Video games are pretty much my passion. They were a guilty pleasure but with an increase in spare time there's been more than a little increase in gaming. One of the first things I check in the morning is Eurogamer (which is great by the way) so I think that says it all. Due to this I always get a mixture of excitement and dread when a video game adaptation is announced. Max Payne was one I'd been waiting for since it was first rumoured to be knocking around, which was when the games first came out. Which was around what 8 or 9 years ago? The thing is though, the games were heavily cinematic themselves so a film was somewhat redundant already, a comic book of the cut-scenes may have served better as fan service. Although what the film definitely wasn't was fan service, it was more a boiled down version of the basic clichés which lay within the game. The drug was definitely a missed opportunity, bringing in some random Norse mythology nonsense from Too Human and ripping off the visuals of Constantine. The Sin City style was quite nice to look at, but the rest of the film fell by the wayside really and overall doesn't do justice to what is one of the best third person shooters there ever was.
FlashForward (I'm not sure how we're "supposed to be" spelling it, you know they always get funny about that stuff) is from the same stable as Lost. Not sure if it's by the same people but they're certainly leaping onto that bandwagon with this. Only a few years late, but you know whatever. A strange cast is assembled for it, Joseph "Not Ralph" Fiennes, Harold (No Kumar in sight), Steve from Coupling and Peter Griffin. Yeah that's right, Peter Griffin a.k.a. Seth Macfarlane is in it. I know that's weird isn't it. He isn't just a disembodied voice and a loose hand for drawing the cartoons. He's a person too. No wonder Family Guy got shit, he's off gallivanting in epic TV now. Anyway, something about people seeing the future all at the same time then everyone trying to work out what it means. It's a nice plot idea because you can explain it to someone in around 45 seconds unlike other shows of this kind. It's got all the hall marks of absorbing telly, random animals, glassy-eyed stares, everyone has a cut on their face at some point. Still, early days and if Five's on demand service is as shockingly slow at buffering as it was today I may just give up and try and Derren Browning the lottery numbers for my predictive fix.
Finally, How Not To Live Your Life is a little sitcom on BBC Three. Unlike most BBC Three sitcoms I actually feel like living is worth it after watching an episode. It's basically about Don who lives in his dead grandma's house with the butler and an attractive female housemate. Then stuff happens generally involving Don being an idiot. It's pretty standard fair is what I'm saying really, but it's easy viewing. Few laughs in each episode, and the "4 things Don shouldn't do now" device is a real winner for me and brings a bit of surrealism to an otherwise standard affair. Worth watching as it is on BBC iplayer all the time and repeated on BBC Three around every two hours as well.
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