Britain’s Got 19 Million People With Nothing Better To Do!

And so we come to the end of another of Simon Cowell’s money-making ventures. Britain’s Got Talent (BGT) had it’s ‘climactic’ (yeah right!) finale last night with dance act Diveristy winning through. But why on earth are we still watching this show?

Firstly of all, the show doesn’t flaunt UK talent as Cowell Morgan and that truly AWFUL Amanda Holden would have you believe. It’s just another show based around either laughing at the ones that are bad or getting stupidly hyped up about the ones that are remotely good!

Take Susan Boyle for example. She’s not the best looking woman around, but she’s also not that ugly. She has a fairly nice singing voice, but not the best by a long way. But Cowell and ITV and every flippin’ paper have been going crazy about her for the last few weeks, so much so that even I know enough about her to write this (I religiously try to avoid BGT). It’s a really really poor excuse to line Mr. Cowell’s pockets at the expense of exploiting an elderly lady. It all came to the boil (sorry rubbish pun) last night when after weeks of hype, Susan came second. She was built up just to be dropped down as she was seen as a ‘safe’ bet to win.

Another point about the show was the actual quality of the acts. There was someone who could play a saxophone, lovely, but not really an amazing talent. Some people could dance, which was very well choreographed, but not anything I haven’t seen before. A Grandfather and Graddaughter double act were once again a nice idea, but not brilliantly talented, it was obvious they had got this far due to their ‘sob-story’.

I’m not out to criticise these people, they do have talent to an extent and did put effort into last night, but they weren’t anything special or out of the ordinary or for that matter anything that I would pay money to see. Despite Ant and Dec’s claims that this was the best show ever, I wasn’t impressed.

Last night was the first (and last) time I have ever watched BGT. I really don’t understand why people are so obsessed by the programme, but obviously you are (all 19 mill of you) and I fully expect the abusive comments to come my way!

To me the show is and always will be a poor excuse to give Cowell money and keep the failing ITV afloat, not anything on the brilliantly scripted shows which get so unfairly dismissed such as Pushing Daisies, IT Crowd and Peep Show.

Still, Big Brother starts next week!

Fun Things To Do On the Web #3: Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series

I’m sure many of you will remember the anime ‘Yu-Gi-Oh!’… you don’t, oh! Basically, it was a show that revolved around collecting cards and dueling with them. Now that was a little dull so an internet video creator by the name of ‘LittleKuriboh’ has shortened the process for you… and injected gallons of humor!

The Abridged series has to be one of the funniest and well-made YouTube videos that I have ever watched. ‘LittleKuriboh’ as taken the show and shortened each episode into 5-8 minute chunks whilst at the same time re-dubbing to make the story so much more humorous. Characters often speak of how stupid and ridiculous the plot is and comment of 4Kids blatant censorship of the show.

Certain characters have even gained a cult following on the internet with Mr. ‘attention duelists!’ and Bandit Keith (In America) springing to mind. The show also contains more cult references and randomness than an entire season of Family Guy bringing plenty of hilarious moments.

Yu-Gi-Oh abridged isn’t the only one out there either, DragonBall Z, Naruto and Sailor Moon all have their own versions (although Yu Gi Oh is the best).

There are currently 39 episodes (plus a handfull of specials) on the net at the time of writing and I am guilty to saying I have seen them all. Do have a look (www.yugiohtheabridgedseries.com) because they are just so funny and surprisingly high quality… I’ll get you started, the first ep is below!

FlashForward – What Did You See

Viewers of the latest Lost episode in the US may have been confused by the series of adverts asking ‘What did you see’. It turns out these are all teaser clips for ABC’s next-big programme, FlashForward.

The show takes place in 2009 and revolves around the fallout from the running of a Large Hadron Collider (wait a minute, didn’t this actually happen last year!). As the collider is run, every human alive experiences a flashforward to events some time in the future. These last about two minutes. The story sees the characters joining together challenging the ideas of free-will and destiny. Sounds very similar to a certain show I also blog about!

The show is actually based on a book of the same name. Among the cast is Lost actress Sonya Walger (Penny Widmore).

FlashForward is due to air over the summer and if popular will be picked up for a full season later in the year. I personally hope it does as it sounds intriguing and may be a good replacement for the ultimate sci-fi extravaganza that is Lost!

Gaming Review: Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party

Since the Wii launched it has been bombarded by party games stuffed full of mini-games to show off the motion sensing capabilities of the console. RRR TV Party is the third in the series since it launched in 2006, but has the idea got a little old?

Format: Wii

Price: 17.99

Players: 4 (up to 16 in some modes)

Online?: Yes (Stats Only)

Raving Rabbids is an interesting series of games. It is essentially a compendium of mini-games all strung together with the most mental characters in video-game history, The Rabbids! A race of rabbit-like creatures which seem to be confused, furious and mad all at the same time. They are a great idea and never fail to bring a smile to my face as I watch their cut-scenes throughout the game.

TV Party has both a single player and multi-player mode. In single player, you play through the schedule of RRR TV. Each mini-game which you play is based (losely) on something from real television. These cultural references are a stroke of genius and bring a lot more humor to the game. What could be funnier than seeing Rabbids acting out scenes from ‘Night Of The Living Dead’ or taking part in shopping-channel infomercials!

So how good are the actual mini-games? Well, quite good. The motion sensing generally works well and intuitively with each game. They are all fairly easy to complete (if you don’t do it on your first try, you’ll easily manage with your second) and also very easy to get the hang of. However they are mostly, very addictive. The ‘Groove-On’ games will see you playing famous songs in a simplified version of Guitar Hero. These are a great example of how the simplest ideas can be really fun (and the Rabbids renditions of the songs are pretty hilarious!). Similar to this are the dancing games which I’ve become quite a fan of. They’re not like the conventional dance-mat games as they include the wii-remote and nunchuck.

As with all games of this genre, not every mini-game is a gem. Some are very difficult due to poor motion sensing. One that springs to mind is ‘Star Worse’ where you must trace shapes in mid-air. The Wii doesn’t see, to agree with my shapes causing me to often get low scores… not good. There are also a couple which are downright stupid such as the ‘Pimp My Rabbid’ game which I still don’t understand.

Playing a game like Rabbids alone misses the entire point of the genre, so get an extra wii remote or two and head into multiplayer mode. The idea here is very simple, play the games and the one who wins the most wins the game. There are three different scoring systems to choose from, but these pretty much end up with the same result whatever. As it’s a Rabbid’s game, things can change throughout such as players being awarded extra points for no reason. It can be infuriating to see your lead diminish to nothing through one of these pranks, but it’s all in the spirit of the game.

Multiplayer also introduces adverts to the game. Every now and then you will see the advert option at the bottom of the screen. By pressing ‘1’ you enter a micro-game (within the mini game) which can give one player an advantage of some kind. These are a great idea as they keep the gameplay fresh and the adverts themselves are very funny spoofing toothpaste commercials to the classic iPod ones.

The game is very innovative for it’s genre. I am pleased that Ubisoft have chosen to include Wii Balance-Board support in the game, allowing you to control some game with your derriere! They’ve also reinvigorated the series by introducing the over-arching idea of a TV station, the cultural references are just great.

RRR TV Party is a very good attempt at keeping these kind of games alive. In my opinion, party games have had their time on Wii and developers should move forward and create newer, more immersive games for the console. However, Ubisoft have created a very funny game that works and moves the idea of party games forward. It’s 100% more fun with more players and can give several hours of mindless fun. It’s not the best party game ever, but for the price, it’s very good value and well worth a look in.

7/10