perspective of a global power-play over the future destiny of powered individuals (a bit Ultimate X-Men in that regard). It had great relationships, some brilliant scenes and some budget blowing action.

I think some characters came across clearer and louder than others initially, but that's probably to be expected. It seemed to be a divide between the more subterfuge and publicity focused characters. It seemed easier to generate 'defining scenes' for the more celebrity orientated characters. It's easy when being various degrees of outrageous is the order of the day. The subterfuge orientated characters take a bit longer to come out. Of course, this may be a perception unique to me.

I'm playing a character that pushes the envelope a bit for me. It's not so much that I usually play a certain type, it's more that I don't normally play a character that outrageous. Hard to explain. In the game, I'm playing Joshua Thorne, the 'rock star' scientist, eminent genius and leader of the Prometheus Institute (as of this session). Essentially, part Professor X (as leader of the Institute), Read Richards (genius), Johny Storm (in that he's 28) and Tony Stark (hubris, arrogance, womaniser, etc). Brilliant, literally capable of changing the world scientifically, politically and to a lesser extent financially, but there is a lot of hubris, arrogance and womanising thrown in. It's great to play because the one thing you shouldn't do is think too much about what you shouldn't say and do.

This why I've never played a character of this type before as I'd think about it too much. I didn't think about it too much in this session. A reporter hounds you over sleeping with a minor porn star (due to an opening scene I put in albeit the porn star element was new), admit it and make a play for the journalist. Want to give the UN speech rather than your father, engineer him not turning up and then announce your taking over the institute and reverse the tone of the intended speech completely. That was a bit of a Tony Stark at the end of the first Iron Man film moment and it worked brilliantly. Loved it. So yeah, I'm enjoying it. I'm sure it will eventually have to be moderated due to the fall out, but that's fine as well.

As for not understanding what was going on? That comes down to system and the relationships.

I am sure the Smallville system is deceptively simple, it just seems to be doing everything it can to obfuscate that fact. I always used to shake my head incredulously when people used to complain that they found FATE complicated, as it always seemed quite logical and simple to me. A number of these people focused on the fact that it was the new terms with specific meanings that was the problem. After playing Smallville I may finally be experiencing their problem. It's a system that does specific things, in specific ways, using specific terms (some of them obvious, others obscure and a few that should have not have got past the 'check for comedy edit') and that makes it unnecessarily confusing. The utilising of every type of die known to man also doesn't help. As I say, I'm sure it is quite simple, it just seems to want to make you work hard for it. I usually get systems quite quickly (though remembering lots of specific rules is another matter), so Smallville has managed to achieve something unique in my personal experience.

Have to admit,for the first time ever in a game we've played, I don't fully understand what's going on with 50% of the table. I'm not sure what they are up to and why. I don't fully know why some outcomes came out the way they did at the table. This isn't so much a problem other than it makes scene creation difficult as I'm not sure what the premise, farming or foundation is. I realise a part of this is me getting on board with all the relationships in the map. There is a lot of them and it takes time. It's also only the first session. At the same time it was interesting to see the table not so much divided from my point of view, but certainly there was two levels of clarity.

The conflict and progression system is also a bit odd at the moment, though I'm sure a lot of this is practice. It's a problem we often have in conflict resolution systems: making the conflict something the player really wants to win. This isn't a matter of the group not liking conflict resolution or the conflicts not being consequential enough. In my case it's that what I find interesting is the fact the story goes in interesting directions I didn't expect and it would seem a lot of the time I either don't care because the conflict isn't that interesting (rare, and in this case we have done it wrong) or it is high stakes and consequential but both outcomes are interesting. Also consider this: since you define your winning condition, it's often losing that is the unexpected direction? The unique wrinkle with Smallville is your character progresses only if you take stress. You take stress by not giving in on a conflict. This can create the perverse situation of continuing a conflict for a few rounds to take stress when in truth you are fine with winning or losing. It feels like gaming the system if you don't mind losing. I want to lose, but just not yet.

That's about it. Excellent first session. It was great because it went in directions I wasn't expecting. The early fall out of the opening scene I put in wasn't expected. The relationship with Jessy has already gone in an unexpected direction (still working out how to deal with that) and the dramatic UN speech certainly wasn't expected at all. That's good. It's what makes it different to reading a book or watching a film. It's also great to be in the 'modern world' again, the most interesting change around this return being the social media influence on the game. Reminds me of the post-X Files influence of mobile phones back in the day.

I'm also interested in feeling our way through the system to execute it better.

So, let me get this straight. They are designing D&D 5E to be the 'one ring' of D&D editions? No doubt in an attempt to stop the fragmented market totally killing them. Which it undoubtedly is and would continue to do so with every release. I can see the reason for the goal, but I think it's a lofty one.

An edition with an OD&D-like base that then, in a modular fashion, could grow into something that is more 2E and 3E like I could sort of see. None of them would be exactly like any of those editions but I could see the style intent and general widgets being similar. I'm not sure you could extend such a module approach to 4E. It seems that would just need so much new stuff it may as well be a new game...again. Also, it's interesting they put what version of these modular rules the character uses as a player choice. Very strange. Are they really suggesting someone could be interfacing with the game in OD&D mode while someone else has opted for 2E mode?

It's going to be a masterpiece or a complete disaster. Nothing in between. They vitriol during the games development may also sour the whole idea before it hits the shelves. Watershed moment me thinks.

I've had a bad run with the Cineworld Ultimate Pass for the first four films. Thankfully things have kicked into gear this week with both The Grey and Chronicle being very good.

The Grey. I'd not advise seeing it if you're in anyway feeling down. Grim. Grey. Oppressive. Claustrophobic. Intense. Almost relentless. This is a film which establishes in the opening scenes that the main protagonist, Liam Neeson's Ottway, is contemplating, and almost commits, suicide. It rises marginally from that dark spot but only marginally. The story is simple. A plane full of roughnecks crashes in Alaska with little chance of rescue or survival, but before they even absorb that fact they find themselves being hunted by a pack of wolves. The story becomes one of survival and questioning if life is worth living.

The Grey is parts stalker horror, disaster survival and psychological thriller all rolled into one. It works. One of the main reasons it works is the setting, primarily the weather and the wolves, are portrayed brilliantly in the film. The noise of the snow, the shadows cast by the trees and the relentless cold all come rising out of the screen. You feel the threatening nature of the wide-open expansive landscape that suddenly becomes claustrophobic when the snow moves in. As for the wolves, they are heard but often not seen. They come sweeping in as a pack out of the blizzard. They attack without warning. I rarely jump in films these days as you get very used to the signals. The Grey made me jump several times.

Despite all this, the film works because of Liam Neeson. All the cast put in admirable performances, but the magnetic presence of Neeson is the third element along with the weather and the threat of the wolves. Neeson even managed to deliver a performance in The Phantom Menace, despite it destroying everyone else around him. Excellent stuff. I can see the ending causing many people to leave the cinema with a bad taste in their mouth. It does something that works as a final signature to the whole film, it manages to make an entirely depressing ending feel like some sort of affirmation of life. Almost.

Chronicle was always going to be a film I had to see as it focuses on two elements that always get my attention: 'superheroes' and utilising documentary, reality-style filming techniques.I found Chronicle enthralling, but then I tend to find films of this type interesting. I liked Cloverfield as well. Chronicle is better than Cloverfield.

The film is a mixture of things, throwing in elements of high school drama, intense family breakdown and an origin story of three super-powered individuals. It asks the question: what would you do? What limits would you apply? And, most importantly, how having powers doesn't mean you leave behind all the baggage of life and potential psychological damage behind so you can take part in some high concept Hero's Journey. The film was much better than I thought it would be, which is always a good thing.

Basically, Andrew chooses to chronicle his life. His not so great life. His mother is ill and dying. His father is living on medical payouts from the fire service and beats him. What starts mundane eventually chronicles the lives of three students, there relationship and how they deal with gaining ever escalating telekinesis powers. It works well. The escalation of powers is great as they go from lifting Lego to powerful 'forcefields' and learning to fly. The balance of Andrew's journey to believing he is the new Apex Predator is convincingly told, despite him essentially adopting the 'Magneto Manifesto'.

I'm not giving anything away by saying the film progresses to a confrontation with Andrew. The confrontation is brilliant. It's brilliant because of the way it's filmed. It's basically a super-powered fight filmed from a patchwork of footage from security cameras, mobile phones, news helicopters, police car cameras and whatever else. Just like we might get the news footage patched together live from some major disaster. You don't get every blow in excruciating detail, but it works. Cars fly, by the handful. The powered individuals crash through buildings. It's violent, explosive and feels cataclysmic with the emotion surrounding the whole of the event being confusion. I think it's one of the best confrontations of a 'powered' nature filmed. It's certainly better than the fights in say Iron Man or Thor, for example. It was also exactly how I imagined the opening scenes of Nova , one of the many gaming ideas in my head that perpetually don't happen (an event told through 'live' footage).

Chronicle was also useful going into the Promethean Institute. Not so much in terms of the disaster-scale, city destroying battle, as I suspect the set-up and system will mean that element is de-prioritised, but in terms of how even a few simple powers open up options to live differently to your fellow human beings. As they realise in Chronicle: what parts of the world do they want to visit? Because you know, they can just fly there. You could also teleport? You know, morning meeting in New York, dinner in Paris and an evening conference in some remote Swiss hotel. What is the world like when you're the world's premier genius and can go anywhere in the blink of an eye? What would people expect of you?

I've always been intrigued by the Jack Reacher novels by Lee Childs. They always seemed to be the type of action fiction I'd potentially like. They sell well. They jump out at me from the supermarket and airport bookshelves. They're an easy read. They just seemed to fall into the category that failed to get me to buy because of their packaging, font size, the fact the first book is written in first person and a myriad other things. The Kindle equalises all these factors, first person narrative aside, and I've given them a shot.

Over the course of the working week I read my first Jack Reacher novel. I read my second Jack Reacher novel over this weekend. I'm liking what I'm reading.

Jack Reacher is the typical, mythological action hero. He's a ex-military policeman which, at least in the world of the novel, makes him an elite soldier, as they hunt soldiers, and also an excellent detective. He's also crack shot, having won the military sniper competition, the first military policeman to do so. He's not just good at what he does, he's very good, while still being human and vulnerable in that post-Die Hard fashion. Like many characters from such stories he's less of a deep character, though interesting enough, and more of a vehicle to plunge into explosive situations.

What's interesting about the Jack Reacher novels so far is the nature of those explosive situations. The trend in contemporary action fiction these days seems to be to throw the hero into a global plot of high adventure, visiting one country after another doing exciting things, having grand encounters and facing of against ancient conspiracies threatening the world. So far, this hasn't been the case with Jack Reacher. If the novels were a film they'd be closer to something like Rambo: First Blood in scale, rather than some expensive, globe-trotting Hollywood epic. The plots have taken place entirely within the US. The first novel takes place entirely within a 'faded' small American town. This works really well, with the various locations and settings dripping from the page.

I like the format as well. Not sure if this changes in the later novels. Basically, Jack Reacher has similarities to a Western anti-hero, in that he's very much the 'gunman' who wonders into town. He's never lived in the US having grown up in military bases and then been in the military, so he's wondering the country like a modern day, American version of 'Grasshopper' from the series Kung Fu. He literally wonders into town in the first book, and gets embroiled in a situation due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This usually happens not just in the first chapter or page but in the first paragraph. The Killing Floor opens with him being arrested in the diner of the small town, while Die Trying opens with him being kidnapped with an FBI agent purely because he was near her when she walked out of the dry cleaners. Each then results in him becoming embroiled due to events and his sense of what is right and wrong (more along the lines a mythological hero, than those understood by modern society).

It'll be interesting to see how the books progress. There is sixteen of them. I can't bring myself to believe they continue to hold the quality of the first two throughout. They are the sort of book that would be hard to keep going that long and keep original and fresh I think.

I've had an Android phone for about 18 months and an Android table for 8 months. What is the verdict? The verdict is it's a tale of two completely difference experiences. If you want the short answer: the phone is great, the tablet experience needs a lot of work.

I like my HTC Wildfire phone. It's not the phone with most power behind it, but it's got enough for me for the most part. I use the phone to make calls, obviously, along with lite internet use and posting to social networks. It's been fine for this purpose. I don't use a vast amount of apps. The breakdown tends to come down to a social media app, Facebook, Evernote, some basic GPS navigation and that's about it. I use the camera sparingly, just to capture the odd Facebook moment. When the contract ends I'll almost certainly continue with an Android phone, though I'd be looking for a bigger screen, more power and a better camera.

While the phone has been a great experience, the same can't be said for the tablet. The problem can be summed up quite easily: hardware great, software dire.

I have an Asus Transformer tablet, in terms of the hardware it's excellent. The screen is fantastic. The build quality is solid. The processing power is by far enough for anything I need it for. I also got the keyboard over Christmas and that's a work of art as well. The way the keyboard charges the tablet is very clever. In terms of hardware I had the best of both worlds, the accessibility of a tablet, a keyboard for longer documents and the clever, really long-life batter. All this would be great if the software experience actually delivered.

The first problem is only a minority of applications are designed for the tablet. A very small minority. This is still the case despite the Android tablet market being at least a year old. You're left using applications designed for phone screens. This isn't as bad as it sounds. They work. They don't look too bad. The issue is in the potential lost in what the applications could be capable of if specifically designed for the tablet. No one really likes using applications designed for the lowest common denominator. The situation is chronic.

The second problem is they are Smart Phone applications. I'm not just talking about using screen real estate. A table and a phone are not the same thing despite the fact many an Android fan being keen to make that argument. You're going to want to do a wider range of things on a tablet. Virtually all tablets come with the ability to attach a keyboard either physically or via Bluetooth. You are going to want to create, not just view content. The applications and the underlying operating system just aren't up to it.

The keyboard on the Asus Transformer is all but useless other than to expand the battery life. It's a great piece of kit, but the applications don't exist to use it. While it makes social network updates easier, that's hardly a great selling point for the keyboard. What I really want to do is type blogs. The trouble is all the word processors are really dire. It is very difficult to cut, paste and edit. Because it's working like a phone. It's not possible to spell check. Because it's acting like a phone. Hell, I'm typing this now on Polaris Office and my cursor has jumped to a previous section of the document eight times. It's almost a nostalgic experience, as my ancient HP Jornada Windows CE machine used to do that as well. In fact, that's exactly what it feels like. Limited. Restricted. I'm not expecting a desktop experience, but anyone justifying the current experience isn't really thinking it through.

The irony is that many people complained the iPad was just an oversized iPhone when it was released. The many different Android tablets are literally oversized phones that can't make calls because the applications are the same and only phone like elements are supported.

You would think there would be a solution in Google Docs, but apparently not. Google Docs doesn't work at all within the browser experience on Android. Google have released a Google Docs application, but this is so bad it's not even worth mentioning. It's almost certainly designed for a phone, and even then it's inadequate. The Google Docs application is an even more a basic text editor than the available word processors. This is the true indictment of the Android tablets, the fact that even the Android products and ecosystem isn't even aligned. A cool looking, smooth working version of Google Docs that could run locally and synch with the web version would be a great win.

At the moment Android is a phone operating system and application market, not a tablet operating system and application market. The hardware may be great, in a way it's more innovative, but the application situation needs sorting. Until then, I can't really recommend an Android tablet to anyone unless your requirements sticks to the very basic tablet profile (Internet, web, a paragraph of text and watching videos).

Each day I read of people handing over cash for ever more powerful Android tablets, such as the Asus Transformer Prime, and I find myself wondering what they are planning on doing with them? The software certainly isn't driving the rush to ever more powerful hardware.

So, I've got a Cineworld Unlimited Pass and I've been hitting a movie a week. I've seen Impossible Mission: Ghost Protocol, Margin Call, Haywire and Underworld: Awakening. Regrettably, it's been a bit of a disappointing run so far. I've spoke about Impossible Mission previously, now the other three.

The Underworld franchise is a bit like my movie kryptonite. Despite the fact I've been burned twice I'm like a moth to a flame. It comes down to the first film, which I think is a much better film than most people give it credit for. I think Kate Beckinsale's performance is a great action film affair, plus the film is structured in a unique way for an action film: all the outcomes are from positive, protagonist choices that Selene actively makes. She drives the story, rather than it just being an exercise in tenuous excuses to get the main protagonist from one set piece to another. Selene, as a character, is one of the best female protagonists in the action film genre. I don't think the writers (as it's hidden behind the intentional B-movie Vampire and Werewolf trappings), or Kate Beckinsale, get enough credit for that.

Sadly, Underworld: Awakening continues the downward spiral of the franchise. Awakening is an assault on the senses, but not in a good way. It's loud. Quick. In 3D. It felt like some sort of visual torture. If they'd pinned my eyelids open and clamped my head the experience would have been complete. It tries to insert as many OMFG3D shots into the shortest space of time possible. All this does is distance the audience from the experience. This is the irony of 3D I find. If it does anything it should draw you into the experience and pull you into the world of the film. It should feel very natural. Only Avatar has done this. Awakening takes the opposite approach and virtually every seen has a disconnecting quality, as if you're watching a videogame with sets feeling unreal and claustrophobic. It's as if everything is filmed on a small sound stage even when it's an outside location.

I could go on about the less than interesting plot and the dire, virtually non-existent script, but there isn't much point, as I'd gone cross-eyed and had too much of a headache to care. Disappointing.

Haywire. Great trailer. It's full of great actors. It's directed by a very well respected director. It got 81% on Rottentomatoes. The only problem being the film is complete and utter bilge. The best way of describing the experience is: perplexing. The few action scenes, well, scenes of physical combat, that are in it are very good. Realistic. Brutal. Few in number. That side of it was onto a good thing. The rest of it was like watching some sort of 70's advert. Long scenes of absolutely nothing happening. The main character walking fast through streets. The main character avoiding SWAT teams by wondering laconically around empty buildings with a slight sense of urgency. An excessively long scene of her driving backwards in a forest with no point and during the most boring chase scene ever filmed. At times, you expect the sequences to end with the main character finding a box of chocolates.

At about halfway through I figured out what it felt like, a straight to VHS film from the eighties in which the budget can't meet the concept and the script was hashed out in an hour. Was it some sort of strange tribute? Even down to the fact they simulate the low budget by only ever showing three SWAT team members at once? Afterwards, I learned the main actress, Gina Carano, is a martial arts champion, exactly the sort of individual who would star in such a straight to VHS film. Possibly that's what they intended, but in truth, it was just rubbish. When you take that sort of approach you have to add something new, take what works and drop what doesn't. Not duplicate it so well it's just as dire as the 'originals'. Ironically, the one salvageable thing from the film is the main actress. We need to see more of her. Hot, good enough actress, great in the action scenes. Just put her in a better film. With the right balance of factors she could lead an action franchise.

The one redeeming experience was Margin Call. It's a film not many people are going to see. Zero publicity. Spread of great actors, if not eminently marketable. A subject matter probably not that endearing to the typical cinema attendee. The plot is simple: an investment bank discovers all its complex financial products it holds are about to be junk. They are the first to reach this conclusion. It's the twelve hours chronicling the making of serious decisions and the opening salvo in a global financial crises. It's not a documentary of the real financial crises of 2008, but it's analogous. I liked it. Good performances. Some interesting observations about the relationship between banks and society. Serious decisions being made and people facing moral choices. Worth seeing. It's one of the things the Cineworld Unlimited Pass is good for, as if I'd had to actually hand over cash I'd probably not have seen it.

That's it so far. I notice next week there is an early preview of Chronicle on Wednesday, that will almost certainly be the movie of the week next week.

So, I'm gaming gain, and yesterday we had session zero of the new campaign: The Prometheus Institute. We're using the Smallville role-playing system which focuses on the relationships being the core of the game, just like a TV show. Basically, as part of cold war activities and experiments, the Prometheans were created for espionage purposes. That was closed down only for the next generation to form the Prometheus Institute for the second generation. The HBO like series is the story of the key characters involved with the institute, their relationships and the issues surrounding the Promethians and wider society, celebrity, politics, etc.

What can I say about the Smallville character creation process? It's brilliant, frustrating and, while not complex, they certainly make it more complicated than it probably needs to be. It's like they've purposefully designed it to make it hard to predict. It's not easy to take a design approach to it with outcomes in mind. You can walk through the process entirely if you have the time, but even this isn't entirely possible as some of the elements you'd assign 'raises' to might only be present due to another player's actions.

This means it's a journey you have to strap yourself in for and accept what comes along.

The best you can do is have a broad destination in mind. It is an exercise in letting go on numerous levels, infinitely more so than a game like FATE, which also has collaborative character generation. The broad concept you wanted will no doubt win out, but lots of other stuff will be things you never predicted or elements you had in mind but they'll have morphed and changed. In my case, both elements of my main protagonist changed (though the broad concept survived) and key characters, such as his childhood sweet heart, totally changed in background, purpose and in game relationship due to the collaborative nature of the process. Invariably the outcome is better, as it was in this case.

The brilliance of the process is undoubtedly the relationship map that is produced. Naturally I'd think this due to being a fan of relationship maps to design the narrative crucible since it was advocated as a central mechanism for the Sorcerer role-playing game. It's worth the time invested. I've only done it twice in Smallville and each time it has produced a relationship map that was suffused with drama, intense relationships (with people and things) and narrative potential. Each time I've wanted to play the game afterwards. At least this time we'll get to do it. You could de-construct the process and use it for other games. For instance, you could use the process to build the map but not assign any values to it as the values are implicit to Smallville. This would give you a relationship map to represent the narrative space just without the integration into the system. It would still make explicit that remain implicit at the table. In fact, building it before you start adding 'stats' to it may well be a better method for Smallville.

The best part, which really adding something new and rich to the game, was the creation of a relationship map for the previous generation of characters (the protagonists' parents). This has created something akin to Heroes, in which the previous actions and future desires of the previous generation influences the lives of the current. We are going to have at least one flashback session to the 80's. It's also brilliant how the attitudes of one generation 'cold war spies' contrasts with that of the current 'public facing institute'. This element, being it's most unique one, could be the part of the game that creates something very powerful.

It's still going to be an interesting journey as the system is so different. We've played similar things before, both Primetime Adventures and Duty & Honour have similar, broad elements in terms of their resolution mechanisms but we only played them for a session or two and neither has the razor focus on relationships. Playing such a system for our typical season length of circa 8 – 12 sessions is going to be something new and interesting. Considering the systems focus on Smallville as a show, it's also going to be interesting to see how it transfers to the HBO-style.

It's also probably wiped one campaign of my 'to run' list as Hollywood scale, neo-Silver Age, contemporary thriller superheroes might be way too similar to this. We shall see.

I’m currently working in Crawley a lot. There is a Cineworld cinema close to the hotel, so I’ve invested in a 15 GBP monthly unlimited card. I figure it’s something to do while away and it plays well with Orange Wednesdays when I return (no cash changes hands other than the unlimited card for two people). The key issue now will be rationing the use a bit as I really need to start aggressively managing my time again like I was on the MBA. Still, a once a week strategy might work.

This weeks film was Impossible Mission: Ghost Protocol. The film left me with the bad taste incurred by the Hollywood wink.

The Hollywood Wink is something simple but insidious. It’s when the film fails to take the premise, set-up or genre conventions of a film seriously, and instead has the script and the protagonists acknowledge with a big, small or even subtle knowing wink, that what they are doing is ridiculous. The issue is, unless you’re purposefully writing a comedy, this should never happen. Don’t get close to it. Never even acknowledge it. The characters live in a world in which the premise, set-up and genre conventions are just the laws of the milieu in which they live so they would accept them and not question them.

This was why the first three Impossible Mission films succeeded. The pace, intensity, ‘magical’ masks, the propensity of the action, superlative character competence and the high-octane melodrama were immutable laws of the cinematic espionage milieu. No one questioned them. The possibilities and dangers presented by a world with such rules were woven into the script because they were the immutable laws of the universe. The ridiculous infiltration sequences, always from above, weren’t incredulously queried or given a ridiculous wink to camera, they were a part of Ethan Hunt’s DNA and a skill to be feared and planned for by his enemies.

Not in Ghost Protocol.

The superlative character competence is gone. The characters often query or question tactics, events and actions. Even Ethan Hunt gets exasperated at times with the danger he put himself in despite the fact it’s all supposed to be within the acceptable risk of his capabilities. At times, it’s almost as if he ‘looks to camera’ because you’re seeing it from the point of view of someone else in the scene. This tended to make the relatively bland action scenes even weaker. A few scenes with a comedy strand are based off staples of the concept or natural outcomes of the milieu. True, they often pull back from full on ridicule and comedy, but it’s present. It’s like the writers couldn’t commit to the film they were writing and just had to add just enough to make sure the audience knew they were rolling their eyes.

A hero is only as good as his nemesis and on this front Ghost Protocol fails miserably. He’s not confronting the CIA or charismatic villains played by actors like Dougray Scott or Philip Seymoure Hoffman. The bad guy is basically a cypher with no charisma, no quality to get under Ethan’s skin and played by a forgettably actor. Hell, they don’t even interact significantly. The concept behind the villain is fine, some sort of organisation that believes in renewal through nuclear Armageddon, but it’s not used in any intensely dramatic way.

Ghost protocol had just enough entertainment value to keep me going, but I was continually waiting for it to get better. It didn’t. Ultimately, if you like others I’d recommend you give this one a miss or catch it on DVD on the cheap. While I’d like to own the others as I’d watch them repeatedly, I can’t see me watching Ghost Protocol again. Ever. Something is obviously wrong when the only thing you take away from the film was the hot, blond female assassin and you wish she’d been in it more.

My personal social media and communications landscape seems to go through periods of stability, punctuated by a change and then repeat. It's just gone through one of it's changes. Truthfully, it changes over time until the 'gap' gets too wide and then I make changes. It's possibly never truly static for long.

One of the major changes is in IM. The first being that my use of IM seems to have dropped off over time. This has probably been a long-term thing, but I've noticed it the most since I've not been gaming. I suspect this isn't the only reason, it was just the final step.The core reason is IM is a two-way thing and everyone's lives just seem to have got more complicated and busy reducing their time to talk on IM. There also seems to be a bit of a content problem, the content that often featured on IM has changed. The gaming has been reduced (even before me stepping out) and the MBA has gone up. The MBA talk never rose to the level of replacing the gaming talk. Not sure how this will pan out in the future.

The medium for IM has changed significantly. As the years have passed the various services people use has consolidated. This consolidation basically means Facebook is the one everyone is on. There is five on other platforms (3 MSN + 2 Google) but the two Google users are on Facebook as well. Basically, based on my current communications profile if I was to go to Facebook Messenger exclusively this wouldn't cause a problem. All the MBA talk is through Facebook. I've taken steps to do this with Facebook Messenger now installed on all my devices. This is aided by the fact my universal client that I used to use on my Android devices has started to use adverts and a payment model based on 'not getting adverts for a period of time', effectively a recurring fee. I would have have paid for it once, but not many times. Ditched. It also 'helps' that my universal client on the PC isn't getting any developer love and the one service it proves problematic with is, you guessed it, Facebook.

Social media is a bit more complicated. The main change is I'm posting content to Facebook more than Twitter and Linkedin. I don't use Google+. I still post more content on Twitter and Linkedin than a lot of people, as people on the current programme I'm on tend to note, but there is a concentration on Facebook. Why is this? A number of reasons. I like the fact I know who the potential audience is as I've chosen to make them all Friends. I like the fact the audience is segmented into lists (something Facebook could do before Google Circles, not sure what the fuss was about). The family network is elusively on Facebook. I also really like Timeline, it makes adding content to Facebook more compelling to me, turning it into more of a micro-blogging diary, which is always what it was, it's just Facebook ripped the pages from your diary after a certain point in time.

The application landscape on Android has also been an influence. This has come in the form of two factors: I like the Facebook application and its integrated functions and the options in terms of universal applications is reducing on Android creating a fragmented space. This will be even more true when they update Tweetdeck to the gimped version, which only does Twitter well. The Facebook application allows me to post status updates, use photos and use geographical positioning, to a degree I'm happy with, all in one application.

Twitter and Linkedin are still used but they're rapidly becoming more professional focused. The general interests Twitter account has tended to get less traffic sent to it. The status updates are weighted to the professional, pretty much exclusively on Linkedin. They are also used to market my blog. This isn't going too badly with it being picked up by recruiters and spread through to others via the articles being included in various other mediums sourced from twitter posts and re-tweets. I like twitter, but the problem I have with it is it just feels like a vast void you're shouting into. This is part of its strength, but also its weakness. The more intimate nature of Facebook and Linkedin, relatively speaking, means you're creating a fabric when you post status updates. A fabric that, over time, says something about you. While the intention is the same in Twitter, and the potential magnitude bigger, I think your message has to be more focused and each message is probably viewed individually on its own merits more than any sense of a narrative. Basically, Facebook is about life as a holistic whole, Twitter and Linkedin are becoming very substantially more focused.

That's about it. A focus on Facebook for IM and a more holistic view, with Twitter and Linkedin becoming very career orientated and profile raising. IM seems to be reducing in importance.

After finishing Uncharted 3 faster than I thought I would, I decided to have a console game clear out. I had numerous console games hanging around in various stages of completion that weren't going to go anywhere. Get rid. Trade them in. What was great about this is I got 20 GBP for trading in Uncharted 3 and it only cost me 24 GBP from ASDA so I played it for almost nothing. Bargain. Certainly worth the ten hours it delivered. I used the assorted funds to get Batman: Arkham City one of the new games on my 'must play list', and three older games that I just never got around to purchasing: Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, Alphas Protocol and Operation Flashpoint.

I've gone through the update and install routine with all the games and played them for about 30 minutes, with Arkham City getting a longer stretch.

I really liked Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City looks to be more of the same but with a more open and expansive setting. I'm not usually a big fan of open world games unless they shove in enough narrative to keep me occupied. I'm not interested in wondering around making my own entertainment when it comes to console games. Thankfully, there always seems to be a narrative strand to follow as well as interesting side missions kicking off through interaction with Batman's many and varied cast. The one side mission I have at the minute was established through an interaction with Bane and is related to the previous game. All the various missions seem to be placed on the digital map to keep me all organised. All good. It exudes quality and I fully expect to be a great experience.

Alpha Protocol often goes down as one of those brilliant but flawed games. The magnitude of the 'flawed' part depending on who you speak to. It's a very interesting premise. A role-playing game but not one set in a fantasy or a science fiction milieu but one of cinematic espionage. Regrettably, the verdict on the game has already been given and sales haven't guaranteed it becoming a franchise. This is a pity as the combination could be brilliant. I've played about twenty minutes of it and it feels really good. There is already a number of things I like. It really feels like an espionage game, especially with the use of continuous 'ear piece' communication in the opening sections. The experience system is good, looking like it allows for very different characters, though it's already causing minor build anxiety. The mini-games on security locks are already a bit annoying. We shall see. It's a bit like a slightly older Bioware game with the branding filed off (as the developer did Knights of the Old Republic II). They have the espionage feel right. Looking forward to seeing how epic the experience gets.

Operation Flashpoint is intriguing, as it was a game I was really looking forward to but then the reviews and player feedback was...mixed. It was one of those games that was destined to have a confused reception. A simulation-based, realistic, tactical shooter was bound to be disliked by the FPS crowd who would end up buying it despite being well warned in advance. Those wanting the realistic and tactical experience would no doubt complain the game was too much of an arcade experience. Throw in the fact the developers and publishers actually lied about the game before it was released (the game is in no way an open ended military campaign on an open world island) and you have a recipe for disaster. The initial 30-minutes? It's certainly not a typical FPS. I'm going to have to resort to reading the....manual. Not only that, it seems to realistic that combat seems to take place at distances that ensure your never fully sure who or what you are shooting at. Just like all those 'from the front' videos you see these days. Interesting, but it's going to take some work. A slow burner.

Rainbow SIx: Vegas 2 is pretty much an old game I always meant to play after really enjoying the first one many, many years ago on the Xbox 360. I just never seemed to get around to purchasing it.

That's pretty much my console game schedule set until March and, to be honest, probably beyond. I can't see me finishing all those games before Mass Effect 3 is released. Especially since I only have Friday - Sunday to play them. I'm really going to have to pick one and stick with it otherwise I'll just spread myself too thin. It'll probably be Batman just from the point of view the other games have negligible return value.

I've finished Uncharted 3. A total of 10.5 hours actual play. It didn't seem that long. It amounted to about 3 or 4 session of play. It felt substantially shorted than the the second game, though I suspect the magnitude of that isn't as big as I think. A quick check shows a drop of four chapters, so the second game could be around 15% bigger. Lot's of variables and human perception factors unaccounted for, of course.

But then that's the main problem faced by Uncharted 3? Competition with its predecessor, which was a gaming Goliath of epic proportions.

I think that's my main problem, compared to Uncharted 2 the game is found wanting a bit. It's something elusive. All the elements are present in Uncharted 3 it's just the ingredients haven't been mixed as well. The set-pieces didn't seem as strong. The story was certainly more subdued. It just felt more...mundane. That's doing it a disservice as Uncharted 3 is still a masterful contribution to gaming envisioned through the lens of ridiculous Hollywood storytelling, but while the lightning in the bottle may have been caught twice, it certainly didn't burn as brightly.

The narrative seemed mixed. The action certainly seemed toned down in its 'set piece awesome' but magnified in terms of the 'enemy hordes'. There was also less inter-play between the characters. I missed the cross and double-cross of the various protagonists that was present in Uncharted 2. Initially, it seemed like they were going for a more intimate narrative but this didn't really deliver either. The flashback at the beginning suggested a focus on the relationship between Nate and Sully, as did some of the scenes alluding to Nate not knowing when to quit. The trouble is, I got more of a feeling of depth between Nate and the various thieves in Uncharted 2 then I did between Nate and his supposed surrogate father figure. It just didn't go anywhere or have any sort of significant conclusion.

The conclusion to the action was also a bit odd. We had a secret organisation. The leader of the ancient conspiracy was a past friend of Sully's, but this didn't seem to amount to much. Ultimately, we never even got to find out if the great gasket under the water in the hidden city actually had anything in it. Despite the fact the enemy in Uncharted 3 was a 'eastern European mercenary and war criminal' he seemed to have more narrative power by the time the final credits rolled. Of course, the final sequence was the hidden city collapsing in on itself as all discovered hidden cities are prone to do.

What the Uncharted series needs is some competition. I'm hoping this is going to come in the form of the re-booted Tomb Raid series. Uncharted may have given the Tomb Raider series the kick up the arse it needed this generation, hopefully it can return the favour.

An observation first. I've started to notice that I become aware of things when I visit the supermarket. I don't haunt the supermarket often, but I don't visit the 'town centre', and I certainly don't haunt retail parks on a regular basis. This means the touch point opportunities for 'encountering stuff in a shop' are minimised and I'm not one to 'browse shop', which leaves the supermarket. So, it was noticing Uncharted 3 for cheap last time and, a while back, it was the first time I encountered the book Micro.

Micro is the latest and, since he died of cancer in 2008, the last book by Michael Crichton. Well, the last book 'completed to some degree' by Michael Crichton, with Richard Preston filling in on completion duties. I didn't know Micro existed or was being published. It was a surprise to find it on the shelf. I didn't know what Micro was about. I read the back and I remember it being about very small robots. This surprised me as Crichton had already done the nanotechnology thing in Prey. I took the opportunity to buy it when it was going cheap on the Amazon Kindle Christmas Sale.

I was very surprised to find it was effectively Honey! I Shrunk the Research Students!

Simple plot. A cutting edge technology company in Hawaii has found a way to shrink people and equipment through electronic fields, cue lots of uses for medical procedures and nature research as well as the obligatory defence uses which forms the heart of the conspiracy which results in the brother of the chief technology officer and his student colleagues being shrunk and left to fend for themselves against nature. It's handy that they are researching nature, since that allows them to know how much danger they are in, inform the reader and also affords them some handy weapons. Needless to say the students get attacked by millipedes, wasps and ants as they die off one by one.

I like Michael Crichton books, the combination of science, action and adventure just works for me. I like how he tends to take an issue and create a story out of it, even when its the idea of sexist behaviour towards men in the workplace as women enter the corridors of power (the subject of Disclosure). The only time this hasn't worked is in State of Fear, which tended to read more like a lesson for or against global warming, memory fades, and politicising science than an actual narrative. This one is the same. The science is interesting. It feels like a 'bit more of a realistic take' on shrinking people. The positioning of insects as the dinosaurs of the natural world when you're shrunk works. The deaths are gruesome. It stretches things a bit with micro-planes and whatever else, but it was fun.

It's safe to say Micro isn't his best book, which is understandable. Certainly written when he was ill, and finished by someone else known for similar novels, but probably without the depth of research. It just feels less grounded and etches up the 'cheese factor' rating. Despite this, I tore though the book and really enjoyed it. A combination of the action and the science elements got me past the 'Crichton by the numbers' story and difficulty in taking a story about miniature people seriously due to numerous other previous efforts kicking in.

It could make a great film, if it keeps enough of its edge.

So, I was wondering around Asda just before Christmas and, a usual, I drifted to the computer and electronics section. The surprise was Uncharted 3 for 24 GBP (as well as Batman: Arkham City for 27 GBP). That is was cheap even by online standards and it's gone back up to nearly 40 GBP since they re-stocked. Uncharted 3 is one of the games on 'the list', a selection of games that is either being released in 2012 and / or needs to be played in 2012.

I now have to complete Uncharted 3 before the very beginning of March as that's when Mass Effect 3 is released. The degree to which I'm looking forward to Mass Effect 3 cannot be underestimated.

The beginning is a bit of a disappointment. Well, in truth, it's not really disappointment, it's just you start the game with the awesome beginning of Uncharted 2 in your mind and compared to that it feels very...underwhelming. No epic train crash, just a visit to a pub and a fist fight followed by a flashback. Still, it's obvious from the beginning that a key narrative theme of the plot will be the relation between Nate and Sully and the fact Nate never knows when to give in. I can't help but feel the logical conclusion to this will be the death of Sully.

The best sequence so far has undoubtedly been the one in the shipyard and the ocean liner from chapter twelve through to fifteen. The awesome, and then ever more awesome, extended action sequences are one of the key selling points of Uncharted. The experience of playing out a gun battle across a series of fast moving boats in a rough sea was amazingly well done, the motion of the sea being particularly impressive. It manages to put across the continual feeling of 'oh shit' with an ever increasing sense of escalation. If it was a traditional, FATE role-playing campaign, Nate would be earning and burning fate points at a fast pace. It all goes a bit Poseidon Adventure at the end of the sequence with action sequences taking place in a sinking ship turned on its side.

The puzzles are worth noting as well, as they actually work. Key to this is the use of Nate's notebook. This is similar to the diary that Indiana Jones has from his father in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, full of scribbled notes about the quest ahead and the possible challenges. When a puzzle section comes up you often have information on it in your notebook, which doesn't tell you how to do it, but gives an indicative direction. It makes the puzzle interesting and integrates it into the narrative. They are a vast improvement on the puzzles in the game's closest ancestor: Tomb Raider. I normally get irritated with the puzzles, but they really work in Uncharted, feeling like they have scale while not being too complicated or anal.

The main concern at the moment is the length of the game. I've not checked my actual play time, but I suspect it's not in double figures yet and I'm at the beginning of chapter sixteen of twenty-two, so I'm well over halfway through and there has only really been one impressive, better than on film, extended action sequence. Will have to see how this pans out. At least it doesn't look like it's going to be an issue finishing it before March even taking into account my sporadic play rates.

Like Uncharted 2 it continues to be an excellent model for a contemporary action role-playing campaign. Primarily in the ways it structures action sequences, links them together and takes moments between the action to allow character-driven moments. Basically, like I've always believed, role-playing and action should almost be one and the same in a role-playing game, not necessarily something that happens completely separately.

On the evening of 13th December 2011, in the Crown Plaza – Gatwick, through a WiFi hotspot provided by my HTC Wildfire phone my MBA dissertation was submitted. 'Enterprise Architecture as Strategy: Maturity of Practices in Small, Medium and Large Organisations' represents the final piece of work necessary to complete the MBA.

The MBA is all done. Complete.

It's a strange feeling. It seems the overriding feeling people communicate when this happens is relief. I can't say it's the same. A sense of achievement of having undertaken the herculean task during what has not been the most stable of periods in my life. A sense of validation that it has been worth it purely in regards of how it has changed me in terms of how I think and approach problems. Ultimately though, it's a slight sense of loss. Overall, I enjoyed it that much I'm going to miss it. It's life changing. It was rarely a trial, or an obligation, but something I engaged in with passion and verve. I did this so much it often takes other people to remind me what an achievement it is.

I tend to do things because of the challenge they represent, and the MBA fit that category and then some.

Looking back on the reasons I took the giant step for my brain, wallet and hopefully future career prospects I can see all of them have come to be, with the final one obviously something that needs to be delivered on in the future. One thing I do know, the MBA has already opened doors I would have found firmly shut and it's how it's changed me that will be the clincher in terms of career direction. It's early days on that last one and I still have to make some choices.

The first semester was undoubtedly a challenge. The volume of work wasn't so much a surprise but still something that took a while to find the best approach to. Studying fast. Slowing it down. Ultimately going for the strategy of having encountered all units before the residential. A strategy I subsequently stuck with. As for the first residential, it hit home how much my world had shrunk. Then my first exam in...a while. The revision front line was a new experience in exams that are very challenging, as well as re-learning how to write longhand under pressure. All this is key to the MBA process though. You learn how to manage the work. Your ability, already high, to absorb and learn new things continually is radically enhanced. You come to accept you can't know everything but you can bet you can be pretty clued up quickly. The constant, never ending challenge was buzz of the MBA.

Eventually you find a rhythm to the study process and you start to mine it for all it's worth in the past, present and future. You mine it in the present through the experience. You mine it in the past by putting all you've done through the rigorous MBA process and realising you've done some pretty amazing stuff. Then you cast all that into the future and it changes how you present yourself. It's sort of You+. It tends to create a sense of confidence that is invaluable, it enhances that belief that even if you don't know how to do something now, you soon will through a combination of experience, education, networks and investigation.

Then, as if from nowhere you discover a distinction is possible. To say this was a surprise is an understatement. It was something other people did, and certainly something I never thought would happen on a Global MBA which is primarily distance learning. Once it became a possibility it became an all consuming passion. Nothing else will be good enough. I think it's possible, but obviously not guaranteed. Getting the highest achievement would be great.

Ultimately, to quote a famous British TV character, the experience has been...fantastic.

In a way this is also a sign-off. This is the last blog focused on undertaking the MBA, only the final mark and the graduation remain.

So, it's pretty much exactly a month until the release of The Old Republic and the NDA was dropped a short while ago. The immediate result is a slew of videos that can supply all the spoilers you could ever want if you so desire. I've watched a few, in a very limited fashion. A couple of relatives are also playing the beta, which has afforded me a number of Twitter updates and about 30 minutes of actual play, which got me to level three.

The information has got me thinking a bit. There is a mild story spoiler, so if you don't want to know anything I'd stop now.

First, the actual play. It was a very small amount of actual play, but it was still...interesting. The first thing I noticed was the Smuggler (from playing) and Trooper (from a video) class have the same starting zone. Essentially, a war zone. The chapter-based story is different. Not sure if some of the side quests are similar (I think they might be).

The second thing I noticed is it felt more like a Bioware single-player game than an MMO. This is something I expected, so it wasn't a significant surprise. The story and the acting is present. It's probably not going to be Mass Effect levels of 'story awesome', but even the snippet I had of it was great. Within 30 minutes some dirty, rotten Swamp Rat had stolen my Smuggler's ship?!? A great dramatic moment to kick the story off. On the negative side, the experience felt claustrophobic. The 'world' felt a bit more like a Bioware single-player area than just one small part of an expansive world. I'm not sure how to take this. It could be that I've just not played an MMO for a while, certainly not an MMO with only the starting zones being available. It could also be that Warcraft has the job of realising 'one planet', while The Old Republic has to realise many planets. Like the films themselves, you have to take a high level approach to each one.

The final observation is the lack of an auto-attack. This gave the game a very different feel. You can't just stop clicking buttons and let the game get on with it. You have to be constantly hitting one attack or another or your character doesn't do anything. This gives the game a more immediate feel. It's also very responsive and the sound effects are cool. It's a bit ridiculous you get hit many times by blaster fire and don't die, but I'm not sure how they could have gotten around this. The shoot from cover mechanic of the Smuggler is very Star Wars. The game also wasn't very hard, but this is probably a facet of the starting area.

The videos and associated information have got me thinking about class choices now I know more about roles and and starting zones. Ultimately, I'm going to mine the game for all its worth and play through the stories of all the classes. The issue is in what order.

The above diagram shows how the classes are actually dual sets which share roles and class abilities. While the class abilities of each dual set may be different in terms of animation and the specifics of the power, the classes mirroring each other will have powers serving the same purpose. The Bounty Hunter may fire a missile from his wrist, while the Trooper a grenade from underneath his blaster rifle but the result is an early power that causes more damage (and possibly some minor AOE, I'm not sure). This means, despite the radical story differences between the Bounty Hunter and the Trooper I'm unlikely to play one after the other. The same goes for any in a dual relationship, such as a Smuggler and an Imperial Agent. In a similar way, if the Smuggler and the Trooper have the same starting zone that might influence the actual order I experience the classes in.

The other thing that raised an eyebrow was the tanking classes. I was always confused about how you could have ranked tanking classes. The answer is you can't, apparently. All the tanking classes are melee focused. This even includes the Bounty Hunter (Powertech) and the Trooper (Vanguard). No idea how that works out in practice. Oddly, the Imperial Agent (Operative) is also a stealth orientated melee class, which is a bit of a surprise. Have to say, while the thought of bringing down the melee awesome with a lightsaber is appealing, the idea of playing any other class in a melee fashion just doesn't appeal at all.

Ultimately, I think I'm going to play a Smuggler (Gunslinger) first. I'll then branch out as required. I'm also going to take advantage of the legacy system and have a bunch of characters use the same surname. It' would be interesting to know if your legacy can cross factions.

At the moment, my limited experience with the game and the videos I've seen doesn't really transform my view that the game will be successful, but isn't going to get into the tens of million subscription rates. It's good the game needs nowhere near these numbers to be successful. The reason why? Not because of its quality, but due to the focus on story ensures it has a niche appeal. The implementation of the story in the original game and expansions takes time, which can't be spent elsewhere. I suspect the typical MMO player will get very irritated with the voice acting very quickly and just want to get on to killing stuff with his group. It'll be interesting to see how many fans of Bioware's single-player games transfer over and how many casual players the game takes away from Warcraft.