Sounds like Dallas in SPACE!

“Set more than 50 years before the events of Battlestar Galactica, Caprica takes place on the capital world of the Twelve Colonies. There humankind thrives, living in a peaceful society with the benefits of high technology. But the development of an advanced, robotic, artificial life form is about to change everything.”

GateWorld - Battlestar Galactica News: SCI FI announces <I>Galactica</I> spin-off!

On the upcoming Bloc Party second album, frontman Kele sayeth:

“On first thoughts, this album is going to be angry, not angry in a "fuck you, I won't tidy my bedroom!" Linkin Park way, more silent rage, like what is left when frustration boils over. Lyrically a lot of the abstraction has gone, the ideas are clearer and braver.”

BLOG PARTY: It Will Walk You Home Safe Every Night

I'm having far too much fun in Auto Assault.

The game is, when all's said and done, a bog-standard modern MMOG with all the originality of World of Warcraft or City of Heroes. You pick up your missions from NPCs inexplicably standing around 24/7 (made even more inexplicable by the fact you're in a car). The missions range from kill X thingies to kill X thingies to loot Y items via take this item to NPC Standsthere, with only the addition of Kill X random thingies until they drop a special item times 5 to liven up the oeuvre. The skills are right out of the D&D handbook, with lightning bolts, slow spells and the all too bizarre invisibility (“say, did you hear a car drive past? well, still, I can't see one so I'll ignore it” ) .

What makes it fun - albeit, I suspect, for a short time - is that you're in a car. Not that it's just being in a car that makes it fun, but the car, being a car, moves. This blows holes in the traditional pull-and-fight™ combat model so beloved of the genre. Your opponents move too. So, instead of passive tableaus of static mobs standing waiting for you to peel one of them off the edge of the group and hope to hell none of the rest catch on, you end up diving into the middle of a complete ruck and just trying to hang on until you've managed whatever task you're doing before getting out and back to the repair area before you're blown to shit yourself. Not that it matters too much if you are, there's no death penalty and you just get flown back to the nearest repair station. In short, they've managed to make the combat quite fun, which goes a long way given how much of it you end up doing.

The Edge brings news that the classic “Another World” is to be re-released.

“On April 14th, Chahi will release an enhanced remastered version of Another World, capable of running at high resolutions up to 1280x800 and with newer more richly detailed backgrounds, giving old fans a chance to revisit the world in a new light, and allowing new players to experience both the ecstacy of its serenity and uniquely rhythmic adventuring, and of course the agony of its signature repeat sudden deaths.”

Revisiting Another World - Edge Online

I remember playing this, and the similarly graphical Flashback on the ol' Amiga. Well worth a punt.

(Update: English site)

I picked up my pre-order of Guitar Hero from the Gamestation this morning. I've been playing it most of the day, interspersed with episodes of Buffy to let my arm recover... because its quite a workout on the ol' fingers.

So far, I have to say: really really good.

I decided to combine my Flickr and del.icio.us feeds with this'n. The new RSS feed is therefore at http://feeds.feedburner.com/Auz

Enjoy.

Just started watching my House series 1 DVDs. Turns out they're all in 4:3 ratio. Colour me unimpressed...

I have read that because the PAL TV system uses more lines than the US's NTSC system, they sometimes have to drop features in order to squeeze the same number of episodes on the same number of discs, but 24 manages to keep the widescreen format and I don't think the House boxset has a surfeit of extra features either.

“Q I want to be clear because I've heard you say this, and I've heard the President say it, but I want you to say it for my listeners, which is that the White House has never argued that Saddam was directly involved in September 11th, correct?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's correct. We had one report early on from another intelligence service that suggested that the lead hijacker, Mohamed Atta, had met with Iraqi intelligence officials in Prague, Czechoslovakia. And that reporting waxed and waned where the degree of confidence in it, and so forth, has been pretty well knocked down now at this stage, that that meeting ever took place. So we've never made the case, or argued the case that somehow Osama bin Laden [sic] was directly involved in 9/11. That evidence has never been forthcoming. But there — that's a separate proposition from the question of whether or not there was some kind of a relationship between the Iraqi government, Iraqi intelligence services and the al Qaeda organization.”

Interview of the Vice President by Tony Snow

“MARCH 31--The Washington headquarters of NASA was raided this week as part of a kiddie porn probe targeting an executive with the space agency, The Smoking Gun has learned.”

NASA HQ Raided In Kiddie Porn Probe - March 31, 2006

“NASA has created a new online 'Kids' Club' serving up games, activities and plenty of action for future explorers. NASA will rollout the Web site Thursday, April 6, from 8 to 9 a.m. PDT in the Redondo Room, Hilton Anaheim Hotel, 777 Convention Way, Anaheim, Calif.”

NASA - NASA Rolls out New 'Kids Club'