Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions

Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions

Welcome all to my little slice of the Internet. As a Critic here, I'm expected to glance my beady eye over everything posted to our beloved forums. Here, you'll find honest reviews that tries to help rather than parade around like a chimpanzee showing off to the crowd outside it's cage. I don't have many restraints on what'll make it into an article. I'll witter on about stuffthat I've been playing, reading, watching, using, eating, drinking or using to defeat the Dr Mushroom and his cohort Dr Marshmellow.....Moving on...

I welcome comments and chatting (even defending) about anything reviewed. Also, just because it's my name in the title up there, doesn't mean that no-one else can't get in on the act. Seriously! Write a review and post it here if you want. I'd be more than happy to have it sit with what I've already added. My only request is to make sure its formatted to look like the others already put up. That's just my OCD talking....

The Works of Rose Girl

While language and ideas are perfectly fine I can immediately see a fault with the works that have been posted up here. Now, people being shot at, fancy parties and characters that don't strike me as being lazy or particularly like cut-outs are all well and good. I think its too early to tell for most of your prose whether any problems have arisen with them.

My only problem was that it never struck me at all. What your text seems to lack is not the idea behind everything but I suppose polish, editing skill and flourish. Everything reads in a very flat manner. There is attempt at description but there is no imagery to lend character. I did not see anything much in the way of a metaphor or a simile. The prose reads as a linear track from one event to the next, failing to add a splash of life or personality to the pieces.

To help, I can only think of reading more stuff. Pick up a book, maybe someone you've never read, and steep your subconscious in that. Pick up what they like to do and maybe incorperate it into your own stuff. At the moment, attempts at description disrupt the flow of the narrator and so it reads as though a record skips into a totally different song every so often. Its jarring.

Like I suggested, feed the subconscious with ideas and a better idea of how the pros write. Then, look over your work with fresh eyes.

I understand where you are getting at Tyro. I do read a lot of different stories, and tells that people write. I know most of my work can be disjoined, but I am slowly growing. Most of my stories are running thru my head all day and it hard to get on paper.

I thank you for sharing your review and opinions, they will help me in the long run. ^-^

I share in your grief and your welcome.

A friend of mine decided that I was worthy of a little present. Randomly one evening, he asked whether I liked Strategy Games. I replied ' that it depended on the game'. Regardless of the vagueness of my reply, he sent this new indie game my way through Steam. I'm quite happy he did.

Frozen Synapse is an unusual Strategy title in that it has more in common with postal chess than an RTS, which it would be mistaken for at first glance. The weird, Tron like aesthetics are pretty, the music is a few really nice...Electo sort of stuff. Kinda Dance things that fit perfectly and are great to listen too. Hopefully, there's a mod or something to let you listen to your own tunes instead: their starting to grate...

Multiplayer is where this game excels. Its player verses player. You have a small bunch of little blue men with various types of gun, trying to shoot the other guys with guns. The Machine Gunner's can cover a wide area but are inaccurate. Shotgunners are powerful but have a crippling range. Snipers are great for picking guys off from a distance. Grenaders will throw explosives around like its confetti. Guys with rocket launchers fire death and destruction that can open up maps by destroying walls. Fighting is simple: you have to procedurally program your heavily armed Trons to carry out tactical manoeuvres dependant on the data you have.
You have to tell your little men to do everything. Whether you find that annoying or not depends on whether you can get into the habit of removing and adding certain commands every single turn. Otherwise, you have to take into consideration which way the little man is facing, whether he should anticipate attack or ignore an enemy and who should run where. Few bugs could be found with making a route for your troops to follow but they are not game-breaking. Nothing doing it properly can't fix. Otherwise, it is a joyous tool to use as it plots around stuff easily.

Winning (or losing) is just a simple case of using tactics to out flank your enemy, picking off his numbers till only the last one is left. Pleasingly, you can make your little men take cover too. In fact, using cover is one of the most important moves to play. You can hide round corners or pop up behind short walls. Although, the old Rocket Launcher man will throw spanners in all different directions in that respect.

You take it in turns to use these commands to create a 'Plan'. That plan is then sent on to a server to then be compared against your opponents plan and a result will be sent back for you to work from. You can take as much time as you like with this plan and even simulate what your enemy might do by creating a temporary plan with them too. Its an immensely powerful tool for planning as you can tune your plan to account for all possibilities.

Single Player is where the game falls. Essentially it's Multiplayer mode with a context and against the Computer. Sadly, any attempt at a story telling fails because its all done in text boxes. Its 2011 people! We've mastered 3D animation to the point where Up nearly made me cry, I think we can actually show, rather than tell the player what's going on. Its just...dull. The only games I allow to not have voice acting are the Penny Arcade games and ones on handheld systems. This is just boring. I want to shoot stuff, not flick though the epistolary to understand what's going on. I'll only ever do that in something like Deus Ex. Otherwise, the Single Player only serves as a way of honing your planning skills as you are put up against bigger challenges. Without a context for what your doing that you actually give a damn about, I don't see it becoming anything less than forgettable. Multiplayer still reigns supreme.

The bottom line is that this is a nice little title if your looking for an evolution of chess. Its as close to being a general as you could ever want. A very interesting and enjoyable game.

Yes....Its another bloody generation of games consoles. Yes! Its got some weird gimmick that will make developers wonder what was the big problem with Analogue Sticks anyhow. Yes, its likely to have all the old favourites at some point and GOD YES I WANT ONE!

Ahem...Basically, I quite like the new Wii Nintendo has unveiled. I'm trying to remain calm enough to type properly as I look over the Zelda game.

WHICH LOOKS AWESOME!


RIGHT...right, professionalism. Calm yourself Tyro...

The Wii U seems to be trying to mop up a few of the problems of the old Wii while dressing current technology as futuristic magic. Firstly, the great failure of motion controls. Now, while I don't think motion controls are a bad thing, what I think is bad is how the industry seemed to look at the Wii Remote and seemingly stare at it, puzzled. Frightened of a looming deadline, they shoved something together with the most basic function of the Wii-mote: Pointing and Clicking. This meant that most of the best Wii games that tried to make the most of the Wii-mote were made by Nintendo themselves. Everyone else wanted to try and make an electronic coconut shy rather than real games. While the little white box is still perfectly cheep, good for a laugh and quite charming in many ways, its also got one of the most stagnant and largely useless OS's I've ever seen. Does anyone remember wishing for things like great games to download and play on your Wii whenever you liked? Having DLC for all your games whenever Nintendo felt extra nice? And then when you got the damn thing, you looked through all those TV screens and dreamed of what would fill them all?

Me too. The reality was that for the few nice ideas developers pushed, most of the Virtual Console seems to be old games that you can find floating around the internet for free to play on almost anything, including you phone, laptop and dishwasher. DLC popped up but never truly caught on. The Wii's software received the ability to boot Virtual Console Games from the SD Card and that was more or less it. The amount of channels (in essence, Apps) never reached double figures. You either had to modify your Wii to accept Homebrew stuff or filled those screens with games, costing a tidy, virtual bundle.

Its rather depressing to own a Wii and have to look at people playing with PCs, Xboxes and PS3s. It just hasn't had the effort put into it.


The Wii U, looks to be shaking things up.

Firstly, it's out with Motion Controls. Sort of...Basically, they're going to make the controller behave like a Tablet computer that wirelessly talks to a small, white box that has all the processing grunt inside. So yes; they have snapped the top screen off of a very large 3DS and called it a new controller. That sounds negative but it's a positive. It's good, gosh-darn it!: they've noticed that people like Touch rather than Motion. Developers have a better idea of what to do with it too. Its got some of those AR tricks that the 3DS had but with your TV instead, so Motion Control is still here but taking a back seat.

Weirdly for Nintendo, they've also beefed the graphics up for the new age. Now, Nintendo like to make sure their consoles are more affordable than the other two so these graphics and performance boots can't be massive on comparison with the other consoles with their budget hardware. It'll do the job but its not likely to touch the grunt that the other two consoles have. Not that I care that much. Asthetics trump Graphics anyway. For what its worth The Wii U is looking lovely.

Lastly, Nintendo have now done something very clever that will blur the distinction between Handheld and Home Consoles (You heard that phrase here first). The Controller is more or less a console in its own right. It can run simple programs on its own, letting you play with that and that alone. You have the option of getting Mr TV involved with most stuff. Probably the best feature is getting around an age old problem with gamers living that are also with other people. ]

Imagine your playing something and using the big TV in the living rooms to do it. Lots of home consoles end up here. But someone wants to watch Doctor Who (and who can blame them) but can't because your still playing Kirby's Adventure on the only TV they can watch it on. What do you do?

Any other console would force you to have a row or save up your game then quit your game (for this exercise, neither part has heard of the BBC iPlayer). Not the Wii U! It plays by its own slightly gimmicky but pretty handy rules. All you do is tell it to beam what's on the TV to the screen on the console, letting your flatmate watch Doctor Who and form fantasy dates in her head with Matt Smith and David Tennant taking her back to the Tardis, one holding a bottle of wine and the other holding a luffa sponge, winking (and who can blame her).

I'm optimistic that this thing will work much better than the Wii. The Wii is a bit of a failed experiment that has been dwarfed by the DS but did sell very well regardless. Nintendo are just building on the greater success. Its natural. Doesn't stop it from looking cool. It does clever stuff well. It should do games as well, if not better, than a 3DS will. Developers won't be that afraid of a device that does the same thing as Tablet computers and DSs can do. They seem easier to implement than motion controls and vague movement. They would also be getting better specs to play with (I hope). It should still be nice and relatively cheep. It should get some decent enough games behind it (hoping for Kingdom Hearts 3), and stomp all over Sony and Microsoft's market share again.

Almost definitely, people will look at the name and giggle (and who can blame them). It could have been worse. It could have been called the Wii 2.

Riiiight....*large in take of breath* (+4 Lungs)

Sydorian's done basically fudge-tones. That's a technical term, I've checked. She's had about 3 years to add stuff to my In-Tray and I'm finally turning around and working through it. Even worse/better, she's re-gained what must be like re-gaining a hand: her new digipad will just make this article rather redundant rather quickly so this will have to sum up everything done since now. The same goes for Syl's Prose too which I'm sure I can write a heck of a lot more about. I've got to get through it all.

Righty-ho-ho...

Not being an art expert or even an anime geek dooms this article to being pretty short. However, I've looked through about 44 pages of stuff.

A Syl comic seems to always stem form a very simple joke that she appears to have plucked from her life or what she happens to have been watching or reading. It keeps hitting and are always funny. Early stuff is either simplistic, or if it seems to have required a larger amount of time to complete, is very sketchy looking, especially the pencil stuff. The thing is, it reads more like a diary entry that you've splashed colour on. Its quite pleasant and endearing of the collection that it has that personal charm. You also laugh a little happier too.

Especially if you can relate to the subject. I've got one here about Maths. Having finally! FINALLY! Figured something out then have it sod off. As well as the one about getting excited about all the comics you'll do....then finding yourself playing Minecraft or some such. I've been doing that for too long... Even stranger, Sly will create absences of creativity into a declaration that she hasn't got any ideas in her head. Strange but a more pleasing than just doing nothing. Yes, yes. Something is better than nothing but its still a really good point in her favour.

Random moments of emo-ness seem to yield quite a interesting pieces of dark colours. Their not my favourites but they are more of that personal diary thing.

Syl is also one of the few people here that we all know how they actually sound...Just an interesting point as I flick through this stuff. Its interesting that she's even attempted animation. Its seems a logical step in many ways and I'd like to see something

Look...before this starts drooping into me typing 'Oooo...that's pretty' over and over, Syl's work is well worth a look. Its personal, often emotive but can be a good laugh. It been great following this stuff over the, what? Year, I've been here. I can't seem to find much fault with her work. I will just keep hoping for more.

I'll also keep waiting for the picture of Tyro I challenged her to draw as part of a challenge.....about a year ago....

Just moving this to the Critique section

Suck-up. =P

Nah, but thanks. Cool to have someone put so much thought into my work.

(Also, psst, it's Syldoran. No "i.")

(Bugger it!)

Your welcome. Even better, you get a nice two-parter. Part two will be on your Prose which will probably take me longer to do and to write but should be the more constructive as I might be able to suggest places to improve. I'm just perpetually jealous more than anything with your doodles.

Right! Lets get reading.

*Cough* *Cough* My turn to be jealous here! I'm still waiting to get some sort of opinion on my writing. Although I'm not sure about it to be completely honest.

Hehehe, that's me insecure about everything XD

I know, I know. I will get on it!

Haha I was messing around mate XD
You do whoever you want.

Right...This is the more daunting half of this entry. Syl's done a rather large amount of Arkwork but you can just glimpse at that. With Prose, I have sub-text, details and mistakes to uncover. I have to comb everything with fine teeth. It take a long while to make sure I've found everything. And I've combed everything I could find on the site.

All right. Lets try this piece by piece.

Roleplay Stories

Taiju's Origins

I can't help but feel a deep tench of Manga running through the piece. Partly because such teen conflict would never appear in anything like The Beano, for example but largely because of the first sentence. Weapons being the "extensions of his arms" is an interesting cultural idea Japan is generally thought to possess. Basically, a weapon is another way of characterising. So, expertly crafted blades denote an expertly crafted wielder. It says something about the character that uses it.

Err...For example, take Tyro and his weapon: The Kitsune Tail. Its a blunt, ceremonial piece that has to be heated up to cause more damage. Being blunt is a direct dig at Tyro's lack of finesse. Generally, his way is heavy fisted. Its a unique weapon, highlighting the unusual of Tyro. And actually, the fact that its in the shape of a fox could suggest narcissism but hey, we're talking about Taiju.

Now, the swords are never described in full detail so a missed opportunity to tell us all about Taiju through his hardware. Or even, what his Father wanted him to be like. Then, the throwing away of the swords could have been this great "I'm not going to be who you want me to be!" moment. Ah well. The swords instead fall in to the more Western idea of weapons, which is a symbol of power. Clearly, the only thing they impart is that Taiju is a dangerous kid. He's good with the swords and knows where to shove them. The magus helps this part of his character along by combining to the two. He is powerful.

The fight with Taiju and Damek is a good read. Its emotional and tries to be bold. It seems a tad static as this is just some dialogue. Good dialogue in my opinion but most shouting matches tend to have some kind of finger pointing or movement at least. I can imagine Damek being restrained to begin with but there has to be a point where there the restraints are beginning to come loose. Get them both pointing and gnashing teeth.

The moment when Damek is stabbed is tragic and probably quite scarring for Taiju. Why is it suddenly swept under the rug for the talk with Mother? Kadea's husband has just been mortally wounded but Taiju doesn't seem that fussed. That's some real strong hate there or the mentality of a psychopath. Its just that Kadea never questions the blood. Taiju doesn't so much to hide the potential murder weapon and still has blood on his hands while packing. So this scene, as interesting as it is to read, doesn't quite work unless Kadea has been taught to never question anything. At all....


Cherry Stems

Characterisation: Strong. We've got two silly boys and Devon, the slightly more dominant character that seems happy to dish it out , even happier to receive if only to swat retorts back. I know who everyone's supposed to be like. A little over done but still likeable characters.

The dialogue is a little sketchy, reflecting the pretty quick time it took to put together perhaps. Small lapses in cohesion occur but its a lovely little piece. I likes it a lot. The scene has a clear, central idea and its executed very well to show a kind of social hierarchy in this group of friends. At least, I assume their friends. There's little context for the scene so sense has to be made. We also never get a description of anyone as a result.


The One With Profanities In

I will let everyone know about a small phobia of mine: the slitting of ones wrist. I'm not sure what it is but even thinking about a blade piecing my skin there seems to make my acutely protective over them like a knife is shaving the thin skin covering the self-contained streams of blood.

*shudders*

Anyway, that seemed to hit slightly harder on me reading over Joey's scene. The slow, thought processes are a great way of setting up who were dealing with and what he appears to be like at this point. We even get a few mentions of relationships. I can see why this was chosen to stand alone; it seems very self-contained. There's still no description of where Joey is, or how he managed to lock the door. That could be in medias res too, I don't know where in the role play this has been taken from.

The intervention felt like a Soap Opera, what with Demien just happening to pop up at a time for peek drama and kicking off a nice argument. Overall, its a good read. Of course, it lacks any sort of build up or context of a full story but it doesn't strike me as silly either. Its a scene of horrific, maddening dread and fatigue.


The Albert Camus Inpired One

Simply put: Awwww....

Its a rather cute little exchange with an interesting, cute idea at its centre. Its well written and the short sentences, wherever they are, seem to keep a good pace.


Perfect Insanity

I believe there to be a Charlie Chaplin quote that talks about tragedy being "in close-up". Somewhere, at some point, he expressed the rule on how to set a certain tone over a scene. First person is where this piece gains its strength, as well as been competently written. It puts me in mind of 4:48 Psychosis in how it's as though a voice-over microphone has been wired into her thoughts. Its personal, of a person that couldn't give any less of a toss about human life. Its stress relief. Its unhinged and grotesque. People with emotional problems are definitely a central theme for a lot of your work, huh Syl?


The Taiju Thing

Quite the favoured angle on this character; the parents, I mean. A strong, dominating Father that seems to have the idea that a gruff, rough and cold exoskeleton to trap one's inner soul, hiding the entirety away to never be seen by the outside world is the perfect gentleman. A loving, almost-saintly mother that sinks straight through the shell The Father demands of Taiju. It's a strong character. It lends the character baggage and hooks from with you can get hang-ups. It makes him, him. Its the clock-work of his mind, bashed apart then reassembled with the bent pieces. An almost programmed individual that is unable to fully conform.

A piece I enjoyed because of how much I learned about the character. Well Done.


Something Based on and Old RP

Again, a well-written narrative as far as I can tell. I have a new knit picks, but they feel like back-seat driving rather than criticism. For what its worth, I feel the moment Joey discovers Damien has found a new boyfriend to be quite....brief. Its supposed to be a point where the entire world might as well shatter for all he could care. Its just that, we get a skipping reference to a knife stabbing his chest. It feels a touch rushed. Lingering on the emotion: cold, bitter anguish fused with devastating humiliation that grips his spine, breathing tendrils of ice through his vertebrae robbing his mind of thoughts. His heart pounding numbly in his ears. Its a turning point and it slips by quietly.

But, that's how I'd do it. Just as I'd turn left rather than carry straight on on this road, you understand. A metaphor for heartache in the form of being stabbed has been used in plenty of ways and here its extended to draw attention to it in a much quicker way. It works but it seems too quick. I guess it would

Still, its a window into Joey's overall character. Another person with slightly bent clockwork, I suppose is a poetic way of putting it. He cannot deal with anger well, it just boils over as he kicks stones. His life revolves around his search for happiness it seems.


Overall So Far

Your a good writer that seems to find dialogue quite comfortable. Your vocabulary could be a little more diverse at times but it never truly detracts from the narrative which is usually clear with a strong idea at its centre. Characters are painted strongly. When done well, they are interesting, conflicted or stifled beings. Its just that these don't have much context the rest of the RP would lend them. The best of them, work well to stand alone as they give only the necessary information to ad flesh to characters.

Right. I'm going to take a break and go write something of my own.

Please, would someone mind looking over my work too. I've not had much of a response and I want to make it as good as I can. I'd appreciate a second opinion.

blaaaah you reviewed a bunch of really old crap

But I don't hate you. XD

Yeah, the whole context thing always bothers me, but I don't have a lot with more context, I guess? I like doing most of my writing based off roleplays. That book idea never really took off, even though I think about it nigh-constantly, which would give me a lot more time TO exercise context and stuff.

Yes, I like emotional/mental problems. I find that it gives characters infinite amounts of depth and it makes me more interested in them as a whole. Nobody's perfect; everybody has something behind them. I try not to angst it up too badly for everyone, because then it's just implausible, but it makes things more interesting. (Although I confess that in my earlier years of writing, some of my crap (such as Joey's cutting) was just stupid and as I look at the characters now, it would never happen; I apparently liked to force drama a couple years ago.)

And it's funny to look at Taiju's origin now because while the story's the same, the magus was just for one roleplay and I happened to use it. He doesn't actually have those powers in "his" canon . . .

Okay I'm rambling

Thanks for paying attention to me. XD

Well, I'm still going with all this so expect basically everything I can find...

You could always leave Syl alone for a post or two. After all some of us have only done a few posts worth of short stories and such. Lol

Typical you Tyro, taking on the big fish straight up.

Of course! Do the big work first. The rest is all down hill.

All right. I'll leave the Syldoran Special for a bit. I'll look at something else for a bit.

Hahaha, the only problem with you doing Syl is she pumps the work out at a rate faster then you criticize it.

Right until I hit an art/writer's block and cry for a week because I can't get anything done. Then I don't get much done at all.

As the now immortal theme chimes in theatres all over the globe, a new time has come. Where Mrs Rowling can either live out the rest of her days a much loved author or she can try and charm us again with another tail. But I think you might agree that the fate of the Potter and Weasley children, their adventures through the iconic, half-destroyed castle have been placed in the hands of others that want to extend the universe for their own ends. Fan Fiction will never cease. We now know where their likely to start though. Warner Brothers are likely to bring all this back some how. Tarantino brought back junky 70's movies with his films. We are likely to see something emerge out of the ghost of the tale of the boy who lived. I remember some of cast talking about appearing in films that pay such tribute to them. I hope a careful touch is administered when resurrecting what has touched so many peoples lives.

Like mine. Maybe yours.

One of the first sizeable books I ever read was a Harry Potter book. Maybe your's was too.


Criticism is rather pointless in one sense: you are either going to see it or have never cared.

Instead, I'll shed a few thoughts on the series.

Essentially, we are dealing with a war. Its as simple as that. Its just that we are always stuck within Harry's personal bubble. There are only a handful of moments where we glimpse somewhere Harry is not and that is only through the link with Voldemort and Harry. We enter this world with Harry and only see the now recovered streets of one war. We discover them, bit by bit and piece together what had happened. At the same time, Harry is finding new people to seemingly fill the 'parent' roles he so craves. He builds up friends that will protect him from the dangers that inevitably find him. Quirrel, Lockheart, The Diary, Wormtail: the parental figures Harry found gave only the means to fight back, never fully protect him like he wanted.

Its only in the outbreak of a second war with Voldemort that it becomes far more clear that Harry Potter is only one piece of a small army of people, each with their own special roles. Harry couldn't find, and destroy every Horcrux on his own. He would have died if he tried. Dumbledore was a general, planning strategies. Lupin, Sirius, Snape and Hagrid were all watchful protectors and guides that helped as best as they could. Ron and Hermione are intel and back up for Harry, a Captain. A battle leader that's main goal was to inspire and captivate.

In the beginning, we only saw the little world that Harry lived in. He was a child and so never fully realised what was happening around him. I guess that explains partly the happy, cheery feel of that same world. Its only when Harry realises and sees the rest of the world does it become darker, more drab and grey. Nobody gives a toss about the House Cup when Riddle shows the face he used to have. The outside crashes in. The gravity of being a symbol of hope shatters the happiness he once had at Hogwarts.

In the final fight, Harry's job is relatively small. Neville is able to render Voldemort mortal to then be killed by Harry. Almost every protagonist, supporting character and student fights. The point of Harry was to get support for the cause, not be a superhero. He's only a boy.

Excuse me while I giggle at Monty Python some more.

Tee-hee hoddle har! Moose...

It's another double bill then I'll get back to scrutinising Syl's sizeable library of short tit-bits.



Every other critic and cretin that wants to play at game criticism in the name of customer advice will always, always compare MMORPG's with World Of Warcraft as its supposed to be the most recognisable form of the genre. Spiral Knights does borrow quite a bit from WoW. It kind of needs to as, well, WoW is a bit of a trend setter. It hard not to pick bits and pieces out that kind of have to be in an MMORPG by law its seems.

Hee..."Just a Flesh Wound!" Anyway.

So what does it borrow from Camelot? I mean, WoW. A few things but not as you expect. Firstly, there's all that RPG stuff where there's shops and crafting new and better weapons from odd scraps monsters drop that you can't by in shops. Annoyingly, you do have to buy recipes to then learn so that you can then craft stuff and it cost money and energy - the stuff that powers your jaunts into the game world but more on that in a bit. We also have, kind of uselessly Guilds. Yes, guilds are back. Now, I'm sure their fantastic in WoW but I haven't had the patriotism towards my guild to really bother with it. You can play the game without ever talking with your guild more than once. All guild members have access to a room, closed off from the rest of the game world in which to chat. You also have your guild underneath your avatar name about your head. I believe that you can join multiple guilds but have not been so disposed to want to. Lastly, there is a way of auctioning off your gear or bidding for items that you want. It's a sort of internal Ebay but also allows you to 'Buy it Now' which I do like. Rather than a timer, there's a vague idea of how long the wait will be before the end of the auction. No numbers just "Time: Very Short". Yep...cheers. The caveman system of time-telling has been dusted off.

So what does Spiral Knights of the Round Table do to innovate? It has to do stuff that other MMORPG's aren't doing. The Super Hero ones have got elements of wish-fulfilment. So does WoW but it also has all the Social Stuff and the RPG conditioning to get you hooked in the first place, rooting you to your computer. Well, here's where I am rather impressed with Spiral Knights and so enjoy it's world: It's decided to embrace Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past.

Three Rings Design is a small part of Sega that apparently makes nothing more than MMORPG's. I have never even heard of these guys or their products before. Their Father's could smell of Elderberries, err...I mean, they could be rather brilliant for all, I know. Its just, I'm not sure where the hell the combat paradigm of Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past (which will be shorted to LoZ:LttP) came from in their design process. I'm just rather happy they did because its refreshingly simple.

I have played a couple of other games of the WoW link including a go on WoW itself. WoW is complex. There are spells, abilities and numbers that ensure or hinder victory. You have to be a tank or a mage or a medic and that's mostly it. You usually have to get to know a group of individuals somewhere else on the globe so that you can best raid stuff. Its as much a form of MSN as it is an RPG. That's what my friend who likes to play WoW has told me in the past.

Spiral Knights lets you just jump the hell in. You have an inventory more advance than the usual Zelda fair: Armour, Helmet, Weapons, Trinket. Err...Yep that's it. Weapons? Swords, Guns and Bombs. Half-expect boomerangs, hammers and grapple-hooks but ah well. Maybe in later updates...Ay, ay, Three Rings? Wink Wink! Nudge Nudge. Although, that's another film...

The Combat is as simple as LoZ:LttP made it with a couple new tweaks. You move your mouse around to change the direction you look in and push the attack button to fire/slash. Push that button repeatedly and you can perform a slashing combo (where you will move forwards with each swing, unlike the general, mad waving of Link) or fire off the whole contents of your clip before immediately reloading from your endless supply of ammo. Move around using the keys you happen to find comfortable. Three Rings have made it so that the controls can be tailored rather well to your preferences but the combat is that simple. They have kept in the charge move though. It usually takes a lot longer than in LoZ:LttP but you will perform a more powerful slash or shoot a more powerful projectile. Bombs have to be charged to be laid I find. It means you can't spam them but its still a little annoying the first time. Its just to regulate the difficulty of the game, I'm afraid.

The interesting thing with the charged attack is that generally, every weapon has a different one. The starter weapons are rather humble swings with all your might to back them up or larger balls of green death hurtling towards your enemies. I've also seen weapons that perform a slash and release projectiles forwards like magical shotguns. The guns have weird and ever more dazzling displays of their power in the patterns of extra bullets the master charged bullet unleashes. The sword I currently use to murder the wildlife with is called the Cold Iron Cleaver, capable of matching the 360-degree swing that it's spiritual uncle proudly displayed. It's hugely useful for banishing groups of enemies. Another rarer sword could summon a copy of itself in pink energy and then launch itself like a massive arrow. The weapons are not, in anyway, for pansies. They do look it though.

So I should talk about the Asthetics. Spiral Knights has gone for a child-friendly, bright and colourful version of a DS Final Fantasy title. Your character is a black thing with two yellow eyes in a suit of armour. It's truly the blankest form of character I've ever seen and it works here. This is an RPG, where largely face-less dolls remote-controlled by other people and their personality are rife. Unlike WoW, the fact that everyone looks the same underneath the armour is not a problem. "We're all soulless avatars puppeteered by people looking for entertainment through our exploits." they seem to say with this. But back to the kiddiness? Well, I've never been put off by it. Actually, I might like it because I know its probably not going to try to pander to 14-year-olds trying to look well 'ard, innit yeah? I know the colour is often the extent of the kiddiness. Its evident here because Spiral Knights is not that easy. It can be quite a challenge will a big demand of you to survive against sometimes every-uneaven odds. Usually, against you heavily, of course. In a normal computer game, this would be fine but Spiral Knights is a 'free to play' thing. It has to try and make you fork out a certain amount or it'll lose out on all the money it's spent. I'm in too minds about how it goes about this perfectly reasonable request of small bits of money, largely for server upkeep I would have thought.

The game revolves around the accusition of generally three things: Crowns, Heat and Energy. Crowns is just the game's equivalent of gold, so is just the game's currency. Heat is the game's version of Experience Points. Interestingly, everything is applied to your equipment rather than your character like the Ratchet and Clank Series. Everything has a current values and the potential values it is likely to gain later on when it's reached a certain level with thanks to collecting heat from fights. That I like actually. The suggestion that you are just a man. A man that has eaten the Courtiers and there was much rejoicing. is mortal underneath the all the metal he needs to survive and fight back. You are as weak, wobbly and likely to be eaten as everyone else.

A slave in your ear whispering "You are but a...man...I think. Its never mentioned what your race actually is."

Energy is another form of currency. A sort of rechargeable battery that you use to power things. If you want to get to all the sprawling levels in the game, you use 10 of this to power elevators that will take you about usually. You use increasing amounts of this to power machines for crafting ever more complicated stuff. Certain doors will demand it of you so they can open, letting you discover more treasure. If you should be defeated by the monsters, you need energy to respawn. The price goes up every time you die in your current journey. Its here where Sega can ask for money. You have two types of energy: Crystal and Mist. Apparently, the game world just generates Mist energy naturally all and your suit has a little canister that collects it for later use. It's capped at one hundred and takes about a day to fill completely. That is free. It'll probably get you through most of the game reasonably comfortably as long as death doesn't deal business with you in-particular too often.

Sega does allow you to buy Crystal Energy for a small Holy hand Grenade. Err...fee. That doesn't seem to have a particular limit of it so you can get loads of energy for about £1.50 for 750 Energy. That's a lot to get across the Bridge of Death, the Clockwork. It's just that you can get 100 of this stuff using about 5000 crowns. Therefore, its perfectly possible to play the whole game without ever paying a penny. its just there for the sake of convenience. I'm a little concerned but at least its for that, something that is basically free otherwise but is in short supply usually rather than, say, Crowns, which are used more often. It just makes your job easier.

And I do mean 'Job'. Its the last point of defection from the WoW template Spiral Knights makes that I've found: the World and Framework. Your little guy is a new recruit for a mining corporation rather than either side of a giant war. We're all on the same team as corporate stooges in a pretty dangerous but engaging job: Dungeon Raiders. This world you've been sent to this strange world where under the surface is something called The Clockwork: a rotating dungeons that resemble steam-punk Super Monkey Ball Stages. They have about 28 of these rotating levels between you and the core of the planet, which is where we want to go. The Company has heard about great riches down there and we want to see what's down there as well and find them, of course. Bosses will slow you down and different levels offer different types of fights. Everything from Arenas to Fire to Ice to Graveyards. Your also expected to find different kinds of crystal and chop of a piece to bring back up to the surface when you return. These are tipped away into other elevators into other bits of the world. The amounts of what crystal goes where is supposed to dictate what kind of level it will become but seeing as its one of the primary ways of being paid in Crowns, I couldn't care less. I just want the best price, of course.

Is it worth your time? Yes. It will probably try and eat a lot of it as it is an MMORPG so be weary. However, it's a step forwards in a direction of evolution. I enjoy it and continue to enjoy its challenge. I just have to make sure I can tear myself away from it for long enough.



Hands up if you, truthfully, get a good amount of use out of your Wii as anything else other than a games console.

Yep. Yep, only the people in the adverts. Or mad people not in possession of a computer. I put it to you that Nintendo are morons. They displayed a possibility for the Wii to be a multimedia gadget that could do, oh! So many things! A slideshow machine! A Puzzle Game with our own picture! A Weather Station! A Newspaper! And...err...and...Oh! Yeah! And, an Internet Browser! Plus! Not a whole lot...

The Channels added afterwards are quite bad compared to what might have been. We could have had truly useful utilities, like a Motion Sensitive iPhone on your TV! This is a rough list of what we got instead of that:

The BBC iPlayer Channel: Arguably, the only useful Channel. Useful, reasonably easy to operate and easier than trying to hook a computer up to a TV. The qualities not amasing but its not a major concern. It'll perform beautifully if in a good connection to the Internet.

The Mii Contest Channel: Kind of handy if you can't be arsed to try and make your own Mii's. If you enjoy it as well or bored or both, you can enter the competitions to make a Mii look like something. Its judged by other users of the site. If you win, you get the satisfaction of winning, I think. A prize is never mentioned.

The Kirby TV Channel: Watch the otherwise-unaired Kirby Anime! So, good: Free Anime in an easy to digest form, similar to the iPlayer. But bad: The Kirby Anime is awful in my opinion. Its so aimed at young children, it causes pain as a result. I maybe being to harsh but I'm in no rush to watch further than episode one. The Dub Voices are annoying and for some reason, Dee-Dee-Dee and Kirby are in CGI while everything else is hand-drawn anime. Lurid and unnecessary. We know he's a computer game character. making that obvious makes him seem like the world is actively rejecting him.

The Today and Tomorrow Channel: Superstitious gobbledygook it constantly tells you not to take seriously. Its all about luck, star-signs and suggesting things for you to do "today and tomorrow". An utter waste of time and disk space.

The Everybody Votes Channel: Distilled and bottled boredom. Its a poll taking app where all the questions have only two answers and are totally trivial to avoid offence. If you really want to know what percentage of the world likes bits in their orange juice you either work for Tropicana or have a kind of black hole where your soul should be that's slurping away at the dregs of your personality.

The Nintendo Channel: Just adverts. Reams and reams of promotion and ads.

Nintendo have done nothing to fart in your general direction to help the uselessness of the Wii's current Software. You can't do a heck of a lot with what you currently have except the Internet Browser. But what's wrong with a computer? With a decent connection to the internet and a better, faster web browser, hmm?

However, there are people who their founders were making software for the ZX Spectrum almost three decades ago, are continuing this tradition of hacking machines and raising them to be more than what they were intended to be! They are the Homebrewers! They have brought us something called The Homebrew Channel.

The Homebrew Channel can be thought of as another menu of channels to chose from, but the difference being that these channels are being read from your SD card. You can update them and have what ever you like on it. As long as someone has made it, you can use it on your hacked Wii. Huzzah!

Now, a couple of points: Firstly, Nintendo don't like you doing this. I think it's some breach of some contract you probably signed at some but didn't stop to read. Might be a breach of warranty but that might apply to hardware only. Anyhoo, Nintendo would prefer you kept your Wii manacled to their software rather than what Bedroom Coders have been churning out for nothing. Updates might wipe stuff from your system as they try to vanquish The Homebrew Channel. This might result in your Wii getting broken, permanently. It might, but its not likely. With every new update, new instructions are given.

It's a bugger to install on the Wii. To install the Channel, you must first hack it using an SD card and a generally simple to use file package. There are many ways of hacking your wii. Here are the one's that will work with Wii's that have been recently updated:

Letterbomb: The only one that does not require a game to hack. Uses the messaging service instead.

Smash Stack: Uses Super Smash Bros. Brawl to hack the Wii. Usable on American and Japanese and European Wiis with different file packs for each region.

Indiana Pawns/BatHaxx/Return of the Jodi: Uses the Lego Games Indiana Jones, Batman and Star Wars: The Complete Saga respectively. I used BatHaxx myself. Operates by using special game saves.

Eri HaKawai: Uses Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World to hack the Wii in the same way the Lego games are used.

Yu-Gi-OWNED!: Uses, you guessed it, Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's Wheelie Breakers. Yes that one! Uses save files too.

If you happen to have access to some of these games, then you have a backup if the Letterbomb hack fails. Its the newest there but the most convenient as it doesn't demand a specific game.

Once installed, you may now take greater control over your little white box. The chains have been snapped and your hungry for the potential the internet's geeks have waiting for you.

Here's just some of the stuff I found I can get for my Wii:

A DVD Player: Something called MPlayer comes with a the ability to use something called DVDX to play DVD's like a PS2. That's sort of why my Spiral Knights Review is peppered with Monty Python and The Holy Grail lines, I'm using my Wii to watch it. DVDX is not something you have to install as it comes as part of the Homebrew Channel itself. All you have to do, really, is get MPlayer to play your DVD and your away. Its pretty good. Its not the fastest machine in the world as, well, it's a WIi. It'll take a while to load up but when running, I've found no problems. You can use a Gamecube controler as well as the Wiimote to do all the basic DVD functions. No more rooting through all the buttons for the pause button, just push A. But, you can't look at the special features on the Wii because there's no DVD navigation. You can watch the movie and that's it. Strangely, analogue sticks on the Gamecube allow you to change the shape of the Video being played. No idea why it does it, but it can. A decent use for the Wii as it's smaller than most DVD players and comes with an easy to use remote. Nintendo never bothered with DVD playback because they believed that the average household has enough things that plays DVD's in it. Doesn't mean we want you to remove the capability, Nintendo, it still might be handy.

The NCard: An odd little app that's supposed to link to somewhere called messageboardchampion.com. There we have what is known as the NCard, a universal gamer card where you can display all the games you own/have played as something that can live in your signature. Kind of cool but linking it up with another console would save you the bother of updating it yourself. Sadly, I cannot get this damn thing to work. It keeps killing the console. It's just part of the Homebrew Scene I guess, sometimes its not going to work for you.

The Homebrew Browser: Its a download program that gets then installs homebrew apps for you from a selection of Apps living on the interwebs. The selection is rather large but if what you want isn't there, your going to have to make it. It would seem, the tools are about if all these other apps live here. The GUI is basic and works. Scrolling is odd but functional. For what is basically a supermarket for free software, you can do a big favour to yourself by installing this.

Random Crap: The Homebrew Browser has a section called Demo. Its where all the little dregs of programs that can barely be called fully fledged games or utilities live. You may still download and look at them but they are more tech demos than actual software. As a result some are bizarre as they are pointless. Wiilight is one such program that does nothing but make the Disk Light brighten and fade. WiiStrobe is supposed to turn your TV into a strobe light by flashing at you. Not great for epileptics. Wiimote LED FLasher is rather self explanatory: Make the for lights on your Wii act light fairy lights for no reason at all. Apparently reminiscent of some car from the 1980's. I have no idea what it's on about.

And that's only a couple of the ones I tried. There are loads more.

Games: There are tones of Homebrew games for you to try. Some are interesting and well thought out. Some aren't so much. The good ones are things like Jumping Jack, a port of a ZX Spectrum game where you have to jump to the top of the screen by leaping through holes in plat forms. More difficult than you think. We also have Bash the Castle, sort of Angry Birds but with a trebuchet. I like these games and this works well. Several Versions of Tetris but the weirdest is something called Tetricycle. Its tetris in a cylinder. It made my brain hurt with the extra effort of wrapping my brain round it. There's also a port of Doom. Although, you could probably play Doom on your Microwave at this point. It works rather well. Its just that you can use the Wii Remote with it. Yes, Doom has Wii Motion Controls like Pikmin had them added too. It takes some getting used to as well as running at about 30 mph. Otherwise fine and functional. Lastly, we have a tech demo I rather like. Cubical Shooter is a proper Wii First Person Shooter where you are in a massive, checked room where weird zombies in office wear glide along the floor to try and kill you. The checked room is fully destructible and from the Wii cursor you can fire a constant stream of blue cubes. You can also jump a little to high for realism but its a nice hight. For just pure stress relief, this isn't bad.

What is bad is Powder Toy: a small game based on Falling Sand. Barely works, will crash if you so much as sneeze on it. The Untitled Project doesn't even load however. Crazy Blocks is just shooting blocks for no reason at all. Shooter is pointlessly shooting MSN logos. Sybon Action is a Mario Bros. clone where the creater wants you to die. Its like the hardcore versions of Mario World you can find. Supersonic Wii is a game that doesn't quite work. Your a ship and you have to hit targets to keep a song playing, like Guitar Hero. Its just that instead of the whole song, its just one layer of it. Your supposed to fanatically try to keep the whole thing plaything but it lessen one of the benefits of Guitar Hero: listening to music. There are plenty more. These are the one's I was interested in.

Utilities: Little useful programs for doing bits and pieces. There are Cheat Systems for your games and a downloader for the cheat codes they need. The downloader doesn't work for PAL regions so haven't had the chance to use them. Wii Explorer lets you look at what's on your SD card like your using a computer. Very handy. Wii VNC is confusing to set up but is supposed to allow you to remotely control your computer though your Wii. Haven't figured it out yet...Lastly, a Metronome. Its easy to use and works.

Emulators: So far I've looked at Wii 64 and Genesis Plus Gx. Both work rather well. Use either Wii Remote or Gamecube controllers. PLayed things like Sonic 2, Mario kart and excellent quality all round. Wii 64 did show slight slowdown however...

So, in the end, if you want to breathe a little more life into your Wii for nothing, try The Homebrew Channel. You'll be able to plug the holes in your requirements of the Wii that Nintendo don't seem to fussed about.

Nintendo of Europe and America anyway. As per usual, the Japanese have had way more channels handed to them...*sigh*...all ways the way....

All right, all right. I've been putting off Syl's next load of stuff but I'm going to remedy that.....at some point...For now:


Finally! I'm pretty sure I should have gotten in about two weeks ago but I haven't. Don't ask me why, I just haven't. Maybe the peeps at Sony or whoever is controlling this has taken its sweet time setting up my account, an automated process even this site that appears to be one of those cheep-to-run, DIY forums can get me an account quicker than Pottermore has done. Either that or the place wasn't built to a certain standard...Who knows?

Well, I guess I ought to explain what it's like and what it is is a reasonably nice fan site. Its boring but this thing has been well put together as far as I can see so far. Now, while I can whine and moan that there's not a huge amount to do except look for Harry Potter junk and J.K.'s little tit-bits, the damn things still in beta. That either means we will see more interactivity than there already is piled upon the site already or they'll leave as is but fix bugs and errors as we go. I'm hoping for the 'add more stuff' over 'bug-fixing' as it seems largely functional already.

When October finally rolls around, you wont have to scramble through the Sony website looking for a little flash thing, joining in with the torture of an entire server. Instead, you should just be able to sign up. Here's were things get a little different from normal fan sites. Harry Potter does have a kids audience too, remember? Pottermore tries to cut down on the possible filth people will undoubtedly put in their names by giving you one to choose from. This maybe just a Beta thing, where everyone has mostly a little anonymity so that people won't be found or groomed you hear about in other places. No sir! But what you get is some weird ones. But I wanted to see whether this was all worth it, so a few weeks ago I was dubbed GlowIce41. Mostly because I couldn't be 'Tyro' and mostly because GlowIce41 was deemed the best at the time.

Now we get to what happens first when you arrive. Firstly you have some weird Facebook friends list linking macgubbins to sift through. Once that's done, it broke on me. Annoyed, confused but undeterred, I tried the whole process again. It worked this time. There you go lads, make sure all the pages work! Big bug that.

What you are first confronted with is a weird looking metal gate, with an owl and what look like dog name tags, each say that they are locked. Somehow...Ah well, onwards through the Crystal Ball. After looking around at my new very empty profile page and trying to figure out what weirdos have the computer added as friends, I eventually had to go look at what appears to be the meat of the site: a storyboard of a talented artists interpretation of the events of the books. These are absolutely lovely pictures. Interestingly, the characters faces are rarely ever seen. Only Harry's appears about once through the whole thing. Maybe its some way of preserving the face of the characters you had in your head? Or maybe to stop people complaining that Harry doesn't look like Daniel Radcliff and so on and so on and so on (even though its supposed to be the other-way round, you fools! I remember there being a Harry Potter look-a-like contest to try and find a kid like Harry Potter...I swear there was one on the end of Newsround once...anyway).

Now this is a little more than just a slideshow on your computer screen. Oh no! Its also interactive. Yeah! It moves about a bit. While mine never had any sound (look into it lads) to bring it to life more so than just a largely static picture with a few bits that react to my mouse, they also have a very simple game through-out the whole series of books. Yes, your expected to route through these scenes for random collectables. Some take the form of another J.K. side note. Others take the form of random junk I assume will become useful later.

J.K.'s unlockable two-cents worth is interesting. She'll discuss her part in creating the books, right down to how she came up with characters and a good idea of her journey from that woman over there in the weird scarf that writes all the time to a Literature Deity who's works are loved by millions. That fact that it is a reward nudges you towards reading it, which is the right way to go. It seems to operate more as a the Maker's Commentary would work for a DVD but for a book instead. You get a key scene from the book then a little bit about it. Even better, you can enjoy both when you like rather than have someone mumble over something going "Oh yes, I liked this bit." for an hour and a half, ruining both experiences as both commentary and film fight for attention. Its an interesting feature. I shall have to read Harry Potter 1 again with this in tandem to see how well it works.

Everything else you pick up is just you knicking things from those key scenes like you've escaped from St. Mungo's while being treated for Kleptomania. Some of it reports to be useful, like potion ingredients or Spell books but I'll get to that. The rest is just Harry Potter related tat. It just sits in your 'Trunk', the place where you horde the stuff you find. There is no reason or this. You can't sell them, play with them or interact with them in any other way. Come on, lads! Think! What am I supposed to do with an Alarm Clock I nicked from the Cupboard under the stairs, ey? Ey? I'm supposed to put Fluffy to sleep, Quirrel can still duck if I throw it at him and that goes for Malfoy too.

What else? Well, the Story Board Slide show initially aims to be the framing device for other things on the site. For example, it's through this that you unlock the dog tags I mentioned earlier. They then become a few important pages and locations that you will require to continue. Firstly, you go through Harry with the Dursley's. Then Hagrid takes Harry away to Diagon Alley. Here, your expected to get stuff for the school year. Yes, your expected to go shopping. There are a variety of different things on sale that appear to have no effect on other parts of the site at all. The non-pointless parts of your shopping list happen to be your pet and your wand. Your pet becomes your avatar. No chance of anything else I'm afraid. You can have a variety of toad, cat or owl. I have a ginger cat, because I'm that cool.

Choosing your wand is actually done through a weird little questionnaire. It seems to base your wand type, core and material entirely on a vague outline of your physical appearance. I cannot tell for the life of me why this is. Are wands that superficial? I could have been (and I stress could) a psychopathic, egotistic, narcissistic time-bomb and there would still be a wand that would choose me?

Well, after that, it all kicks off. Hogwarts Express, Hogwarts, the Sorting Ceremony. Just before you go through with it though, J.K. appears from her pure white coffee room and has a little chat with you. Something about the Sorting Hat's word being final. Doesn't mention about whether you can slip it a couple of Galions and get in Gryffindor...You go through yet another questionnaire, this time more appropriately based on your personality, get judged and placed. I was put in Slytherin...Yes, not a great start. I mean, Slytherin are always painted as gits. All the Slytherin pictured are usually complete tosspots. There doesn't seem to be a reasonable one in the lot. So, I'm destined to be a great wizard, possibly a genocidal maniac that commands almost god like power? All righty. Better than other after school prospects, I guess. I'd take Super Villain over McDonalds Crew Member.

And for the rest of the story board, you collect stuff with occasional interaction with the story at certain parts. One part is Potion making, which is all right.Its a simple Cooking Mama clone but a little more complicated in parts. You have a recipe and you follow it. Easy. You can bring it up when ever you like but I still couldn't get past the first potion your expected to make. The point where your expected to pick up horned slugs was to close to the wand you slap on the side for extra...je ne se quoi? Because more cooking shows need more sticks that fire lightning? Anyway, I'd miss what I wanted and kept hitting the wand. That would ruin my potion making dreams faster than you can say "Izzy-wizzy, lets get busy". Its a frustrating thing. Please move them further apart lads.

The Spell Books are supposed to allow the learning of new spells. Yes, wizard duelling has resurfaced as a thing. You apparently battle other people for house points, which help win your house the house cup. Not sure when it's awarded though, this is the thing. Or why you'd want it other than for a sense of pride...Casting spells has never been that hard in other imaginings of Harry Potter. The games really couldn't care about the difficulty of learning how to do the spell because it go in the way of the action. Instead, Harry played a useless little mini-game before being allowed to shout "FLIPENDO!" to his hearts content without needing to worry about concentration. The Playstation version made you do one of those 'repeat after me' mini-games to 'teach' you a spell. The PC version made you trace the spell's special symbol in a certain time limit as well as you can. Make too many mistakes and you will have to do it again and again and a-bloody-gain...Both versions basically thought that the wand should be just a special, context sensitive 'make something happen' device that could some how now just the right spell for the job.

Pottermore can do that. Instead, we have an interpretation of how a real spell that requires skill and concentration actually works: Awkwardly. You instead have a few dots with a letter on them. You can either click each one to make a ring appear, then click to make it disappear then move the the next one till the spell has been cast. Or, you use the corresponding letter key on your keyboard. Trying to find the next key to press in less than a second it too much to do so you have to keep at least one finger over one of the required keys to be there in time. It's not perfect but its a good way of creating challenge.

Now I would tell you about the Wizard Duelling but its down for maintenance. Maybe after I've had more of of a go with Pottermore, I'll be able to report on it. For now, I leave you with the initial ramblings...And endless memories of a blockly little man with circles around his eyes wearing a black dress shouting "FLIIIPENDO!" endlessly till its embedded in your mind like a splinter of your childhood.

Ah dear lord Tyro, you make me laugh.

I wont say much. But I do have to say, judging by your last comment the sorting hat does seem to know best!

Yeah, yeah...Well, your position on my 'not to kill' list is not set in stone...

Did you ever get into Pottermore in the end?