PROJECT ETERNITY becomes PILLARS OF ETERNITY

Obsidian's forthcoming, Kickstarted RPG has got a final title. Known as Project Eternity throughout development, the game's final title will be Pillars of Eternity. Obsidian have a detailed preview video featuring actual gameplay below.

Pillars of Eternity is a 'spiritual successor' to the Baldur's Gate series, set in a traditional fantasy mileu but with a few twists based around the concept of souls and soul magic. The game is also set in a colonial society rather than the traditional European imperial fantasyland.

As Obsidian, the same team was responsible for Fallout: New Vegas and Knights of the Old Republic II, two of the most interesting RPGs of the last decade (not to mention Alpha Protocol, Neverwinter Nights II, Dungeon Siege III and the forthcoming South Park: The Stick of Truth). In their former incarnation as Black Isle they also created Planescape: Torment, the Fallout and Icewind Dale series and provided technical assistance on the Baldur's Gate games from BioWare. As giants of the RPG genre, it'll be interesting to see what they pull off with this game, which eschews complex (and ultra-expensive) 3D graphics in favour of deeper gameplay, more immersive combat and stronger writing.

Pillars of Eternity is expected in mid-to-late 2014, and is one of my most eagerly-awaited games of next year.

The Princess and the Queen by George R.R. Martin

King Viserys I Targaryen has ruled the Seven Kingdoms for more than twenty years, presiding over a time of peace and prosperity. He has declared his heir to be his eldest child, his only surviving child from his first marriage, Rhaenyra. But after his death, his widow, Queen Alicent of House Hightower, and Lord Commander Criston Cole of the Kingsguard instead crown his oldest son as Aegon II. Rhaenyra rejects this as a coup and is herself crowned on Dragonstone. The Seven Kingdoms are divided, with the Starks, Arryns and Tullys declaring for Rhaenyra and the Lannisters, Baratheons and Tyrells for Aegon. This will be a civil war of not just armies and fleets, but also of dragons battling one another in the skies of Westeros. The Dance of Dragons has begun.

Aegon II and his older half-sister Rhaenyra Targaryen, the feuding claimants to the Iron Throne during the Dance of Dragons.

The Princess and the Queen is a 30,000-word, 80-page novella. It sits somewhere between an actual story and a narrative history, alternating between brief summaries of events and dramatic exchanges (of dialogue, steel or dragonfire) between characters. I must admit to some scepticism when the change was first announced (The Princess and the Queen replaces the fourth Dunk and Egg novella, which Martin has now delayed until after The Winds of Winter comes out), wondering if this was going to be nothing more than a bit of filler. Instead, I was surprised to find it a fairly gripping and interesting account of the civil war.

The Dance of Dragons has been oft-mentioned in the novels, but not in as much detail as other events such as Robert's Rebellion or the Blackfyre Rebellions. What has been established about it in the novels is fairly minimal, giving Martin the freedom to populate it with a whole host of new characters and political factions and set them against one another. As with the main series, Martin has little truck here with 'good guys' and 'bad guys': Rhaenyra's claim might be more sympathetic, but both sides have heroes and villains. The war takes several unexpected twists and turns, with the capital changing hands several times and major figures in the war dying unexpectedly. Both sides are also brutally betrayed at different times. In terms of tone, The Princess and the Queen reads like an ultra-condensed version of A Song of Ice and Fire itself.

The biggest difference to the main series is its use of dragons. At this point dragons are, if not commonplace, certainly reasonably established in Westeros. The Targaryen princes and princesses (and, controversially, some of the bastards) travel around on dragonback and they are often used in war. What is unusual is them being used to fight one another, and there are several brutal battles between dragonriders which are vividly described by Martin. There are also interesting descriptions of military engagements between conventional forces and dragons: the armies of Westeros and the Free Cities have had more than a century by this point to get used to dragons being around and the surprise and terror of Aegon's Conquest has passed. It is possible (if extremely difficult) to kill a dragon and that knowledge provides the downfall of several of the creatures.

Considering the short length of the story, Martin successfully embues the characters with life and motivations. Rhaenyra is proud and haughty, but also jealous and over-protective. Her husband, Daemon Targaryen, is a charismatic warrior, ruthless but also prone to bursts of romance and chivalry (though never to foolishness). It's also fun spotting future historical figures in their youth, such as Alyn Velaryon (who will grow up to be Admiral Oakenfist, partially responsible for Daeron I's successful invasion of Dorne).

The story certainly isn't perfect. The format means that this sometimes reads like a summary of what could have been (in a different life, or much further down the line) a fascinating duology or trilogy of novels in its own right. In addition, whilst Martin takes some effort to come up with new Targaryen names, there's still a few too many Daerons, Daemons, Aegons and Aemons (or Aemonds) wandering around to easily differentiate them at a glance, at least at first. Most notably, the story cuts off a little too abruptly with the war still not done. Considering the story's presence in the Dangerous Women anthology, I was expecting a greater focus on the battle of wills between Alicent and Rhaenyra, but this is a minor element at best in the story. Cutting it off after this element is resolved may be thematically correct, but as the theme was not dominant in the story it simply feels a bit random for the conflict to be left hanging. The World of Ice and Fire, due in 2014, will at least resolve this issue.

The Princess and the Queen (****) isn't just a stopgap, but a readable and entertaining story that expands on our knowledge of the Song of Ice and Fire world whilst also working as a narrative in its own right. More encouragingly, Martin apparently wrote a much longer version (almost 90,000 words) - of which this is an edited excerpt - in just a few weeks, showing that he can still put the pedal to the metal on writing when he needs to. Whether this means we can expect The Winds of Winter in a reasonable timeframe is still unclear, of course. The novella is published as part of the Dangerous Women anthology, available now in the UK and USA.

Telltale is planning multiple GAME OF THRONES games

Following the news about Telltale making an official Game of Thrones title over the weekend, HBO has confirmed that this deal is multi-year and will encompass several 'seasons' of gaming, in the same way that Telltale's Walking Dead game is imminently returning with a new 'season' of episodes.

The multi-year, multi-title partnership between Telltale and HBO Global Licensing is targeted to premiere digitally in 2014 with an episodic game series for home consoles, PC/Mac, and mobile devices. Specific platform details are yet to be announced.

The first part of the game is expected to be released in mid-to-late 2014.

SPACE HULK (2013)

The Sin of Damnation is a vast space hulk, a conglomeration of wrecked starships fused together by the unholy powers of the Warp. The Blood Angels chapter of the Space Marines has located the ship near their fortress monastery world of Baal and ordered a full-scale assault to cleanse the ship of hostile lifeforms.

Space Hulk was originally a board game released in 1989 by Games Workshop. Set in their Warhammer 40,000 universe, the game cut out the complexity of the main wargame and presented a focused, straightforward contest: heavily-armed Space Marines versus hordes of ferocious Genestealers on a battered old spacecraft. The game was popular for its steep difficulty level and nailbiting tension. Two video game adaptations followed, Space Hulk in 1993 and Vengeance of the Blood Angels two years later. Using the same setting, these two games were real-time rather than turn-based but were otherwise rock hard.

The latest attempt to adapt the board game is, by contrast, slavishly faithful to the original game. You have a number of Terminator Marines, ranging from 3 to 10 depending on the mission. Each marine has four action points per turn. Turning 90 degrees, taking a step forward, firing a weapon or repairing a jammed gun all take a single action point. Going onto 'Overwatch', which is allows your Terminators to fire automatically as enemies come into sight, takes two and is essential. You also have a pool of between one and six command points, which can be distributed across the squad. However, command points need to be used carefully: if your marine's weapon jams whilst on Overwatch during the enemy's turn, only command points can unjam it and allow firing to continue, so make sure you have some left.

The Genestealers don't have ranged weapons, but they are faster than Terminators (able to move six squares a turn) and spawn in large numbers out of air vents. With the exception of a few specialists, the Space Marines suck at close combat: if a genestealer closes to melee, the marine is probably dead. This makes it crucial to set up overlapping fields of fire, cover all the flanks and keep the enemy at a distance. However, the design of the space hulk makes this difficult, with single-spaced corridors, narrow rooms and the Terminators' own bulkiness making it hard to cover all the angles. You also have a number of marines with special weapons: Librarians can use psi-powers to temporarily block off corridors or even slay Genestealers at a distance, but they have a limited pool of psi-energy which will quickly be used up. Flamers can set fire to rooms and send fireballs rolling down corridors, but only have six shots. Assault cannons never jam, have a very high to-hit score and tremendous range, but only have twenty shots per mission and need to be reloaded after ten (which takes four action points).

This relatively small array of different options makes for a surprisingly large number of tactical decisions. Each turn can be an edge-of-the-seat affair as you move marines to block off approaching enemy forces whilst also trying to advance to meet the mission objectives. It's not uncommon to cross half the map, set up a perfect defensive grid and then suffer a massacre as you have to disrupt it to reach the target. There are times when taking the slow and steady path is the way to go, but others when riskily using all of your action and command points in one movement is the only chance to win. In short, Space Hulk replicates the tension of the original game quite well.

Unfortunately, the adaptation is probably a little bit too slavish to the original. The game is highly dependent on luck, with defeat sometimes happening despite you doing everything to tactical perfection. This is something that works quite well for a group of friends clustered around a board, but in a computer game (where you are going to just reload anyway) feels rather frustrating. There are also gaps in logic which you accept as part of the board game but in the video game seem rather more obvious: why do the Space Marines' bolters jam so frequently? Why do the standard Terminators have infinite bolter ammo but the assault cannon guy and flamer only have a few shots each? How can you only take four shots during a normal turn but on Overwatch might manage twenty? Why do the Terminators wear such crazily huge and bulky armour if they die from just one hit? Why haven't the marines got any extra equipment like melta bombs, grenades or deployable turrets (present in the original board game's brother-title, Space Crusade)? Why do you only get more powerful units like the Librarian on some missions and not on others?

There's also the variety, or rather the lack of it. Whilst the game does a good job of upping the ante and introducing new weapons and units at a steady pace throughout its first half, in its second it seems to get more bogged down in long, frustrating missions where a single mis-rolled die can wipe out the entire squad. Some of the later missions can only be reliably completed by saving-scumming after every turn and reloading multiple times. There's also a distinct lack in mission structure, although the free DLC Messenger of Purgatory does feature some livelier corridor and room designs.

Graphically, the game is functional rather than attractive. Perhaps sensibly, the designers have realised that you're going to spend most of the time zoomed way out to assess the overall tactical situation rather than closely zoomed-in, and have de-emphasised the close-up graphics. However, they then rather oddly deploy an 'action cam' showing close-ups of your units when they fire weapons and engage Genestealers in melee combat. At this close range the Space Marines look blocky and the Genestealers are rather cartoonish. Still, graphics are not the game's key focus. Thankfully, a number of bugs that the game originally shipped with (including clipping through walls and the 'ghosts' of enemy units remaining standing after they've been killed) have either been eliminated altogether or reduced to very rare occurrences, and the release of a three-mission bonus campaign (now included with all copies of the game) helps make up for this early inconvenience. The only remaining bug of note is that the game is not very good at counting how many points an action will cost, and you'll often find yourself saving points by guiding a unit square-by-square and action-by-action rather than leaving the AI to do it.

Overall, Space Hulk (***) can be a tremendous amount of fun, but the time you spend really enjoy playing the game will likely be almost equalled by the times you find yourself frustrated or annoyed by the game's over-reliance on luck. Played in short doses, and certainly purchased at a reasonable cost (certainly don't spend more than £10 on it), it's a reasonably entertaining stopgap of a game.

BALDUR'S GATE 15 years on

30 November marked a special anniversay in PC gaming: the 15th anniversary of the release of Baldur's Gate. Released in late 1998, just a few weeks after the all-crushing Half-Life, Baldur's Gate had every bit as major an impact on gaming. It was the first RPG released by BioWare, still one of the biggest names in the business, and arguably saved the Western RPG genre from descending into obscurity.

Interestingly, the original box art de-emphasised the Dungeons and Dragons ties to a tiny logo at the bottom of the box.

BioWare was founded in Edmonton, Canada in February 1995 by three medical doctors. Ray Muzyka, Augustine Yip and Greg Zeschuk were newly-graduated, but more interested in games than medicine. Pooling their resources, they set up the company and quickly began work on their first game, a MechWarrior-alike called Shattered Steel. Unlike the rough road to success faced by many publishers, BioWare had some early luck in being courted by no less than seven different publishers. They eventually - and fatefully - elected to go with Interplay.

Shattered Steel was a modest success and BioWare began discussions with Interplay over their next project. They show off some tech ideas and demos they had been working on and one immediately grabbed the attention of the guys at Interplay for melding real-time combat with large, explorable areas. This was a good fit with the RPG genre which had made Interplay famous (they had made their name with Wasteland and the Bard's Tale series) but which had become less dominant in recent years. Interplay had scored a notable success with Fallout (released in 1996) but the age of massive RPG sales seemed to be a thing of the past. BioWare's nascent engine was attracted for combining the linchpins of RPG design - exploration and character generation - with real-time combat and drag-select capabilities more reminiscent of games like Command and Conquer and WarCraft, which were huge successes at the time. The final piece of the puzzle was that Interplay had secured the video game rights to Dungeons and Dragons from SSI and had been looking for a good fit for the franchise. So it was announced that BioWare's second game would be an RPG called Baldur's Gate. It would use the D&D game rules, be set in the Forgotten Realms fantasy universe and feature real-time combat.

To say there was scepticism over this news would be an understatement. There hadn't been a genuinely classic D&D RPG since Eye of the Beholder II, released in 1992, and the most recent high-profile releases (Blood and Magic and Descent to Undermountain) had been unmitigated disasters. The RPG fanbase was also lukewarm on the idea of the game being in real-time, as Fallout had show what could still be done with turn-based combat. BioWare's lack of experience was also a concern.

Most players will remember their first - usually exceedingly brief - encounter with Ankhegs.

However, this scepticism soon turned to cautious excitement. Early screenshots showed a (relatively, for the time) lush, vibrant art style. Interplay soon began showing signs of palpable excitement over the game as builds came in. In fact, the 'Infinity Engine' so impressed them that they had their own internal RPG development division, Black Isle Studios, use it for their own projects. Doubts over the combat were assuaged when it was revealed that the game could be paused at any time, but orders could still be issued. This approach mixed the very best of turn-based combat (being able to consider the battlefield and all available combat options at leisure) and the immediacy of real-time fighting. It was such a successful idea that it was implemented in every single RPG BioWare would go on to release (aside from the multiplayer-only The Old Republic).

Baldur's Gate was released in November 1998, barely one month after the release of Half-Life and six after StarCraft, two other games that completely redefined their genres. Those opening the box were greeted with an unprecedented sight: the game shipped on five CD-ROMs. A full install would take up about 1.5GB of hard disk space, a jaw-dropping amount at a time when most games still took up a few hundred at most (Half-Life clocked in at 400MB and was considered large; StarCraft scraped barely 180MB). The game wasn't in 3D, but its 2D artwork, complex animations and AI routines all put a heavy load on processors and RAM, with only the most powerful PCs capable of running the game at its maximum potential. But still, it was a huge achievement.

The game allowed the player to customise the protagonist character but all of the other party members were NPCs encountered wandering the gameworld, complete with their own motivations, backstories and goals (you could have a player-created party by 'cheating' using the multiplayer system, but this took away one of the key selling-points of the game). The game threw curveballs at the player to emphasise this point: two of the earliest NPCs you meet and can recruit into the party are evil, and will bicker with the 'good'-aligned members until someone loses their temper and violence erupts. Elements like this required the player to understand and manage their party-members and their interrelationships, something almost unprecedented up to that time. Another character the player can recruit, fan-favourite Minsc, is a mighty warrior but is on a rescue mission: should the player delay Minsc from completing his mission for too long, Minsc will leave the party and possibly attack the other characters in a violent frenzy. With a large number of recruitable characters available, this made the total number of party mixes very large and, combined with the ability to modify the main character however the player wanted, made with a high degree of replayability.

Montaron and Xzar are arseholes, seriously drop them like hot potatoes ASAP.

It also helped that the story was moderately involving, with the player drawn into a labyrinthine plot involving contaminated weapons and armour, political machinations in the city-state of Baldur's Gate and bandits and monsters engaging in raids and attacks up and down the Sword Coast. Atmospheric cut scenes would discuss the main character's role in all of this, and involve some major story developments in the Forgotten Realms world itself (adding an extra element of interest for players already familiar with that setting from the novels and earlier video games). The gameplay was superb, with the combat being fast-paced and challenging, although some complained a little too challenging at times. It was possible to meet creatures early in the game which could kill you with ease, and the game could be almost insurmountable unless you knew the maxim, "Give everyone ranged weapons!" Once you knew the game's systems, however, great enjoyment could be taken from beating its challenges.

Baldur's Gate would be a huge success, selling 1.5 million copies in its first year on sale. Chicken feed today for a triple-A roleplaying game (BioWare's Mass Effect 3 would sell 3 million copies in its first month on sale in 2012), but hugely impressive at the time. BioWare would quickly deliver a well-received expansion, Tales of the Sword Coast, before starting work on the inevitable Baldur's Gate II. Black Isle Studios would help bridge the gap, releasing Planescape: Torment (arguably still the greatest Western RPG of all time) in December 1999 and Icewind Dale (set in the same world as Baldur's Gate but a thousand miles away and seventy years earlier) in June 2000 before helping BioWare complete and ship Baldur's Gate II in October 2000. Dwarfing its predecessor in scale, scope and ambition (though fortunately, thanks to much better compression, not number of discs), Baldur's Gate II remains the largest and longest RPG made by BioWare to date, and still the gold standard against which all of their other games are measured.

Baldur's Gate's influence has been huge. Everything BioWare has done since, from Knights of the Old Republic to their currently massive Mass Effect and Dragon Age franchises, stems from that first, 2D, modestly-budged game. Though their games have gotten flashier and moved into full 3D, the DNA of Baldur's Gate can be still be seen with their latest games still having pausable combat and a structure (a linear opening and concluding section with a large, open section in the middle) very similar to that of the original. In-jokes about the original abound (Commander Shepard getting his own miniature space hamster in Mass Effect 2, for example). Even the original game has found a curious new audience via Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, released by Beamdog in 2012 for PC, Mac and tablets such as the Apple iPad. Large numbers of hardcore fans of the game have spent thousands of man-hours modifying the original game, allowing it to run on modern PCs in higher graphics resolutions, with new quests and weapons added. Essential mods also allow the game to be run in the Baldur's Gate II version of the Infinity Engine, with better graphics and customisation available.

Baldur's Gate is one of the most important RPGs ever released, despite being overshadowed by its sequel and its label-mate Planescape: Torment, and still a hugely playable game even today.

David Bradley takes THE STRAIN

The much-in-demand David Bradley has been cast in the crucial role of Abraham Setrakian in FX's TV adaptation of Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan's novel, The Strain. Bradley has recently been seen playing Walder Frey on Game of Thrones, William Hartnell in Doctor Who drama An Adventure in Space and Time and Argus Filch in the Harry Potter movies.

Meanwhile, FX has aired a brief teaser for the show, which features rats. A pilot was filmed in September, although most of this material will be reshot due to the recasting of Setrakian (played by John Hurt in the pilot). The series proper began shooting a couple of weeks ago and will debut in July 2014. The show has been fast-tracked after an extremely long period in development.

Happy 10th birthday to the new(er) BATTLESTAR GALACTICA

Ten years ago, on 8 December 2003, the first part of a new Battlestar Galactica mini-series aired on the Sci-Fi Channel in the United States. In response to strong ratings and rave reviews, an ongoing series was commissioned. The series eventually concluded in 2009 after four seasons, 75 episodes, two TV movies, a Hugo Award, a Peabody and a slew of technical Emmies.

The crew react to the news that Six has eaten the last post-supper mint.

BSG was an attempt by its writers to rejig TV science fiction for an adult, mainstream audience. Most of the creative team - most notably showrunner Ronald D. Moore - had previously worked on the Star Trek franchise and had grown frustrated at the limitations on realistic human conflict they could portray on those shows. BSG threw out a lot of the rules of TV SF by featuring no aliens, more realistic spaceflight physics (the first show since Babylon 5 to do it on a large scale), being more ruthless and featuring more morally ambiguous characters. However, the series also focused on the classic SF trope of humans versus AI, and if it is possible for biological and machine intelligences to co-exist.

The series was also notable for its more relatable aesthetics: no jumpsuits or impractical onesies here but shirts and ties and more convincing military uniforms. The Galactica didn't stay in the same shape each episode but got more broken-down and damaged as time passed. Its stock of Viper fighters and trained pilots dwindled (despite a handy mid-series resupply). Each episode gave a count of how many survivors there were from the Cylon attack, and this number dropped (sometimes by quite a lot) as casualties were sustained. Characters died, sometimes heroically in battle or guiding stranded ships through radioactive clouds, but sometimes committing suicide after reaching tragic breaking points. It was a series that - for the most part - did not pull its punches.

The characters were familiar archetypes turned into more realistic human beings: hotshot pilot Starbuck has family problems; executive officer Colonel Tigh is an alcoholic; President Roslin is suffering from a terminal illness; Apollo is a great pilot but is unsure of his future; and scientist Baltar is the biggest walking collection of neuroses you will ever see on TV. Even stoic, unflappable Commander Adama finally breaks down from the pressure at the worst possible moment. The actors, from seasoned hands like Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell to newcomers like Katee Sackhoff and former model Tricia Helfer, relished their complex, unpredictable roles and the meaty storylines they could get stuck into.

"Are you alive? Yes? Just checking."

In terms of visual effects, the show was a substantial step forwards in quality. One of the earliest shows to take advantage of HD, it featured astonishing, imaginative space battles and some excellent spacecraft design, sometimes drawing on the original 1978 show for inspiration and at other times going its own way. The use of CGI to convincingly portray beings who were supposed to be physically present in scenes, such as the robotic Cylon centurions, was ahead of its time as well.

Of course, not all great things last. From the opening part of the mini-series to somewhere around the fifth episode of the third season, the show was almost flawlessly excellent. The writing was tight, the actors were great and the show had a real sense of momentum and purpose. The long-running story arc unfolded logically and even sub-par episodes, like Black Market or Sacrifice, were still eminently watchable. Some problems appeared during the confused 'New Caprica' arc, with the decision to jump forwards some sixteen months from the end of the previous season creating a disconnect in character development which was never really fixed: the behaviour of some characters, most notably Roslin and Apollo, became random and lacking in motivation following that point. The New Caprica arc, though visually exciting and featuring some strong moments of drama and characterisation, also seemed to trip up on the show's own press. The apparent desire to invoke comparisons with the contemporary war in Iraq was laudable, but also confused: were the colonials the Iraqi insurgents or the Cylons? Or vice versa? As an analogy, it lacked substance.

BSG was noted for its superb acting and scripting, as well as its emphasis on politics and realistic, OH LOOK SPACESHIPS PEW-PEW BOOM!

In terms of the plot, the series and ongoing storyline also seemed to lose coherence as it went along. The Kobol arc, which dominated no less than nine episodes, was completely forgotten about within a few weeks and the revelations from that story that was supposed to lead to Earth were disregarded, or referred to only in a very confused manner, in later episodes. Listening to Ronald D. Moore's commentaries, it is shocking how often hugely major story points were developed 'because they were cool' with no regard for how they fitted into the big picture. Sometimes these storylines were begun only for the writers to lose interest and get rid of them as quickly as possible. Lame retcons and wince-inducing continuity errors came to dominate the last two seasons, sometimes minor and easy to ignore but sometimes major. The show remained extremely well-acted to the end, and great episodes still cropped up towards the show's finale, but BSG's once-unassailable quality level dipped quite alarmingly in those last two seasons. The finale summed up these issues with some terrific moments of acting and some brilliant effects and space battles, but an actual ending that ranks amongst the stupidest ever put to screen. For a show that, at its best, never shied away from complexity and having different points of view, the resolution was far too Luddite for it ever to convince.

Still, these major dips in quality aside, BSG was a great show. During those first two-and-a-bit seasons it was easily batting on the same level of quality as contemporary shows like The Wire, Rome and Deadwood, and was a lot better than the likes of Lost or the relaunched Doctor Who. It couldn't quite sustain that quality level to the end, but when BSG was on top form, it was the best space opera ever made. We're still waiting for the space opera that will come along and build upon BSG's successes, but until then revisiting the original is still, warts and all, worthwhile.

GAME OF THRONES adventure game confirmed, FALLOUT 4 marketing exposed as a hoax

Following previous rumours, Telltale Games have confirmed that they will be releasing a Game of Thrones episodic adventure game in 2014.

Telltale, formed out of the collapse of LucasArts's adventure game division in the early 2000s, are the critically-acclaimed creators of Tales of Monkey Island, The Walking Dead (the best piece of media set in that universe to date) and their current ongoing release, The Wolf Among Us, as well as three well-received Sam and Max games. Their other games, of varying quality, include titles set in the Law and Order, CSI, Wallace and Gromit, Jurassic Park and Back to the Future franchises. Telltale have also announced another new game, Tales from the Borderlands, set in the Borderlands video game universe.

This is promising news. With both The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, Telltale have gained a reputation for well-written stories with exciting twists and unusually good characterisation. These are all things that will apply well to the Game of Thrones setting. No word on story or character yet, although Telltale usually prefer to use new characters in a setting where there is ongoing material. They are hoping to use some of the TV voice cast, so some locations and characters may overlap, but I suspect this will be mostly a new story.

"There are sex scenes on the show?" - Kevin Bruner, Telltale Games

According to Telltale there will be some sword-swinging and action, but this will not make up a lot of the gameplay. They were coyer on whether the show's sex scenes would make the translation to gaming.

Unfortunately, the promising ARG for Fallout 4 has been exposed as a hoax. Whilst Bethesda are still widely believed to be working on the game, it does not look like any formal announcement is imminent. Bethesda have faced some criticism from fans for not exposing the story as a hoax when it first appeared a month ago.

SHANNARA to become a TV series at...MTV?

Somewhat unexpectedly, MTV has bought the TV rights to Terry Brooks's Shannara series of fantasy novels. John Favreau, the director of the first two Iron Man films, is fuelling the adaptation and may direct the first episode. Smallville showrunners Al Gough and Miles Millar would helm the show on a week-by-week basis. Apparently, MTV has agreed a straight-to-series deal if they like the initial scrips, bypassing the pilot stage.

The plan is to adapt The Elfstones of Shannara, the second novel (the first, The Sword of Shannara, infamously sails a bit too close to the Tolkien winds) as the first season and proceed from there.

The hyperbolic Hollwood Reporter article contains some interesting factual errors:

"The Shannara books are estimated to be the highest-selling un-adapted fantasy book series in the world."

Apart from The Wheel of Time, the Drizzt Do'Urden books and The Dark Tower, of course.

"Brooks is considered to be the second-highest-selling living fantasy author, trailing only Harry Potter mastermind J.K. Rowling."

Not even remotely true. If the previous figures are accurate (26.5 million sales worldwide, 15 million or so in the USA alone), then Brooks has been outsold by Stephen King, Terry Pratchett, R.A. Salvatore, Christopher Paolini, Anne Rice, Stephanie Meyer, Charlaine Harris and George R.R. Martin have outsold him. If, as the article suggests, Brooks's sales are 26 million in the USA alone, that puts his world wide sales likely in the 40-50 million bracket. Even in that case, he's still been outsold by King, Pratchett, Rice and Meyer, and is at parity with Paolini.

Inaccurate reporting aside, this is interesting news. Avoiding The Swords of Shannara, which is both diabolically awful and 'similar' to Lord of the Rings, is a very good idea. The quality of Brooks's writing improves immensely after that first novel. However, given the quality of the source material (readable popcorn entertainment) and the creative forces involved (Smallville was watchable hokum at best), we're probably talking something a lot closer to Legend of the Seeker than Game of Thrones in tone and styling.

Man of Steel

Man of Steel is, technically, the first on-screen reboot of the Superman mythos since 1978's Superman: The Movie. Produced by the Christopher Nolan, written by David Goyer and directed by Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen), it's an attempt to bring the moral ambiguity and 'grittiness' of Nolan and Goyer's Dark Knight trilogy of Batman films to the Superman franchise, and set up a new shared universe of films based on DC comics characters.

Things start promisingly with a visit to Krypton, depicted as something between Avatar (the Cameron movie) and Dune, with a mixture of ultra-advanced technology and feuding nobles. Russell Crowe plays Jor-El, here depicted as a scientist trying to save his world from imminent destruction but, in typical Russell Crowe style, is also capable of laying waste to entire platoons of soldiers single-handedly. Crow runs afoul of Michael Shannon's General Zod during a coup but still manages to blast his infant son (eventually a capable and reasonably good Henry Cavill) into space before the planet explodes. Zod and his cohorts are sentenced to eternal imprisonment in the Phantom Zone, which works out about as well as it ever does.

The infant Kal-El arrives on Earth and is found and raised by Kent family near Smallville, Kansas. Kal-El aka Clark's crazy powers and abilities soon manifest and his human parents (ably played by Kevin Costner and Diane Lane) are soon spending their time running around quashing rumours that their son is a space alien and instilling him with noble human values. Clark attempts to lie low in a number of fairly innocuous jobs but his tendency to rush into dangerous situations to rescue people soon attracts the attention of a reporter, Lois Lane (Amy Adams). Clark discovers a Kryptonian ship which he can use with technology from his own crashed vessel to create an interactive AI based on his father's personality. This allows him to learn about his heritage, but also sends out an automated SOS which lures Zod and his crazy crew to the planet. Cue a lot of carnage as showdown follows showdown until the film climaxes.

The storyline is, in principle, a good idea. The film avoids any mention of Lex Luthor or Kryptonite, and the use of Krypton, Zod and Jor-El as an AI are all good notions that give the story a personal investment for Superman whilst allowing the origin story part of the narrative to flow into the actual present-day storyline. Unfortunately, this doesn't work out in practise. The film's first hour, just under half the total running time, is overwhelmed by backstory and exposition. The Krypton sequences with Russell Crowe are pretty good, with a strong visual identity and Crowe - easily the best performer in the movie - doing some excellent work, grounding the fantastical landscapes and events in more relatable issues of family. Michael Shannon is a bit thuggish and lacking in nuance as Zod (especially as the film goes on and he gets more shouty), but he has credible motivations and presence. The Krypton sequence is imaginative and involving, but also overlong.

Once on Earth, the film becomes a confused morass of flashbacks (many of them pretty pointless) and present-day story. Kevin Costner is very good as Superman's human father, right up until he gets what is, by a considerable distance, the stupidest, most pointless and most unconvincing death scene in the history of cinema. The overwhelming stupidity of this sequence, not to mention that it was completely unnecessary, may be the film's lowest point. Some individual sequences such as Superman saving the crew of an oil rig or learning to fly by first jumping really high (a nod to early versions of the character who couldn't fly at all, only jump miles at a time) are much more successful. Amy Adams's Lois Lane, who soon enters the story, is also really good. She plays Lois as a smart, intelligent reporter in her thirties who is more plausible than other takes on the character. Crucially, she is also aware of who Superman is from the off. This is an obviously different take on the character relationship, avoiding the whole 'wears glasses as a disguse' cliche, even if it makes no sense whatsoever (Perry meets Superman but later falls for the old 'glasses' trick hook, line and sinker). But still, points for trying on that score. More disappointing is that Adams and Cavill don't really have much chemistry, and their eventual romance is utterly unconvincing.

The film continues to try hard to succeed: Zod's plans for Earth are actually somewhat logical and make sense. They also give hope to Clark that one day Krypton can live again, which should lead to greater moral confusion over what is the right thing to do. But this never happens: Clark decides early on to defend Earth no matter the cost and never budges from that, making these attempts to complicate things fail outright.

This leads into the film's climactic action sequences which are, on the whole, highly disappointing. The action sequences are over-indulgent and seem to go on forever. They also frequently lack context or conviction: seeing two invulnerable beings fight one another knowing they can't hurt one another makes for zero tension. The CGI is also flat-out terrible in these battles, rather bafflingly since Krypton is so impressive at the start of the film. The character-replacement CGI is unconvincing, the placing of the actors' faces on CGI bodies is amateurish and some of the flight and movement CGI is worse than the twelve-year-old original Spider-Man movie. Usually in 2013 the very least you can say about an otherwise terrible movie is that the effects are good, but Man of Steel can't even manage that right. The final battle also indulges in some dubiously lingering shots of collapsing skyscrapers with hundreds of people in them (or about to be squashed by them) which makes for uneasy viewing in a Superman feature.

Man of Steel (**) shows hints of a fertile imagination and originality (mostly in the opening act set on Krypton) whilst showcasing a few good performances, but these are soon buried by inane dialogue, terrible action sequences, poor CGI and a total collapse in logic at several key points in the film. Man of Steel is not only not very good, but even manages to make Superman Returns look like a capable and competent film in comparison. Overall, not recommended.