Another weekend disappears in an instant, that can only mean Geekly Review time…
So lets just get the bad news out of the way first, I finally took my exams, unfortunately the results from exam one were not enough for me to pass, So I didn’t earn my desired qualification. It was rather frustrating, and the possibility of a re-sit is not there. So even more gutted about it. Missed the pass mark by 3%. The only way to gloss over the bad news is to think I can now game and watch TV on an evening rather than bury myself in MySQL DBA revision guides.
So, Friday after the result I had a gathering at my place to commiserate my results. It wasn’t the rowdiest of gatherings I had, but I think the result really swang what way the evening would go. Will popped round too for a beer and geeky gossip!
I think Spring is finally happening, as we were treated to another weekend of decent weather. So I made the most of it by doing a bit of gardening during the day (my garden had become rather messy). I managed to squeeze in the England Rugby which was a dominant display against Italy. Unfortunately France did us no favours and Ireland won the 6 Nations by tries scored. I also received through the post a Dreamcast cable to output to scart. So with that I went back to the Dreamcast for a good few hours re-starting Shenmue again for what must be the 100th time. I instantly remembered certain scenes, and dialect between Ryo and other NCP’s in the world. I’ve so far spent the majority of money that Ine-San has left me on food for the abandoned cat. I still often question why can’t we just keep the cat at the Hazuki residence.

Sunday I had to get my wedding preparation duties on, So spent the morning with my fiancee driving from one side of Bristol to the other. Will all be worth it though. However I did make it clear to her that when home i’d like to be uninterrupted to watch the opening race of the Formula 1 season. What an excellent race it was. I quite like Vettel, after seeing him on Top Gear he comes across as so much more normal, but I have to say I was happy to see him have to retire from the race. I was urging Bottas to finish a bit higher, He had an impressive race. Unfortunate that he clipped the wall earlier on in the race as podium was definitely a possibility. Both the McLarens looks mighty impressive too. Only 1 race in but top of the constructors for them, Something that last season never seemed likely.
I ignored the football Sunday. Manchester United vs Liverpool. Being a United fan I was soon receiving texts mocking the scoreline. In case you hadn’t heard United lost 3-0 at home. A embarrassing result really. Another weekend in which I think football is dead.
My fiancee is on her hen doo next weekend, so gaming is high on the agenda for next weeks Geekly Review.
– Murr

As I’m sure most of you will know Titanfall came out on Friday, so a lot of my spare time revolved around this. I was a big fan of the Beta, so was eagerly anticipating the full game. So Friday after work, I quickly made my way to the shops to pick it up. Whilst in the shop I noticed they had some of the limited edition controllers available, so I picked one of those up too. Now I know it’s still basically the same controller, but it feels really nice, and quite different, that could just be because my other one was broken.
So on to the game itself. Once the training was out of the way, I made a start on the campaign. Now I use the term campaign loosely, as it doesn’t really have much in the way of a story or actual campaign scenarios. They are more just multiplayer modes with a few extra lines of dialogue thrown in to make a story.
I don’t mind that at all, but what I do mind is being on a team of useless people making winning seemingly impossible at times. I know that I’m no expert at the game, but at least if it was single player only I could only blame myself. Whilst you can still progress through the missions whether you win or lose, you still don’t really ‘win’ especially from an achievements point of view.
I made my way through both IMC and Militia campaigns over the course of the weekend.
The rest of Friday night was spent at Murrs as he mentioned.
Saturday was incredibly lazy. I barely moved from the sofa all day, and mixed in the 3 final games of the six Nations. England were very impressive against Italy, but realistically the were only ever going to win if Ireland lost to France.
Saturday also saw the start of the F1 season in Melbourne. Me and Murr are both pretty big fans of F1, so expect more talk of it over the season.
And of course I squeezed some more Titanfall in.
In the evening me and Meg ventured out, only to get some food, then we were very much back in the comfort of our sofa. We ended up watching Gravity. It was excellent. Visually it is probably one of the best films, if not the best, I have ever seen. The story was tense and exciting, maybe a little over blown in terms of realism at times, but hey it’s a film, we can forgive it. Overall very deserving of its Oscars I think.
As Sunday rolled around, we got the normal mundane things out of the way, and then watched the F1, which Sky Sports had very kindly already ruined for me the moment I woke up. It was an excellent first race. Really good to see McLaren back and getting some much needed points, and a podium finish with Magnussen picking up 3rd on his first ever race. I think one thing is for sure, this will be a very unpredictable season, which will make it a lot more enjoyable than the normal “Vettel wins” that we saw so much last season.
Oh and Liverpool trashed Man Utd, so that was good. Just an FYI though, I wasn’t the one sending the mocking texts. I’m a very gracious winner, and know what Murr is feeling after a few abject seasons from Liverpool.
Then we went to the pub for a couple of drinks with some friends to round up a very nice weekend!
-Will