Doctor Who: City of the Daleks is an interesting game to review. On one hand it’s a stand alone game, perfectly adept at holding its own, yet on the other, it opens itself up to be seen as an episode fitting into the middle of the season five TV series. On top of this conundrum there is also a need to review it differently from different sides of the ocean. From a British perspective, the game is a freebie, thanks to our television licence fees, but for anyone reading this in the States, you’re unfortunately going to have to pay for it!

So with this in mind, the first thing that needs saying about City of the Daleks is that it’s easy. Very easy. The game is clearly aimed at providing something that anyone can pick up and play, which fits the Doctor Who business model nicely; fun for all the family. But if you’re looking for a challenging game, then move on!

For all intents and purposes, the game is a point-and-click adventure allowing you to take the role of the Doctor, and at certain sections his trusty companion Amy. Combining items and progression is mostly carried out through a series of mini-games, either involving careful negotiation of mazes in a similar manner to the old buzzer games, or matching symbols that slowly scroll across the screen. These are not especially hard, and are actually more of a distraction from the interesting stuff than anything challenging. Apart from these mini-games (which begin to get a bit repetitive as you move through the game) the bulk of the action takes place in avoiding the watchful gaze of the Daleks. This is initially challenging (and unforgiving – being seen means instant death), but as your progress you learn how to stay out of sight with relative ease. I think I may have died three times throughout the game. Thankfully the game itself is incredibly forgiving, and you will find yourself having to repeat two minutes worth of previous action at most, since the game saves checkpoints at practically every room entrance or any action taken. As I said, this is a game aimed at the whole family.

The real interest in City of the Daleks however is the story. Without going into spoilers, the story revolves around the Daleks having destroyed Earth in the 1960′s and only one man left to save the planet… Not exactly original as Doctor Who stories go, but still enjoyable and, importantly, in keeping with cannon. The visuals are spot on, with the character models looking exactly as they should, and even the movements seem to match those of the original actors.

It is also worth noting that the game defaults to the most basic graphics settings to ensure it works on all but the oldest PCs, yet you will see a vast improvement if you can afford to run at the higher settings. The voice acting is performed by the original cast, and includes a few genuine laugh-out-loud moments of banter between the Doctor and Amy. This is probably the game’s strongest asset.

As a member of season five, City of the Daleks fits the tone nicely, and is certainly a welcome addition, however this being said, it is missable. It adds nothing of grandeur to the story, no insights into character that you wouldn’t otherwise get, and nothing that you’re going to want to tell your friends about. The length of the episode is touted at around two hours, but in reality it took me a little under an hour; right on par with the length of a TV episode. To be honest, this is just about right; any longer and I think I’d have been bored of the rinse and repeat actions that you have to take throughout the game.

In conclusion, City of the Daleks is a fun hour-long distraction, but not a whole lot more. If you crave a bit more Doctor Who, and have always wanted to play with a sonic screwdriver, then you’re going to want to play this, but if you are looking for a new game that’s going to provide a challenge and replay value then you may want to look elsewhere. There are collectibles that you can pick up throughout the game, which provide interesting facts about the Doctor Who universe, but you’ll probably get all these on the first play through, and the story isn’t deep enough to bring you back again.

However, there is a very large redeeming feature of the game; if you’re a fan in the UK, for the price of £0 you can’t go wrong and it’s hard not to recommend giving it a try. On the other hand, if you’re reading this anywhere else I’d consider your purchase carefully – as far as I’m aware there’s no word on pricing yet, but I think if I’d paid more than $5 for it I’d be a little disappointed. Hopefully episode two will provide some more variety in the puzzles and a slightly deeper story to warrant the fans taking time to play it, but in the meantime, I will look forward to it with baited breath.

Score: 6 out of 10

And therefore, before further ado, I am going to present you with my picks from last year!

Best Show: Doctor Who

This was a tough one, but for me, Doctor Who had it’s best season yet this year. David Tennant just is the Doctor, and Martha Jones was the most interesting companion we’ve had to date. Some great episodes, some great guest appearances (Jon Simm anyone?!) and altogether very deserving of this year’s Best Show.

Runners Up: Battlestar Galactica (consistently excellent), Entourage (still one of the funniest dramas on TV), Psych (one that seems to miss many people’s radars, but is still an amazing comedy that deserves a mention), The Tudors (taking over from where Rome left off, an amazing show in a similar style that is definitely on a par with its spiritual predecessor), Who Wants to be a Millionaire (after x number of series, this is still the best quiz show on tv) – ok, the last one’s a joke…

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Best Newcomer: Californication

Possibly a controversial choice, but Californication was brilliant. Constantly stepping over the line, always enjoyable, and some great performances – David Duchovny at his best. If you haven’t seen it, you must – Califonication is in a class of its own.

Runners Up: Dirty Sexy Money (like The OC, but better, and for adults), Journeyman (but has hit an untimely end), Moonlight (some really bad acting combined with some really good acting, but for some reason this keeps me coming back week after week)

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Best Comedy: Saxondale

Possibly the hardest category for me to judge, as I’ve been watching some past comedy this year too that can’t win it for this year – Arrested Development and Jeeves and Wooster to name two. I was never a fan of Alan Partridge, but Saxondale is just right on the button. Brilliant show.

Runners Up: Entourage (comedy or drama?! Who knows, who cares), Flight of the Conchords (musical genius), The IT Crowd (geeky, but brilliant – perfect)

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Best Short Series: Oliver Twist 2007

A new category this year as there were two series that I really wanted to mention but didn’t fit in anywhere else. Oliver Twist was an adaptation that I was totally going to miss – we’ve all seen the story a million times, who needs another. But the BBC nailed it with this one – the kids were brilliant, and as always Timothy Spall was amazing as Fagin. Definitely one for the DVD boxsets collection.

Runner Up: Secret Diary of a Call Girl (never been a huge Billie Piper fan, but she was superb in this – hugely entertaining, porn for the masses!)

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Best Factual: Human Weapon

It’s interesting, it’s factual, and it has martial arts – what more can you want. The history of all the modern martial arts, and them put to the test by two American Mixed Martial Artists. You learn the culture, you learn the techniques. Great factual TV.

Runners Up: Mythbusters (as usual, though it seems they’re clutching at straws a bit now), Jonathan Ross’s Japanorama (it’s entertaining and interesting – that’s what you want!), Top Gear (not sure this really fits in this category, but still excellent viewing!), QI (Stephen Fry is simply brilliant)

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Most Improved: Robin Hood

I know, I know, what am I thinking?! For those that bothered to stick with this show, it was worthwhile. It doesn’t fit into the other categories since it still isn’t that good. But it is entertaining, and brainless. If you want some Saturday night swashbuckling Robin Hood style, and if you turn off your reality filter, Robin Hood does stand up on its own, and it’s enjoyable. And the second season was much better than the first…

Runners Up: Lost (I still thought that this season was the best so far. I wish they’d hurry up and end it still, but it did grip me far more than the last season).

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Get your act together: Heroes

This category is for those shows that really were good but need to buck their ideas up. Heroes was still great, but lacked the magic that the first season had. They have apparently realised this and will be sorting it out, so here are my fingers crossed for the New Year…

Runners Up: Spooks (most people seemed to love this season. I didn’t. Go back to the old formula – it worked), Stargate Atlantis (I still tune in, but it isn’t a patch on SG1. Please get it right)

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And finally…

Most Disappointing: Bionic Woman

I thought this had a lot of promise. I was wrong. Simply awful TV. Switch Off.

Runners Up: Dexter (still an amazing show, but after one of the best first seasons I’ve ever seen, how could season two really live up to my hype), Bones (still dragging out the love interest. Still love the show, but sort it out!)

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So, that’s 2007′s TV for you! Check back later for more 2007 goodness

At the time of writing that post, LocateTV was in closed beta, but luckily for all of my readers, a new dawn has arrived, and LocateTV is going into public beta from tomorrow! You should definately all give it a try! And then you can do cool stuff like this:

In their own words: “The idea behind LocateTV is simple – to let you find TV shows available where you live in the world, be they on broadcast TV, online or on recorded media (DVD, HD-DVD etc).”

The project is still in the beta stages – and rightly so – there are still a large number of bugs, but the basic concept is definately an interesting one, and one that I personally feel has a lot of potential. With the release of the BBC iPlayer (for better or worse), 4onDemand and various other online TV watching choices, it is soon going to be common place for people to go online to watch their favorite (or not so favorite) TV shows. With so many services all pumping this stuff onto the net, how are you going to know where to look for it? Maybe it isnt on the net yet, but is going to be on Freeview in 2 days time? The idea behind LocateTV is to group all of this together in one easy to search location. And for the most part, it works. In addition, if the show you are looking for is not on TV any time soon, it’ll allow you to price check the best DVD prices.

It’s not exhaustive at the moment (I couldnt find The Tomorrow People on there) – but it’s not finished. In addition, the search needs a bit of work – searching for Angel gives me a lot of people named Angelica, but not the TV series I want, and sometimes you will get two versions of the same site – but these are all kinks that will be ironed out over time, and hopefully in time for the launch.

There is also an option to embed all this information on your own blog/forum/site using a standardised dynamic graphic, that will update to track your favorite show, actor or whatever. At the moment, this is a large clunky graphic, but I was told last night that there will be multiple options made available!

In my mind, once the kinks get ironed out, this will be an excellent resource that I will use almost daily (especially if the add RSS feeds, which are sadly lacking at the moment… nudge nudge…). At the moment, to get close to all the information that they are supplying I have to flick between a number of sites – TV.com, IMDB, Radio Times, and FindDVD, where as this will give me all this information (albeit to a lesser level of depth) under one roof.

In summary, I think it is a great idea, and once the kinks are straightened out, it will definately be a resource worth using. I’ll be using it over the coming months, and will post about any major developments that I feel are worth mentioning!

So, in the meantime, keep your eyes peeled, watch the blog, sign-up for the e-mail updates, and wait patiently – it should be worth it

Ok, this is crazy – the BBC have just posted a news item saying that the iPlayer has been warmly recieved.

After my post the other day, I tried again to get it to work… unsuccessfully, and have now totally given up on the service. And I am not alone in disliking it.

Sort it out BBC, and DONT LIE JUST TO MAKE YOURSELVES LOOK GOOD!

Here is my experience exactly as it went…

1. Load up Thunderbird and recieve mail from BBC saying i’d been accepted onto the beta.
2. Load Firefox, log in, select an episode of Hyperdrive to test it.
3. Told that I need IE. Grrr… Still, i’ll accept it.
4. Load up IE, log in, select episode of Hyperdrive.
5. Get the following message:

All of which i have (hence the ticks… – i got a cross next to IE when i was in Firefox)! I know you’re in BETA BBC, but thats crazy! Sort it out! For now i’ll have to stick with my PVR and other methods – lets hope that eventually this will be a viable solution! Who knows – the quality may be rubbish anyways…

While for most of you, this wont be massive news, I’m a massive fan of Firefly and always glad to see actors from it getting work elsewhere, since they were all screwed by having such an excellent series cut short after only one season.

It also helps that she’s appearing in my (joint) top series of 2006 – Stargate Atlantis She appears in the latest episode (3×20 – First Strike part 1), the last episode of Season 3, and she’s being touted as (fairly big spoiler warning) the ‘Acting Chief Medical Officer’ (due to the death of Carson recently), so hopefully she’ll be around for a bit, as i find her a really enjoyable actor to watch! Guess we’ll find out next season!

For a UFC fan living in the UK, this is great news, since we may finally be able to see some of the fighters we love, under a strong brand come over here and showcase some of the best MMA in the world. It will also give the sport the push that it needs in the UK for it to become mainstream and more accepted.

There are still alot of people in the UK (much like the rest of the world) that think of the UFC as a ‘bloodsport’, and whenever I mention it to people, they are almost horrified that I watch it. I then have to explain that it really isnt as bad as they imagine! Anyway, when the UFC come over here, the inevitable media hype (be it good or bad) will at least push it more into the spotlight, gain more fans, and hopefully mean less explaining for me!

Bring on April 20th Who’s up for seeing it live?!

1. Stargate (SG1 and Atlantis) [Best Sci-Fi]
2. Smallville
3. Battlestar Galactica
   
4. Veronica Mars [Best Drama]
5. Torchwood [Best Newcomer]
6. Kyle XY
7. Prison Break
8. Spooks
9. Mythbusters [Best Reality]
10. Life on Mars

Honorary Mentions: Heroes, Penn & Teller’s: Bullshit!, Pure Pwnage, Hak.5
Dishonorary Mention: Eureka

Wow… what a year! There are still shows that I havent listed that I’d really like to mention (but i wont *cough* Lost… *cough* Doctor Who… *cough*… excuse me). Anyway, where do I start?! At the top I guess!

Stargate… what can I say – possibly THE greatest Sci-Fi franchise ever. It’s got the number one spot for a simple reason, its consistant entertainment between the two franchises. I didnt think it was fair to split them up and take up two spots, so I’ve grouped them, although I must say that it’s probably more Atlantis that’s clinched it this year. This is also SG1′s swan song in a way, since it will no longer be with us soon. All I can say is thanks for the last 10 years.

What a year it has been for Smallville. Spoliers: The Green Arrow?! Amazing! Hinting at the Justice League?! Awesome. If you’re in any way a comic book fan, or know even a little bit about DC comics classic hero, this is the best season yet and definately worth checking out!

Battlestar Galactica is without doubt one of the most refreshing shows on the tv at the moment. It still really is great TV. There is in fact only one reason that it doesnt have the top spot, and that is that it has set itself such a high standard that it found it difficult to live up to in one or two episodes this season. Plus the fact that the other two shows have had me more excited about them this year! Still, its an amazing show and if you arent watching it, you’re missing out!

Veronica Mars is a new show to me this year, and I have to say, I love it. Its like the OC (which incidentally has gone massively downhill this year) mixed with Buffy, mixed with detective stuff and it works so well. Well worth a watch!

This year’s best newcomer Torchwood is a little bit of a surprise to even myself. The first ep had me thinking that they would be throwing in sex and swearing purely to shock Doctor Who audience which it was trying to capture. It has however turned out to be an excellent addition the the Doctor Who franchise, and one which in fact can hold its own. Bring on Season 2.

Kyle XY is an interesting one. A show aimed at the whole family which i found rather entertaining. I havent heard whether it’s back for a new season, but it better be, as I’m a bit on the edge of my seat!

Prison Break has been a bit of a rollercoaster this year. Last year’s winner, it has, on the whole, been great, although it has had a few ‘interesting’ episodes, and been a bit far fetched (to say the least) at times. Nevertheless, it is still an excellent show, and I cant wait to find out what happens. I do hope that they dont try and drag it into a third season however.

Spooks, another representation on the British tv front has again had an excellent season, with edge of your seat action. A new season is already in the works and I look forward to seeing it soon!

I love shows that give random bits of information that make me look clever. Mythbusters does exactly this! Adam and Jamie are consistantly funny, informative, and its just a great fun show that solves random myths that you’d never wondered about until you see them on the show!

And finally (in the top 10), Life on Mars. A show from the very start of this year, it was a surprise hit with both Sci-Fi and non-Sci-Fi fans alike. A time travelling cop, or is he just in a coma, who knows. Either way its great TV!

Now just a few words on the honorary mentions. I’ve only seen two episodes of Heroes at the time of writing, but what i’ve seen so far I like. It really appeals to my superhero fandom, so well worth watching! Penn & Teller’s Bullshit is another great informative program, while being completely biased. I dont always agree with them, but they do it in such a good manner that I just love watching it! The following two shows aren’t really TV shows, but IPTV shows. Pure Pwnage is a comedy about pro-gamers, and if you havent watched it (you n00b) you really should! Hak .5 is a tech/geek show where they show you , surprisingly how to Hak and Mod things to do with computers. If you’re into that, check it out.

The dishonary mention goes to Eureka for making me think that it had the potential to be good, but never getting there. Thanks for the wasted hours.

And thats my TV run down of 2006… Phew!

The moment every fan has been waiting for (apart from those who bought the ‘complete’ dvd boxset) is here! Futurama IS returning to TV!

I’ve loved Futurama since it was first released – in my opinion, its even better than the Simpsons. The gentle (and not so gentle) dig’s at popular Sci-Fi culture, along with typical Matt Groening humour and artwork was just too good to miss, and after seeing every episode available, I like many fans, long for more!

Well now we have to long no longer (quite a lot of longs there)…

Actually, we do. We have to wait until 2008. But then we’ll be getting at least 13 new episodes! Huzzah!
Oh, and FOX, “Bite My Shiny Metal Ass”…