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© Allan for Culch.ie, 2010. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Art, Festivals, Galway, Múscailt

Then, the explanation of how YOU CAN, get rich. Too.

It must be a Gabe and Max franchise.

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© Allan for Culch.ie, 2010. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: gabe and max, lulz, youtube

Our guns have two barrels, for we are from the future

I was a little sceptical coming up to the release of Mass Effect 2. Ever since Modern Warfare 2 became the most popular thing ever and somebody discovering that if you make games to make money then taking money from the development team and putting it into advertising instead is guaranteed to increase your sales, I been very cautious of a game that you can see everywhere coming up to its release. Thankfully Bioware and EA Games seem to have gotten the balance right because Mass Effect 2 (PC, Xbox 360) is not over hyped shoot ‘em up rubbish, it’s really damn good Sci-Fi and even better role playing combined with better than average shoot ‘em up bits.

You play commander Shepard, a character that cannot be described because he or she is your character. He could be an old and militant frontline soldier or she could be a young and shy sniper. Interestingly you have the option to import your Shepard from Mass Effect 1 along with all of his or her choices, experience and traits. This means that a hell of a lot of Mass Effect 2 potential story depends on choices made in the first game, from which characters are still alive to who’s calling the shots as head of the Galactic Alliance. Annoyingly there’s no way to make these choices if starting Mass effect 2 without importing a save game and default Shepard’s previous choices automatically make him a bit of a dick. Overall though the import a save feature is one of Mass Effect 2’s most impressive features, to the point that watching another person’s Shepard play though their version of the game feels like some kind of bizarre dream.

No matter what version of the galaxy you play in the basic goal of Mass effect 2 is quite simple. Fly around the galaxy and recruit a crew of various aliens, sexes and professions then ensure said crew are loyal by doing some sort of personal favour before attempting the final mission. It’s how you carry out this task that makes Mass Effect 2 truly great. You are Captain of the Normandy, a spaceship, but not just any old video game third person ship that you fly aimlessly through space with no sense of scale. This is a ship that you can explore, a ship that is driven by a whole crew who are under your orders, you can point it at a planet then head off for a ship inspection, visiting crew members in their own quarters, hang out in your very own Captain’s Cabin, stare aimlessly into space from the observatory or even visit THE ENGINE ROOM! A dream come true for sci-fi loving gamers everywhere and one that even the recent Star Trek Online managed to completely fail at.

Missions themselves involve landing on a planet with a team of three. These environments are wonderfully diverse from a snow covered crash site to a planet where direct sunlight is so strong sticking to the shade is essential. Missions are either a linear Gears of War cover based, blast your way through to the end affair or more story driven exploration where conversation and mystery solving is the key. RPG elements of combat have been greatly simplified from the original. Though you can still alter weapons characters are pretty much auto equipped with the best you could give them. Levelling involves giving points to individual skills rather than an overall stat increase. Should you mess up a character the option to redistribute their skill points is available for a price. The biotic powers available to some characters offer some amusing and fun combat tactics turning off gravity for three enemies at a time then watching them float hopelessly away never gets old. Thankfully every team member gains experience per mission even if they didn’t fight. This means you never have to worry about balancing the teams experience and are free to take whichever characters are your favourite as much as you like. Additional upgrades to the ship and character equipment can be made by spending raw materials mined from planets via a scanning mini game that involves looking at a graph, thankfully the rewards are frequent enough so that all this graph staring only gets a tiny bit old before the game is out. The exploration missions tend to depend on your conversation options. Shepard has Paragon and Renegade levels that increase as sensible or more rouge actions are carried out, depending on this you may be able to solve situations with words or quick shots to the head at the right moment but the scales raise themselves quite slowly and often game changing decisions rest on dialogue option you don’t have access too. Bizarrely you are sometimes given bonuses for maximising a skill meaning at one point I became a nicer guy because I was a really good sniper…

You’ll spend a lot of time worrying about your crewmates and as such some are well written characters you’ll become attached to and others are… well… a bit crap. Crewmates Miranda, Thane, Jack and Garrus all have complex and diverse back stories which often cause conflict between the characters themselves. However the mystery man funding Shepards new mission could have had a hell of a lot more to him. First of all why is he called “The Illusive Man?” Every time anybody says his name out loud I’m waiting for them to giggle to themselves as let’s face it, it’s a bit silly. Of course Mass Effect 1’s controversial relationship side quest returns. Any male character (if you’re a lady) or female (if you’re a chap) can be seduced via presents and conversation which could eventually lead to steamy, sometimes interspecies cutscene. However I’m afraid I can make no comment on this as try as he might my poor Shepard could not get himself laid. Miranda put a hand on his bicep once and said maybe when the mission is complete but once it was she then claimed there was “a lot to do.” In the mean time any other potential love interests seemed to all “like him as a friend”

Story of my Life really…

9 Enterprises out of 10 but play through Mass Effect first and it’s even better.

© pipmonk for Culch.ie, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Bioware, EA, Gaming, Mass Effect 2, PC, Xbox 360

© Lottie for Culch.ie, 2010. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Awesome Movie Moment, Who Framed Roger Rabbit

The latest additon ‘Ponyo’ might not make it to classic status but is far more accesible than their previous cinema release ‘Spirited Away’, which, though quite long, is visually stunning. I reckon Ponyo will be well recieved by kids. It’s got giant fish waves! Lots of colour and movement and magic toy tug boats. Can’t say fairer than that.

May I recommend

My Neighbour Totoro. Two children fear for their mother who has become ill and is in hospital in the city. They go exploring and meet a creature, Totoro. He shows them the Cat bus so they can see their mum and not fear for her so much.

and above all, though done before the formation of what is now Studio Ghibli, if you watch only one, then it MUST be ‘Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind‘. Beautifully animated, this is set in a post apocolypse future where humans live in small pockets of civilisation. The rest of the world is a wasteland that has been taken over by a toxic fungal forest filled with giant insects. Nausicaä of the wind valley is a young girl who, on her air glider helps keep insects (carrying fungus spores) from entering the valley. She seems to have a good rappor with the forest insects and must use this to save them all when the creatures of the forest are stammpeded towards her village and stop a new world war.

© Sharon for Culch.ie, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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Whoops. @VodafoneUK is going to be in the news for all the wrong reasons tomorrow. Stupid thing to say anyway, but probably the end of Twitter guy’s pay packet.

Via A Hitchiker’s Guide .

© Allan for Culch.ie, 2010. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Twitter, UK, vodafone

Doesn’t anyone else find Apple supremely irritating? Sure, their products typically exhibit the cutting edge in industrial design, and their user interface design prowess is famously unrivalled.  Yet, call me a curmudgeon, a Free Software communist, or just a sore loser, but given the restrictive choices that Apple products typically offer-our way or the highway- I choose the highway every time. It’s not just the way that the company exerts paranoid control over its products through its insistence on closed software ecosystems; or the way that they thumb their nose at established computing standards in favour of proprietary alternatives. Hell, it’s not even the infamous ‘Apple Tax’ which sees Apple product users pay exorbitant prices for basic accessories like adapters and cables, as well as the computers themselves. What really gets my goat is the religious fervour that greets Apple product launches, where Apple’s well-oiled hype machine has the world’s media quite literally eating out of their hand, repeating verbatim whatever hubris and hyperbole-laden superlatives that Steve Jobs and co. have offered on that particular day. It’s the suffocating aura of smugness that pervades these presentations that I can’t stand- the studied cool, the carefully engineered choreography, and the ever-so-slightly religious undertones that represent to me at least, the ultimate in commodity fetishism. But here’s a thought: Perhaps Apple were always destined to become a major player in the videogames space. After all, for gamers, proprietary hardware, software, restrictive DRM and closed ecosystems are a fact of life, whether your system of choice is manufactured by Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft.

Of course, closed, controlled ecosystems have clear benefits when trying to build a unified, consistent platform for videogame development. Apple’s adherence to this approach has paid huge dividends with the success of their App Store, which has created a whole new market for mobile applications. While Google’s rival Android operating system has, after a slow start, finally begun to make serious inroads into the mobile app market, the company’s failure to set baseline hardware specs for Android devices have made game development in particular a compatibility nightmare for developers. Apple have long been signalling their ambitions to move into gaming- spying weaknesses in both Nintendo’s DS (poor network infrastructure; old technology; highly youth-skewed audience) and Sony’s PSP (failed physical media, iffy software support) platforms. The iPhone/ iPod Touch’s combination of large, hi-res, multitouch screen, decent graphics capabilities, download-only App Store platform and the unmistakable aura of Apple cool catapulted it to considerable success as a gaming machine. But for this author, the device has been stymied as a gaming machine by one thing more than anything else- the lack of physical buttons. This wasn’t lost on EA Sports supremo and well-known industry figure Peter Moore who  suggested prior to the iPad announcement that the existence of buttons on the device would be a crucial part of determining the iPad’s gaming prowess. One would have reasonably expected, then, for the company to right this wrong with their next mobile product- after all, it’s not as if space would be at a premium like it would be on a pocketable device like the iPhone. It was with some surprise this week, then, that Apple’s much-hyped unveiling of their new tablet computer, the iPad, was met with an unusually muted reaction from the gathered Twitterati and tech journalists. Aside from the enlarged screen and new applications and services like the Kindle-baiting iBookstore, this seemed to be very much a case of evolution rather than evolution. And while I certainly won’t make the foolish mistake of writing off the iPad before it even launches, it does seem clear that that the new device doesn’t have the ‘game-changing’ characteristics of the original iPhone before it. And, speaking of games, I watched Apple’s presentation with a keen eye to see how aggressively the company were taking on Nintendo and Sony, who between them control the entire (non-phone) handheld gaming market.  For me, at least, the revelation that the iPad, like the iPhone before it, would be a virtually buttonless device seemed to firmly indicate that the three tech behemoths are not quite on a collision course- at least, not yet. Don’t get me wrong- I’m all in favour of touch-screen gaming. As the first mass-market touch-screen videogames console, the Nintendo DS didn’t take long to prove that touch-screen gaming, when done right, worked a treat, and could breath new life and freshness into creaky old genres.

But for this author, the device has been stymied as a gaming machine by one thing more than anything else- the lack of physical buttons.

But the fact remains that the DS has a d-pad, shoulder buttons and face buttons- a total of 9 (counting the d-pad as a single button) for a very good reason. As many an over-ambitious developer has found, touch interaction- even multi-touch interaction- has limits, particularly in genres like racing, fighting, platforming, and frankly any genre which has complex movesets or requires precision timing. On the iPhone, where there is no stylus input and players must use their podgy digits to interact with the game, these limitations are exacerbated even further. There are exceptions, of course, but as a rule, it is in the puzzle and casual game space that the iPhone has flourished. Despite the protestations of noted iPhone dev ngmoco, who argue that iPad games will be a less ’snacky’ experience, I believe that the sole reliance on multi-touch input means that ’snacky’ (read: casual) titles will continue to dominate, leaving the more meaty experiences for the other consoles. The iPhone cleverly accommodated for its lack of buttons with some inventive use of multitouch and accelerometer-based control. But by and large, they are inferior- and often unplayable- substitutes for buttons. Despite the larger screen, the iPad will surely suffer the same fate. None of which is to say that games with limited player inputs can’t be any good- I’m a big proponent of simplicity in game design, and titles like Orbient and WarioWare (both on Wii) and the more recent Tomena Sanner on iPhone/WiiWare have demonstrated that compelling gameplay can be achieved with the bare minimum of controller inputs- but as a general rule, while buttonless gaming isn’t going anywhere, to dispense entirely with them seems just plain silly, and places restrictions on developers that will impact seriously on the quality and type of games that will appear on the platform. When Sony and Nintendo unveil their next-generation handheld consoles- most likely this year- you can be assured that whatever their next wacky innovation in user interface, the good old fashioned analogue button will be along for the ride. Apple may yet live to regret its omission.

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© markcullinane for Culch.ie, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: games, iPad, No Added Sugar

Tickets for all films will be available at 11am tomorrow from the IFI with a maximum of 4 tickets per person, all allocated on a first come, first served basis.. Tickets will not be available online or by phone.

		IFI OPEN DAY: PONYO	12.30
		IFI OPEN DAY: BALLROOM OF ROMANCE	12.50
		IFI OPEN DAY: ARCHIVE AT LUNCHTIME	13.15
		IFI OPEN DAY: GHOST WORLD	14.15
		IFI OPEN DAY: 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY	14.30
		IFI OPEN DAY: EAMON	15.00
		IFI OPEN DAY: MY NIGHT WITH MAUD	16.30
		IFI OPEN DAY: WELCOME TO THE EMERALD ISLE	17.00
		IFI OPEN DAY: BRINGING UP BABY	17.10
		IFI OPEN DAY: MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW	18.30
		IFI OPEN DAY: GRIZZLY MAN	18.50
		IFI OPEN DAY: CRAZY HEART	19.10
		IFI OPEN DAY: A SINGLE MAN	20.50
		IFI OPEN DAY: AUDIENCE CHOICE; THE LIVES OF OTHERS	21.20

If you want to know more, go to the IFI’s Website . I might see some of you tomorrow.

© Darren for Culch.ie, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Free, IFI, Movies

I have always thoroughly adored Dublin’s Powerscourt Centre. Long before it was ever home to some of my favourite shops and spaces (Circus, The Loft … places where dreams are made ) I always found it one of the city’s most beautiful areas in which to wander and spend time. The incredible interior combined with the range of stores seems to merge beautifully the Dublin of old and new. The stunning 18th century town mansion lends itself perfectly to the eclectic antiques gallery on the first floor – always worth a visit to see what wonderful ‘new’ gems there are to covet. Why, I can just see Lord Powercourt himself drinking tea from those precious china cups.

Continuing my recent journey of re-discovery through the centre I wandered into the still relatively new Powerscourt Gallery, housed in the original ballroom at the top of the building. As always the Georgian room is beautifully presented with a diverse mix of artwork that offers visitors wonderful musings should you be lucky enough to have the time. Featured artists include Frank Kiely, Ayelet Lalor, Lynn Stringer and James Kenny to name just a few. If you’re not around the city then the gallery is definitely worth the trip on your horse-drawn as many of their stunning pieces are incredibly reasonably priced thus making the beautiful world of art happily more accessible for you and I …

As I contentedly made my way around the gallery I got a wonderful surprise when out of the corner of my eye I spotted a most delightful lone Bolero hanging under one of the paintings. Delicately handmade in a beautiful fabric of autumnal colours the garment was like a piece of art itself. On excited enquiry I was told that this charming design was from ‘Made with Joy’, a new label from Dubliner Joy Lyons. Also made by Joy’s hand, nestled in an array of romantic candles, were truly the most fabulous Valentines sets that I ever had the pleasure of discovering. In matching floral fabrics were handmade sleep masks (or ‘winkies’ as myself and Harriet like to refer to them as – essential in ensuring a lady’s all important beauty sleep) and precious little lavender parcels (to keep your smalls drawer smelling delicate). Finally! A Valentine’s present that is both ladylike and non-fattening … just what Beatrice dreams of receiving from Mr. Darcy. The good news is that Joy makes a number of such original designs exclusively for the gallery so, in much the same vein as The Loft, you are likely to be pleasantly surprised each time you visit.

And the fabulousness of the Powerscourt Gallery doesn’t stop there it seems! Run by the wonderfully imaginative Maria and Lindara, the gallery also holds a number of events and performances throughout the year including plays and poetry readings. Tomorrow (Saturday 5^th February) they open their doors to all the junior art & craft lovers with a Valentines Children’s Craft Afternoon where little ones are invited into the gallery to make ‘heart-filled’ personalised gift bags. It’s on between 1.30pm and 4.30pm so any Papas that decide to attend with their clan are sure to receive double points from the Mama’s that are not only set to receive an original Valentine’s gift but will also get a couple of precious hours to themselves

See Powerscourt Gallery’s website for all further info – and enjoy!

Beatrice x

© Beatrice for Culch.ie, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Dublin, event, Fashion

Upcoming Events

Limerick for Haiti – 21 February

Photograph competition in The Body Shop, Dundrum this Saturday

Vicar Street concert in aid of drop Haiti’s debt – 11 February

New mystery reality show

An all year round event – a visit to the Guinness Storehouse

And some previously mentioned events you can still catch include Peter’s garden day –   Dark dining for Valentine’s –   Little Gem –   Picturing New York –   Francis Bacon –   Galway Film Society -   Sing-along Sound of Music

Culch’s Birthday

This week Culch celebrated its first anniversary with a screening of the Bill Murray classic Groundhog Day: the invitation and the review

Film

Reviews out this week for Pigeon Impossible ,   Its Complicated ,   All About Steve ,   8.5 Hours and   the Princess & the Frog premiere

DVDs out this week

Music

Frightened Rabbit album review ,   Jedward’s new single and   no Snow Patrol at this year’s Meteors

Television

Review of Got to Dance

Gossip

Grammy themed gossip from Sweary this week

Games

Review of new Sonic the Hedgehog 4 game

Random Whimsy

Warp factor PML

© bngr for Culch.ie, 2010. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Catch-Up, Culch, Culch Catch-Up

Sega has had a game in development for a few months now under the name Project Needlemouse, and leaked a teaser trailer to go with it. Fans quickly suspected that this was a new Sonic title, but yesterday they announced the game’s real title to the world: Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1. They also announced that the game will be available on all three major consoles, as a downloadable title from the Playstation Store, XBox Live Arcade, as well as via WiiWare. That gives the indication that it’ll probably cost less than €20. Sweet.

So what of the game itself? The official site claims that the plot “follows the adventure of the series’ main protagonist, Sonic the Hedgehog after the events of Sonic & Knuckles. Following the destruction of the Death Egg and Angel Island back in the sky, Sonic takes a break and explores new territories by himself. However unknowingly his nemesis Doctor Eggman had also survived their last encounter and is preparing a new trap to get rid of Sonic.”

Sega has also released a 48 second preview video for the title, which is due out some time this summer, of which only 3 seconds is actual in-game footage. That 3 seconds has got me excited though. It’ll be like playing the Mega Drive all over again, and who wouldn’t love to dust theirs down and give it a go. Remember how good/annoying (delete as appropriate) Casino Night Zone was from Sonic 2? Well, imagine that again, except in HD. Excited? I know I am.

© Ronan for Culch.ie, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Playstation 3, Retro, Sonic the Hedgehog, Video Games, Wii, Xbox 360

Say what you like about Limerick (Dolores O’Riordan is from Limerick, so I figure they’re to blame for Zo-om-bay, ay, ay, ay, which directly inspired Umber-ella-ella-ella), but its people have a mighty inclination towards the grand scale when they want something done.

So it is with the plans for Hurt For Haiti, a special day-long benefit taking place on February 21st in various venues on O’Connell Street. There will be street entertainment, lovely grub, local luminaries, and even nice massages and the like, if all the lovely grub gets a bit much. And people with ears will enjoy performances from the likes of Walter Mitty and The Realists, The Funk Junkies, and The Brad Pitt Light Orchestra (Brad Pitt not included).

All proceeds go to the Irish Red Cross .

The ever-tenacious Bock has a big hand in this, so you can head over to his blog for more information and updates on the line-up, or indeed to find out how you can help. You can also email the organisers on hurtforhaiti@gmail.com

If you’re in Limerick on the day in question, you could do a lot worse than allow yourself to be entertained out of a few quid for this very, very good cause.

© Sweary for Culch.ie, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Haiti, limerick

Oh, for anyone that may be interested, the real Groundhog did see a shadow on Tuesday morning, so we are destined for another 6 weeks of winter. But we didn’t let that ruin our night and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

I just wanted to say thanks to all the people who came along. I had so much fun once I finally calmed down.

A few people I didn’t thank on the night, though I should have, are Anthony, Sinead, Eoin, Blaithin and Dave for making the night run so smoothly. I also want to thank Paula in EMI for sorting us out for some spot prizes. It was a nice touch for the evening. Well done to the winners, Mark, Ben, Nicola and Dennis.

I once again want to give a huge huge thank you to Oisin and The Sugar Club for making the night happen. At such short notice, he stepped in and saved my ass. Oisin, already looking forward to next February 2nd, if you’ll have us.

I’m sorry I didn’t get around to talking to everyone individually last night. I will rectify that over the coming while.

© Darren for Culch.ie, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Bill Murray, Groundhog Day, screening, The Sugar Club

The Body Shop

This Saturday, 6th of February, they are setting up a photo booth in Dundrum and are asking everyone to capture their own “signature photograph” which will be posted on The Body Shop Facebook and Flickr . To launch their new fragrance collection Love Etc…, the theme of the competition is ‘Celebrate your love for all the special people in your life’. Okay, it’s mushy as anything but it could be fun and it’s a great prize.

The winners will be selected by three of Ireland’s top photobloggers before Valentines Day.

© Darren for Culch.ie, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Body Shop, competition, Photography

Supported by many leading Irish artists, including Cathy Davey, Julie Feeney, The Chapters and more to be announced, Trócaire will host the Drop Haiti’s Debt concert in Vicar Street on Thursday February 11^th.

All proceeds from ticket sales will go towards Trócaire’s relief efforts in Haiti, however the primary purpose of this concert is to raise awareness for Trócaire’s Drop Haiti’s Debt campaign. While financial assistance is of paramount importance in the immediate, in the long run Haiti will only recover and begin to build a sustainable future when its immense debt is dropped.

Ciara Gaynor, Trócaire’s head of campaigns said ‘It will take decades for Haiti to recover from the earthquake. The country must not be faced with the additional massive burden of debt repayments. Any emergency earthquake assistance must be in the form of grants, not loans, which will only increase Haiti’s debt burden in the long run. The people of Haiti have suffered for too long. Please join the call for debt relief, and help Haiti on the long road to recovery from this devastating disaster. Please support the campaign on www.trocaire.org and join the ‘Drop Haiti’s Debt’ group on Facebook”.

© Bryan for Culch.ie, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Cathy Davey, charity, Drop Haitis Debt, gig

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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© johnmfinn for Culch.ie, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Frigthened Rabbit, Nothing Like You, Swim Until You Can't See Land, The Midnight Organ Fight, The Winter of Mixed Drinks