Just a quick one to say I watched Dr. Parnassus tonight, and while my lovely wife was far from impressed I liked it. It was very myth/fable/psalm like. The moral of the story seemed to be immortality would suck, or maybe, the devil is actually not such a bad guy.

On the subject of Heath Ledger, who obviously died while making the movie. They should have had Johnny Depp from the start. I have nothing against Ledger but for the first 10-15 minutes after Ledger's arrival in the film he was channeling JD anyway, and when JD actually appeared it was like the roll was made for him. There are worse films for a star to have as their last movie, and I have to say I liked Ledger after he STOPPED trying to be JD. The film itself was typical Terry Gilliam fayre, think along the lines of 12 monkeys crossed with Baron Munchaussen and you are not too far off.

That said; I won't be going out of my way to watch it again, although Lily Cole and her bountiful bosoms do warrant another look! ;)

Played the LEGO HP demo earlier today, first impressions were not too good. The buttons all seemed confused, but once I had been playing it for 10 minutes or so and had got used to the way the controls now worked and I have to say they are an improvement over the rather clumsy controls they mashed together for LEGO Indy2! The targeting reticule that pops up when you depress the blue button is context sensitive, which admittedly you don't notice until you play the freeplay level and have more than one spell at your disposal, but it does do away with an annoying niggle from Indy2 where you would attempt to target a whip point with your reticule, letting the button go to pull said point or swing across the looming chasm just to realise you still had a sword equipped and you now had to change that weapon and aim all over again. It is a small improvement but one I greatly appreciate!

The characters are well represented in their shiny plastic guises, pretty much what we have come to expect on the XBOX, and interestingly you now get to control a dog for the first time, Fang also seems to be there for some comedy moments as you will witness a few prat falls from him, either by his own doing or when you experiment with the levitation spell on him!

Cut scenes are present in the demo and they are up to their usual Travelers tales/ LEGO standard, still no actual "script", but I am sure Daniel Radcliffe et-al have much better things to do anyway!

All in all this demo makes me think good things could come from the final game, the kids certainly enjoyed it too after they got into it. My eldest (5), even managed to get through both demo levels in story and freeplay modes without once asking for help, this is a big thing for him, and me!

For us older people there is a wealth of new things to collect and discover throughout the levels, I think anyone who enjoyed the hunts for red and gold bricks in previous games, as well as the new hunt for the pieces of the house shield, which seems to have replaced the search for various LEGO cannisters will be kept busy for hours.... again!

Well; I finished RFG this morning; I was beginning to wonder if there was an actual end to the story mode, but I got there in the end. And what an end, a bit hands off but I have to say I like the idea of disintegrating the EDF warship with a nano loaded missile fired from essentially a massive rail gun. Plus the fight to get to the gun itself and the consequent battle to get to Roth was good clean fun. The never ending supply of rockets in the modified tank led to some lovely explosions and some excessive carnage, always good!

The only gripe I have is that you don't get the rail driver gun until the end. One of my favourite bits of RF1 and 2 was sneaking through corridors and head-shotting waiting drones through the walls before even entering a room! It may be like shooting someone while their back is turned but if you are not going to use a weapon to the full why pick it up at all?

Now I am trying to finish off the guerrilla actions I didn't bother to complete before I finished the game, (I left almost all the house arrest and transporter missions to the end), but the Raildriver certainly makes the house arrest missions easier. Unfortunately I don't think there is anything that will make the transporter missions any easier, unless there is a cheat for flying cars?

Now I am wondering should I continue on with Halo ODST or shall I do some Prototyping? Decisions decisions!