10 O’clock Live

As always, life and laziness have got in the way of blogging.  I have also decided to drift away from the more overtly political blogging, quite frankly because there are people who do a much better job than me, they research and everything In a sort of farewell to the politics side of things, I thought I’d talk about Channel 4’s irreverent political show 10 O’clock Live.  For those not in the know it is a show which mixes humour and satire with political discussion fronted by Lauren Laverne, Charlie Brooker, Jimmy Carr and David Mitchell.  10 O’clock Live initially started life in 2010 as the one off “Alternative Election Night” on Channel 4, a show designed to give a more light hearted take on the live election proceedings.  At the time I surfed between this and the regular BBC coverage and while the BBC was still the best the alternative was a welcome break, particularly early on when not much was happening and the Channel 4 presenters, after the polls closed naturally, could have a bit more fun than their serious counterparts.

The Alternative election night was obviously a success because later that year Channel 4 commissioned 10 O’clock Live, essentially the same show but covering topical news instead of an election.  Many were initially unimpressed, and indeed I was rather annoyed that they had put the show up against Question Time.  As a devoted Question Time tweeter this meant that I ended up watching on a repeat or +1.  The show itself was a mixed bag.  It was obvious that most of the presenters were not used to live TV, Jimmy Carr is a bit of a Marmite comedian at best and they didn’t have much of an idea what to do with Lauren Laverne.  I have to admit that when that series ended I expected that would be the last we would see of this show, however in 2012 it returned.
The show seemed to have been streamlined quite a bit, with several items dropped, one which I wish they had kept was David Mitchell’s interviews.  While Mitchell was definitely not an attack dog like Paxman or Humphries, I actually liked his interview style, essentially, he knew he wasn’t going to get the better of these people, and didn’t go out the way to humiliate anyone, however his easy going style allowed him to often surprise a guest with a comedic barb or even a well placed question.  In all that time Mitchell still appeared like a reasonable man asking reasonable questions and I think this could have grown.

Again, after series 2 finished I thought “It’s gone now” but it is back for 2013 with some improvements.  Most of Jimmy Carr’s skits have gone, and he now just does his regular review of the week stand-up routine.  All the hosts have only one segment, and in fact poor old Lauren Laverne doesn’t generally get a segment at all, a shame as her guides to various events and her piece on Serco were actually one of the better bits.  What has been added is much more round table discussion between the three hosts and this actually works really well and was something that was inexplicably kept to a minimum in the last two series.  I will still say that David Mitchell does not chair a debate particularly well (Perhaps Laverne would do better) and the new skit with a fake American news anchor is pretty dull.  However overall the show continues to improve.
I’m glad Channel 4 will give successful one off or event shows a go as a regular programme.  (See “The Last Leg” as another example) and they also do seem to have the commitment to refine the format, drop what isn’t working and improve on what is.  A couple of more tweaks and 10 O’clock live will become must watch TV.

A Belated Farewell to City of Heroes.

It was near the end of last year City of Heroes closed its doors.  So I’d like to take a bit of time to look at the game which held my attention for around 6 years.  For those who didn’t know, City of Heroes was a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Play Game, or MMORPG based around Super-Heroes.  Initially the game only supported Heroes but eventually expanded to include Villains.  Create a character and go off to fight/commit crime.
Off the bat I will say that Villainy wasn’t all that great, however it did inadvertently give a very good reason why the myriad of baddies never sweep over the heroes, quite frankly a good chunk of your missions are in-fighting with other villainous factions.  Saying that while more raids on Paragon city would have been nice in general the Villain faction was at least as well realised as the Hero.

One of the ways City of Heroes stayed fresh was by constantly changing, while City of Villains and the later Going Rogue were bought expansions (Admittedly both were eventually merged in to the main game) subscribers could still enjoy regular “Issues” which would add in game content, from the minor, such as Power Spectrum which allowed players to change the colouring on the effects of some powers, to others that opened up  whole new mission areas and game play systems like crafting.  This was usually enough to bring people who had let accounts lapse back into the game if nothing else to check out new content.
One of the biggest shakeups was when the game went free to play under the banner of City of Heroes: Freedom.  Arguably, one of the better executed free to play systems.  While most content was available on micropayment, and features like new costumes and power sets were now bought add-ons, a VIP member (One still paying a sub) got a monthly amount of in-game money which covered most new additions, plus free VIP exclusive costumes through veteran rewards.  VIPs also got automatic access to the Going Rogue expansion.

Going Rogue was very interesting, taking place in Pretoria, what should be the “Evil” mirror universe of City of Heroes.  While undoubtedly the main heroes in Pretoria are definitely more villainous, the choices you are given are much more morally ambiguous.  While your faction choices of Loyalist and Resistance sound pretty straight forward the game included a “Power or Responsibility” arc, basically you could be a Loyalist without being evil, instead you try to keep order and help people but from within the confines of a potentially corrupt system.  Similarly a Rebel may be more like a rabid terrorist than a noble freedom fighter, not caring too much about civilian casualties.  These shades were well realised and made for interesting game play.

Similarly the alignment system released with Going Rogue allowed your Hero to act more like a Vigilante or villain less villainously and all this made the basic grind-emup game play more textured.  There were also attempts to make missions more varied and interesting than merely kill all mooks, press a button etc.

For me, while City of Heroes was definitely a grind at times the setting and feel of the game usually made up for this, plus with my altitis there were always new characters to create and new parts of the game to explore and when all else failed, new costumes to create.  In fact arguably the strongest part of the game was costume creation.  A part that was further enhanced in freedom which took away the faction binding to classes.  While most classes were similar, there were subtle and often not so subtle differences, for example a Scrapper and Stalker do the same job in a group but are pretty different beasts.  To be able to create a heroic mastermind was a real bonus.

While Star Trek Online has now filled the CoH hole in my free time I do miss roaming the streets of Paragon City fighting the various forces of evil, it was my first MMO, and while even playing STO has highlighted the flaws in COH I still have a soft spot for the game play and plotting that kept my attention all this time.