Another weekend, another update to my brain's vast catalogue of probably-not-going-to-save-my-life knowledge!
Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard has some genuinely funny moments in it.
I bought Eat Lead on the cheap last Friday, for two reasons. Firstly, after finishing Halo: Reach a couple of times, I just wanted some inexpensive shootery action before diving back into Oblivion. Secondly, my boss is away in America for 8 weeks and I really want to go some way to bridging the gap between our GamerScores (he's about 22,000 ahead of me). While most of the attempts at humour are pretty weak – Will Arnett's doing the best with what he's got – there have been a few spots where it dragged the chuckles out of me.The first was when you come up against the Final Fantasy parody character, Altos Tratus. Because he's a spoof of JRPG characters, his dialogue pops up in text boxes which Hazard has to manually skip through himself. During your battle with Tratus another box will appear, showing his health and magic points, and the list of spells he can select from. Shooting Tratus will also cause a red number to float above his head, indicating the amount of health you've chipped away. Chuck in a dig about the overabundance of ellipses into the mix and it's a pretty solid encounter, both in the battle and the laff quotient.
Other amusing bits are a crack about long elevator rides (although they use this gag twice) and a section that emulates the look of Wolfenstein 3D (there are flat enemies to match, but it was the bright blue bricks that made me smile).
Other amusing bits are a crack about long elevator rides (although they use this gag twice) and a section that emulates the look of Wolfenstein 3D (there are flat enemies to match, but it was the bright blue bricks that made me smile).
As for the action, I'm actually enjoying it despite myself. I know it's a pretty clunky game overall but there are some cover mechanics I think are pretty nifty improvements in the stop 'n' pop sub-genre. I'm certainly not in love with the game but for what I wanted going in and the price I grabbed it for, it has been the perfect thing to switch my brain off with.
There's a difference between Kaffir limes and Tahitian limes
If you want to grow lime fruit that's edible – y'know, like the one you'd fish out of your vodka, lemon, lime and bitters – you need to go with the Tahitian lime. And this is exactly what my lass and I have done, with a darling little dwarf Tahitian lime tree sitting in a large pot just outside our back door. This has been more my girlfriend's initiative, and I asked why she wanted one so. She replied that it'll be perfect for making our own mojitos at home. Always thinking, she is. What a gal.
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