Although I am a massive comic fan and write my own comic saga of epic proportions, I strangely enough don't own that many of them, but I like to think that the ones I do own are pretty tip top, for example Batman: Dark Knight returns, I think it stems from two things, one, not growing up in America, where ace and amazing comics about daring do are easy to stumble across, let's face it, the Beano doesn't hold as much appeal. Also, when I was young, in fact for a long time after the age of 'young', if a comic had an awesome cover it almost never had decent art inside it, you opened it and were like, 'what the hell is this playschool shit?, when the outside was so awesome'. But thankfully, andmost likely due to computers, this is changing. And I now have several comics that look spanky ALL the way through, one of which is SPECTACULAR SPIDERMAN - COUNTDOWN, which is by a stunning duo, namely Humberto Ramos (artist) and Paul Jenkins (writer), between them they have created a trilogy of kwality coowolnes, Spiderman, return of the green goblin, countdown and the hunger, all of which rule, and I simply picked this one to review because I could, moohahahahaha...

The plot basically chronicles the return of Doctor Oc in a post 9-11 New York.In a climate were fears of terror are high, Oc takes it upon himself to embroil his many arms in the problem and bring forth a plethora of pandemonium. All for the purpose of finishing off our wall hugging hero.

The story is great, with a wonderful mix of biting reality. With the commentary on the phobias of the people of New York, post nine eleven,mixed with a great dash of fantabulous comic action, the story works well (as a with all three) as an exploration of youth, relationships and the whole problem of finding ones way as a young adult, something I found poignant at the time of reading it. The book also serves as aninteresting observation of life in the big A after the events of theworld trade centre, and tries, and in my opinion succeeds in coming awaywith a feeling of hope and solidarity, all things that make the comic an interesting product of our times and very different, a definite page turner.

Countdown is pushed along with Humberto Ramos' absolutely jaw breakingly amazing art work, every page is a splash of  colour and movement. Whenever I feel uninspired or a bit slow in my drawing, I come back to these three books. Absolutely fab, it deserves a good 10 out of 10.

I have to admit, I really like First-Person Shooter games. They give me kicks. However, being of fairly sound moral constitution, I have no American-style shooting sprees planned. Besides, what would I use? I can just imagine it: I enter the local shopping centre in Matrix-style slow-motion black leather, swinging out dual super-soakers and proceed to drench the lone security guard, then turn on the nearest bunch of mobile-monkeys, going right for their precious non-waterproof gadgets! I toss away my expended water-weapons and draw a pair of fully loaded spud-guns, heading for Wilko's. Suddenly a handful of security guards swarm from those hidden mirrored doors (you know the ones), and train their dangerous gazes on me. Suddenly my fly-sense kicks in, and I find myself dodging their every dirty look while starchifying them one by one. Spud bits pepper the faux-marble floor and mirrored surfaces, while the clean-up bill can be seen rising in the corner of the screen.
Then one stray potato fragment hits an old lady in the face, knocking off her varifocals. She gasps, holding a horrified expression. Cut to big close-up, Battleship Potemkin style.
I think I've made my point, but I do feel ashamed I even thought about it that much. Time to sweep it under the rug again, Geoff...

I am someone who tends to avoid buying things that are over £10 in price if  they are things I don't expressly need. Computer games, as much as I love them, are not essential. Lucky for me I found a copy of UT2003 - The sequel to the classic Unreal Tournament - for a fiver at my local second-hand games shop. I finally decided I couldn't resist any longer, as I played the demo at about the time it came out, (2003, I think) and I secretly wanted it ever since. Plus I figured it wasn't going to get any cheaper.
So here is my small, three-year-late review this fine game.

Some of the good bits:
My first impressions on really getting into the game have been the obvious level-up in graphic detail. It's pretty sweet by [my] standards. I have a faster PC than I did back then, so it handles UT2003 better than when I played the demo, but still struggles a bit on high detail views. Nonetheless, the framerate is okay, (averaging 45fps. at 800x600 on medium detail) so it's very playable.
The modelling and character animation in UT2003 is several orders of magnitude better than UT1, motion-capture seems to have been used well and sparingly. They're not all to the same standard, but the Karma physics engine seems to make up for some of the weaker anims. Ow! Twisting limbs and crunchy bones! Ragdoll physics in UT2003, while somewhat primitive by recent standards, work just fine. In fact, much better than some more recent games I have had the displeasure to experience... I'm not naming any names, though.
Skill-wise, it seems pretty much on a par with UT. I could just about manage "Masterful" in UT1, but that's pretty bloody hard. I often lose to opponents that can seemingly shoot the backside off a fly at 500 metres (0.2 seconds after they've spotted it). I haven't tried that difficulty in UT2003 yet, but I don't mind as I like having a relatively laid-back botmatch on "Skilled" level, or a exciting challenge on "Adept". And if I want to experiment with the game, I can always bust it down to "Novice" and laugh as my lame opponents are repeatedly humiliated.
But secretly I know the bots are so much better than me, and they're only giving me the choice of skill to humour me. Some things are better left in happy ignorance.

Some of the not-so-good bits:
They could have included a few more DM maps with the game, but I can't complain, as I know that there are so many good third-party maps out there, thanks to it being another eminently moddable and pro-community game. Pity that I use a dial-up connection - most of the good stuff would cost an arm and a leg in download times.
The maps are noticeably bigger than those of UT1; while seeming to make gameplay more expansive, players often seem difficult to make out at even medium distances. It can't just be my short-sightedness - I have lenses to correct that. It's almost as if some silly bigwig just looked at all the maps and decided that they should be scaled up by a certain factor. I have to say I prefer the relative cozyness of the original UT maps.
The new In-game HUD is much the same as before, but with the unwelcome change of the info text - it's just tiny, and in a bad place to read, especially as the messages don't stay for long.
And what's with the menus? No more UWindows interface. The new menus are such an awful step backwards! It's the computer game equivalent of the CBS Field-Sequential Color System - an early 1950's American colour TV system that was basically a black-and-white TV tube with a huge spinning colour-wheel in front of it. I know technology wasn't as advanced back then, but one simply wonders how such retrograde, bullet-in-the-foot ideas get put into serious development.
And why..? Oh, wait. I remember. Xbox. Unreal Championship This is what happens when you develop a PC game alongside a console equivalent. The PC has this thing called a "Mouse". People like using it. A lot.

But I do really enjoy playing UT2003. It's got bucketloads of action and gore, and manages to squeeze a giggle from me least once a match for one reason or another - comedy flaming headshots and painful, crunchy ragdoll moments being some usual reasons. It's decidedly different in look and feel to the original UT, but I don't hold that against it. It isn't as original as its predecessor in regards to new gameplay ideas, but what it adds to the game overall is a big step in the right direction. It's a wonderful, addictive game that I'd love to give top marks, but there are just too many niggling faults that I try to look over when I play it. I'll likely still be playing the old UT after I've given this one up.
Aside from its obvious flaws, this great game from way back in "olden" 2003 comes very highly recommended. And it's dead cheap now, too. For more detailed info, go to the BeyondUnreal website.

8 out of 10 fingers prefer it!

Right, now then, where to begin? I haven’t bought anything for a while that really rocked my werol’ in the form of games. I find myself growing stayed in my old age, and tiring of the same old first person shooters. However shiny they get, they're still doom, or so tactically dependent that you need to be Andy McNab before you can effectively cling to the shadows long enough to  prevent any one seeing your fearsomely cool night vision goggles.
In the light of gaming trends, I find myself running desperately for the shade and comfort of nostalgia, with collections of arcade games that give me my quick game fix and don’t tend to leave me cursing the hell spawn that robbed me in the name of entertainment. Any way, I guess my point is this, yes I have one, I have been finding myself drawn to simpler more satisfying fun and it has come in the shape of LEGO STAR WARS. And in the case of this article LEGO STAR WARS II, the sequel, with the original films, which like everyone else, leaves my brain feeling a little uncomfortable.
I, like many others over the past few years, have found many faults by which to lead Mr Lucas to his death for, not least of which, messing with everything that was my childhood. However, with LEGO STAR WARS, they have gone a long way toward me sparing his life, and that of his chin.

This game is sweet. It follows the plot of the original STAR WARS trilogy beautifully and adds its own quaint and amusing Lego spin to every cut-scene and every in game animation, the love that has gone into this project is clear, as with the original - every character has its own style of fighting and behavior.
My girlfriend and I have spent the last few nights working our way through the story mode in multi-player and have totally enjoyed the experience, as we did with the original, and were so glad to see that the publishers of the game had actually improved on the original, as apposed to some sequels of late that seem to have removed everything that made the first game good and replaced it with crap no one could ever need. STARWARS LEGO 2 has added and improved many aspects of the game experience, I was so thrilled when I found a load of parts hidden on one level and discovered that I could assemble them into a formidable imperial walker and use it to lay waste to a swathe of a desert town that happened to be over run by storm troopers - a feature that was absent in the original SWL. building itself is a new feature, not reliant on force based characters such as the Jedi and the Sith.

As with the original you can unlock and buy more than 50 playable characters, from Luke, Leia and Darth Vader to favourites such as Greedo, the Jawas and Gamorrean (pig) guards, and if you own the original on the same system (which is something I need to rectify) you can transport characters over from SWL1 and use them in SWL2, which is cool beyond reason (this may only be true to the xbox, I just don’t know).
The games menu, which nattily is the bar from SW new hope, complete with the band music, features 2 cloning tanks that allow you to create your very own personalized character from parts of characters you have encountered or unlocked. Any way, this is a review not a sales pitch, my main drive is that there is tonnes of totally innocent charming and funny crap to find inside this game, and its not like you have to trawl hard to find it.

Now, for the down sides, as I say, the developers have improved many things about the game, including the amazingly frustrating flight sections of the original SWL, out has gone the instant death rubbish and the need to start the whole section from the start again if you both die, thank god, how annoying was that?, (lots is the correct answer, lots annoying). However it does feature a new little bitch - if one of you die in a flying section and the other character is too far ahead when they re-spawn, it yanks the other player back, and if it yanks um back too far it can pull the other player back with them and both of you can get stuck in a flip and flop loop for a spell, which can be not so much fun.
Most of my gripes come from the multi-player side of it and probably don’t rear their ugly head in single player, but, as I play most of my games in cahoots with my girlfriend, these issues tend to arise. For example, the camera in multi-player has a tendency to drag players; if one of you is on the far left of the screen for example, and the other is standing on a cliff edge to the right of the screen, the movement of the left player can drag the right player to their death, not too funny. It's not helped by the fact that if the left player doesn’t move toward the right quickly, the right hand player will keep re-spawning above the gap and dying over and over. This doesn’t effect your life count, but it does cost you in-game money that your character has collected, vital for achieving bonuses, ANNOYING GUYS, sort it out.
Their are sections in the game were a bit of thinking is required, cool, I don’t mind puzzle solving, keeping the old grey matter on the boil, why not. But i do mind if I don’t know what puzzle needs solving, and in places within SWL 2 the answer can be bafflingly hard to get hold of, and you'll find yourself standing around going, 'OK, now what?' a fair bit, but only if you're dim like me. :)

So, my conclusion is this. STAR WARS LEGO 2 is the most fun I’ve had sitting down in a while, its charming, funny, light hearted and has a touch of comedy violence, always good. If you're tired of dimming the lights and sweating your frustrations out through things like Doom 3 and are after a game that you can pick up and play and have a big grin on your face the whole way through it this is for you.
My rating: It probably would of been 10, but there are a few bits to the game play that have caused my to cuss a few times, but not as much as the original.
Got to be an 8 out of 10.