The Walking Dead: Season 8

The communities of Alexandria, Hilltop and the Kingdom have joined forces to oppose the Saviors, but they have been betrayed by one group of potential allies whilst another, Oceanside, tries to stay out of the fighting. An early victory isolates the Sanctuary and allows Rick's forces to go on the offensive against the isolated Savior secondary bases, but Negan remains a dangerous and resourceful foe. As the tides of war ebb and flow, the outcome remains unpredictable.

The eighth season of The Walking Dead optimistically promises "all-out war!" as it adapts the story arc from the comics of the same name. The early episodes lean into this, with an almost constant stream of battles, sieges, cunning stratagems and unexpected reversals. Neither side consistently wins or consistently loses (although the number of Savior losses in the opening episodes makes their later resurgence seem improbable), a nice change from most media accounts of conflicts where the good guys keep losing until the last second and then pull off a single win and win everything and hit the jackpot.

The battles in the opening episodes make for an exciting start to the season, but are a bit overwrought. Given the show's shock-jock tactics of killing two fan-favourite characters in the Season 7 opener, almost everybody develops thick plot armour and almost nobody of consequence dies (no, Alexandrians who may have been around for three seasons but only have five lines of dialogue in their entire tenure of the show do not count). This makes the stakes feel a bit undercooked. Instead we have a lot of battles - consisting of characters pointing weirdly recoilless guns at one another with CG muzzle flashes, sometimes with allies running right in front of them whilst they're firing - without much in the way of stakes to them.

The show does try to get around this by aiming for character-rooted emotional arcs: Ezekiel suffers a crisis of command after losing too many of his people in the war; Morgan being torn between not killing and protecting his friends causes a mental health crisis; Carl, recognising some proto-Negan-ness in his own character, decides to become a better person; Eugene trying to work out if Negan or Rick will better appreciate his skills; Gabriel rediscovers his faith in adversity, and so forth. Some of these character arcs are satisfying, others just feel they're there to help the show spin its wheels.

Yes, the greatest enemy of The Walking Dead is neither Negan nor the walkers, but the show's problematic pacing. A relentless foe of the franchise since it made the entire second season take place on a farm, it drags Season 8 down into the mud. Making the war last the entire season, sixteen episodes, after last season's sixteen episodes of scene-setting, was a huge mistake, resulting in several episodes where not much materially changes, even as bullets are flying. The show really feels like it doesn't have a clue what to do next when it sends the characters back to the Junkyard, again, to try to win over the Scavengers, again, only for them to betray our heroes, again. At eight episodes to end the war, perhaps with another eight exploring the aftermath (here relegated to a very abrupt-seeming vignette at the end of the season finale), the storyline would have been much tighter and more satisfying.

The season does have a few stronger elements. Dwight trying to balance his survival against being the mole inside Negan's organisation is a fun storyline, and Steven Ogg (best known as Grand Theft Auto V's redoubtable Trevor) arguably steals the season as Simon, whose charismatic backstabbing is highly entertaining. This all makes up for a subdued Jeffrey Dean Morgan, whose undeniable charisma and acting talent feels a bit let down by the inconsistent quality of the scripts for Negan. When he brings it, he's great, but when he doesn't, his story falls flat.

Mid-season the show does dispatch one long-term regular to try to up the ante, but the choice of character to kill is illogical, badly-handled and feels like a bit of a slap in the face of the actor (who famously had just bought a house near the studio because they'd been assured they'd be around for a while longer) and also comic fans, where the character in question survives all the way to the end of the saga. They do try to make the sacrifice have some weight and long-term impact on the story, but it's badly-conceived.

The season finale is also a bit of a damp squib, with the plan to win the day being incredibly illogical and desperately dependent on absolutely nothing going wrong, and the rapidity with which the losing side gives in to the winning side feels a bit implausible. One decision by Rick is also laughably unconvincing: I get what they were going for, but I do not buy at all that Rick of all people would make that choice. That said, Maggie does benefit from this storyline, coming across as a stronger and more decisive leader, and potentially setting up a conflict between her and Rick which could be genuinely interesting.

Season 8 of The Walking Dead (***) is not terrible, but it is badly-paced, overdrawn and overwrought, with some curious character choices and unconvincing plot decisions. There is, however, a lot of half-decent action, and the ebb and flow of the conflict is more interesting than how wars are usually depicted in fiction. This is possibly the weakest season of the show, but those who have settled in for the long haul should find enough here to just about keep going (along with the promise of a better final three seasons coming up, although that is debatable). The show can be seen on multiple streaming platforms worldwide, right now.

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HALF-LIFE 2 turns twenty years old

November 16th marks the 20th anniversary of the release of Half-Life 2, one of the most iconic and influential video games of all time.

The original Half-Life had come out in late 1998 and established new standards for first-person shooters. The game focused on total immersion, with the protagonist, Gordon Freeman, never speaking and the player never seeing outside of Gordon's POV, even in cutscenes (which were fully interactive, with Gordon able to walk around during them). The game had very sophisticated AI for the time, and ferocious combat with both alien creatures and cunning enemy soldiers. The game was noted for its bonkers ending, which saw Freeman recruited by the mysterious "G-Man" to work for him in some unspecified fashion.

Valve subsequently published two expansions, Opposing Force (1999) and Blue Shift (2000), which focused on other characters during the events of the original game, as well as revising and expanding the original for ports to the Sega Dreamcast and PlayStation 2. Valve also welcomed the activities of modders, commercially releasing the multiplayer titles Team Fortress Classic (1999) and Counter-Strike (2000), as well as the single-player Gunman Chronicles (2000), which all came from the modding community.

Most fans were clamouring for a direct sequel but Valve remained tight-lipped on the subject. In the spring of 2003 they confirmed that yes, Half-Life 2 was real and would be released that year. But, famously, Valve were hacked and an early build of the game was leaked onto the Internet. Valve furiously reworked almost the entire game in response, rebuilding it from the ground up over less than a year, something that was hugely expensive and annoying, but later was credited with making the game better.

Half-Life 2 finally released in November 2004 and, despite the backlash over the required use of the Steam software (see below) to authenticate and play the game, the game was a huge success, selling hundreds of thousands of copies in its first few days on sale. That may not sound like much by modern standards, but by 2004 the PC platform was starting to slide into sales decline, and a PC-only action game requiring an Internet connection and a reasonably robust graphics card was a fairly challenging requirement, so its success was impressive. Sales would dramatically accelerate over the following years, with over 12 million copies sold by 2011 and more than 30 million of the entire franchise by 2020. The game also achieved immediate critical acclaim, with PC Gamer awarding it 98%, a score that would not be equalled until the release of Baldur's Gate III in August 2023. Maximum PC magazine memorably gave the game 11/10.

Half-Life 2 is also notable the first (and, for several years, only) release requiring the installation and use of the Steam distribution platform. Steam itself had launched a year earlier but the release of Half-Life 2 introduced it to vast numbers of people for the first time. Valve's use of Steam was highly controversial, especially with people who only planned to play Half-Life 2 offline for the story and campaign, but still had to authenticate the game online.

The game's critical reception was down to its incredible sense of atmosphere, its moody restraint with moments of quiet punctuated by satisfying action set-pieces and moments of visceral horror (Half-Life 2 is as much a horror game as it is an SF action blockbuster, sometimes that tended to get overlooked at the time). The setting was incredible, with a sense of melancholy bleakness you'd be hard-pressed to find in any modern shooter. The story was low-key but solid and the supporting cast of supporting characters incredibly popular, with Valve using cutting-edge tech to help them emote and act more believably like real people (well, by the standards of the day). The game did have some tough competition from the recently-released Far Cry, which had far superior environments and use of vehicles, but Half-Life 2 boasted a better story, more interesting characters, stronger music and a more unsettling atmosphere.

Half-Life 2 ended on a huge cliffhanger, one that was swiftly resolved in Half-Life 2: Episode One, released in mid-2006, and then Half-Life 2: Episode Two, released in late 2007 as part of a compilation called The Orange Box, alongside legendary multiplayer game Team Fortress 2 and the experimental puzzle game Portal (which not so much stole Episode Two's thunder as also had its lunch and then tapdanced on its head). Episode Two ended on a cruel humdinger of a cliffhanger, with Valve assuring fans that Half-Life 2: Episode Three was in development.

Except, infamously, Episode Three never appeared. Valve would periodically say it was on its way but instead released other games: Left 4 Dead (2008), Left 4 Dead 2 (2009), Alien Swarm (2009), Portal 2 (2011), Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (2012) and Dota 2 (2013). Steam, that much maligned online launcher, had started generating insane revenues for Valve, rising to billions of dollars a year within a decade, removing the financial impetus to release a new Half-Life title. Eventually Valve acknowledged that Episode Three was dead, with instead the story more likely to continue in a Half-Life 3, but that was never formally announced or confirmed to be in development either.

In 2020, Valve abruptly announced a new Half-Life game. Half-Life: Alyx would be an interquel set between Half-Life and Half-Life 2, and focusing on the popular side-character of Alyx Vance. The game would be VR only, upsetting long-term fans of the franchise who could not afford a VR setup or could not use one for medical reasons. The game had a surprise ending, which revisited the ending of Half-Life 2: Episode Two from a different perspective and seemed to finally hint that a proper, full sequel was possible.

Four years on, there has been no further news on that front, although Valve have released Counter-Strike 2 and have announced a new hero shooter game, Deadlock. But still, hope springs eternal.

To celebrate Half-Life 2's 20th Anniversary, Valve have released a new documentary about the making of the game, an update to HL2 revising some of the level design quirks they'd been meaning to fix for years and updating the game's lighting, and announced a new edition of the iconic Raising the Bar book about the making the game. The new edition of Raising the Bar launches in early 2025 with new sections about the making of the episodes.

Oh yes, and you can get Half-Life 2, Episode One and Episode Two for free for the whole weekend, which is a very good price for total gaming classics.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

The Walking Dead: Season 7

Rick Grimes and his long-standing band of companions have initiated hostilities with a group of extorters called the Saviors, thinking them just the latest in a long line of gangs of thugs and bandits they've been dealing with in the two years since civilisation fell. But the Saviors are a far larger, far more dangerous and far more unpredictable group than any they've come across since, under the leadership of the charismatic and capricious Negan. The Saviors take control of Alexandria, forcing Rick's group to work for them and executing two of their number to make sure they are taken seriously. The group is divided on how, or even to, resist, whilst others of their number find more of the network of settlements that Hilltop was just one of, and gradually realise that the Saviors have made a lot of enemies, something they might be able to turn to their advantage.

It's been a minute since we last touched base with The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman's comic turned Frank Darabont's lawsuit target turned epic zombie apocalypse turned slightly frustrating nation-building exercise. I got so frustrated with the show's pacing being all over the place that I decided to tune out until it was over, which took slightly longer than expected, not helped by the seasons immediately following my hiatus being soundly criticised even by hardcore fans.

As a recap, Season 6 saw the gang take over the town of Alexandria, whose citizenry can be best described as nice-but-dim. Rick and his gang of hardened survivors had to take over the town for their own good, almost turning into villains in the process, a highly interesting idea that the show immediately squandered (the town is immediately attacked by feral lunatics known as Wolves and a massive zombie horde, and only Rick and The Gang have the cojones to sort them out whilst the Alexandrians just gawp), as is often the case with The Walking Dead. The latter part of the season flirted with an even more interesting storyline in which Rick and The Gang are manipulated into fighting the Saviors by the duplicitous Gregory, leader of Hilltop. The show could have had the Saviors as a more reasonable group, so Rick's pre-emptive attack was an illegitimate act and the resulting counter-strike by Negan was more justified, but again that would have made the show too interesting, so we are reassured at every second moment that the Saviors are evil, almost killing two of our heroes on a whim and subjecting multiple towns to tyranny, murder and extortion.

Still, the season was the most action-packed The Walking Dead has ever been and, whilst logic had not so much left the building but screamed out of town in a jet fighter at Mach 5, never to be seen again, there's no arguing it was fun to watch in a very dumb kind of way. This is what I call the "Game of Thrones Season 7 Effect," where character and plot logic have been sacrificed on the altar of visceral action and some sick special effects, but the latter are executed so well you kinda don't mind (and The Walking Dead was never the most subtle study in character interplay in the first place).

Season 7 continues in much the same vein. The season opens with the infamous episode where Negan gets to pontificate at Rick and, via an unnecessarily drawn-out, tension-building exercise, kills two of the regular characters in a very gory fashion. Despite the undeniable gut-punch of seeing two solid characters (one of whom has been around since the very beginning, or almost) go out, it also feels like someone at AMC decided this was going to be their Wal-Mart own-brand version of the Red Wedding and milked it for every nanosecond. The result is possibly the worst episode of the show to date, devolving into that most curious of beasts, extremely boring torture-porn.

Once the show gets over that hump, it sets about exploring its new paradigm with entertaining relish. The Saviors live at the Sanctuary, a massive factory-turned-fortress, and are extorting the people of three settlements, Alexandria, Hilltop and the Kingdom. There are also two other settlements nearby which know about the Saviors but have remained undetected: the Junkyard, home to a bunch of inexplicable weirdos known as the Scavengers; and Oceanside, home to a bunch of women whose menfolk were all killed by the Saviors, buying them time to escape and establish a secret stronghold on Chesapeake Bay. Handily, Carol and Morgan have already established contact with the Kingdom, a town built in and around an old zoo and ruled by a flamboyant ruler known as King Ezekiel (who feels like he has been airdropped into the show from the Renfair Hallmark version of Game of Thrones, but is easily one of the most entertaining characters on the show so we'll allow it), whilst Tara, who went missing at the end of Season 6 and literally nobody at all noticed, has established less-cordial relations with Oceanside.

Season 7 is, as usual, divided into two eight-episode sub-arcs. In the first Rick and The Gang are trying to make their new position of working for the Saviors fly, with some characters angrily planning revenge on Negan and the Saviors but others arguing for patience and time to regroup. Daryl has been taken prisoner by the Saviors so we get to explore the Sanctuary via him (and returning Season 6 bit-players Dwight and Sherry), whilst Maggie is trying to consolidate the Hilltop in their alliance, whilst fighting a rather one-sided rivalry with Gregory. Tara's visit to Oceanside is rather tedious, in the lowest-rated episode of the entire series, which I thought was a bit harsh; there's more than a few episodes before this in which absolutely nothing happens, whilst this at least had some solid walker-killing. A storyline in which Morgan struggles with his vow not to kill whilst Carol needs a time-out in a cottage is...okay, I guess, but only works because of the two actors.

Inevitably, after a few more Alexandrians are killed and Negan turns out to be even more loony-tunes than we first thought, Team Rick decides to fight and starts banding the communities into a big army. The weak link here are the Scavengers who are blatantly, obviously untrustworthy from the off and Rick's efforts to bring them into the alliance are ludicrous (and the fact we get the exact same story in Season 8 beggars belief). Negan also ends up moving from genuinely threatening figure at the end of Season 6 to pantomime dame, flouncing around and straining to find reasons not to kill the more popular characters blessed with plot armour. Jeffrey Dean Morgan always gives a great performance but there are a few moments where even he seems to be asking, "why am I not killing every person in this room?"

Things do get better as the season wraps up, with the web of alliances coming to fruition in a surprisingly messy finale with double-crosses and plot twists and some solid action beats. The season does quite well on this front with a few good set-pieces such as Michonne and Rick taking down 300 walkers with a weaponised steel cable, and later clearing out a funfair by themselves. The storyline in the Kingdom is unexpectedly a highlight, its daftness (Ezekiel has a CGI pet tiger) giving way to a much edgier story as they try to work reasonably alongside the Saviors but ultimately realise they can't.

Season 7 of The Walking Dead is trying to do something that most long-running post-apocalyptic media tries to do and often falters in the process: transitioning from the post-apocalypse to the post-post-apocalypse, from simple survival to nation-building. Running from zombies in the immediate aftermath of disaster with plentiful supplies to scavenge, not many survivors and tons of guns lying around (in a US-set story, anyway) is easily turned into compelling drama. Working out how to get reliable supplies of food and water, especially with a brutal local government around? Not so much, or at least it's trickier. The Fallout franchise had a similar problem with the early games set just after the nuclear war giving way to the later games set 200 years later with tons of factions and even nation-states arising, and the game developers too often falling back on post-apocalyptic tropes even where they no longer made sense, because it was easier.

The Walking Dead is to be commended for trying this tricky transition in its seventh season (***½) and it doesn't fare as badly as I was expecting, with some nice character arcs and action setpieces. But the show struggles with selling some of its plot points and ideas, and the whiff of contrivance as Rick's group need a bunch of allies to fight the Saviors and immediately meet a bunch of allies to fight the Saviors is high. The result is an entertaining-enough season of television, which recovers from a cynical and crappy start to deliver some satisfying resolution, even if you can't quite buy all the steps along the way. The show can be seen on multiple streaming platforms worldwide right now.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

RIP Tony Todd

The news has sadly broken of the death of American actor Tony Todd, at the age of 69. Todd was best-known for his intense performances that led to a starring role in the Candyman horror franchise and multiple roles on Star Trek.

Todd was born in 1954 in Washington, DC and grew up in Hartford, Connecticut. He studied theatre at the University of Connecticut and the Eugene O'Neill Nation Actors Theatre Institute, whilst joining the Artists Collective, Inc. and the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island.

He made his screen debut in 1986, playing Sergeant Warren in the classic war movie Platoon. He made a career of memorable supporting terms on film and also on TV, where he played guest roles on 21 Jump Street, MacGyver, Night Court and Matlock.

In 1990 he was cast in his first memorable role in the Star Trek franchise. He appeared as Klingon Commander Kurn in the Season 3 Next Generation episode Sins of the Father, but in a major plot twist it was revealed that Kurn was actually Worf's brother, and sought his brother's help in restoring their family honour, triggering a multi-season story arc. He returned in the two-part episode Redemption before transferring to Deep Space Nine, in the Season 4 episode Sons of Mogh. He also played the role of Kurn in the video games Klingon Honour Guard and Star Trek Online.

Also for Deep Space Nine, he played the role of the adult Jake Sisko in the Season 4 episode The Visitor. Often cited as the single best episode of Deep Space Nine, Todd gained immense plaudits for his performance as a man haunted by the disappearance of his father and who dedicates his whole life to search for him. The episode was nominated for a Hugo Award in 1996.

In 1998 he completed the trifecta by playing the Alpha Hirogen in the Star Trek: Voyager episode Prey.

In 1992 he was cast in what came to be regarded as his signature role, as Daniel Robitaille aka The Candyman in the horror franchise of the same name, created by Clive Barker. Todd attracted critical praise for his performance in The Candyman (1992). He reprised the role in Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995) and Candyman 3: Day of the Dead (1999), though neither sequel was as well-regarded as the original.

In 2021 Jordan Peele co-wrote and produced a new film in the franchise, just called Candyman, directed by Nia DaCosta. The film saw Todd reprise his role, despite early consideration of recasting the role due to Todd's age. Todd had kept in good shape in the intervening years and it was deemed his physical presence and distinct voice were integral to the character. The film received critical acclaim.

Todd also became a noted voice actor in video games, playing the Vortigaunts in Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and Half-Life: Alyx, as well as providing voices for Dota 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops II. He also played Venom in Spider-Man 2 and Locus in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which will now be a posthumous release.

Todd is survived by 2 children and his younger sister, actress Monique Dupree. A memorable performer with great screen presence, he will be missed.

Starfield: Shattered Space

A year ago, Bethesda released Starfield, their massive space RPG that was a decade in the planning. It's fair to say it underwhelmed, despite some enjoyable moments. The game had a laudably weird, off-kilter main storyline and Bethesda's best combat to date, but bland writing, dry characters and a lack of the curated exploration that characterised their best games made it a frustrating experience.

In particular, Starfield suffered from its structure, which encouraged you to jump from star system to star system not via its space travel system but by fast-travelling. Given that both involved faffing around with menus and loading screens rather than engaging in rip-roaring space adventures, why not just do the faster method? Although more efficient, it arguably defeated the object of a space game to mostly avoid the space bit of it.

Shattered Space, the first major Starfield expansion, tries to grapple with this problem head-on. The expansion starts in a very promising way, with you being drawn to an abandoned space station without gravity, and having to fight what appear to be "space ghosts." The mystery of the space station is unusually gripping (by Starfield standards, anyway) and lasts just the right amount of time before you get some exposition which leads you to Va'ruun'kai, the homeworld of House Va'ruun, a faction mostly represented in the mothership game by fanatical space pirates worshipping a great serpent.

Your arrival on Va'ruun'kai is not welcomed and you'd have probably been ventilated in short order, but fortunately there was some kind of "incident" just before you arrived which blew up half the capital city, created gravitation anomalies through the area and brought in yet more space ghosts. Thanks to your knowledge of weird space phenomena from the OG game (and the incredible desperation of the planet's leader), you're recruited to help them out even if you're not totally convinced that their big space serpent god is actually a thing.

After the initial space station episode, the entire game takes place on Va'ruun'kai. The generously-sized new map is handcrafted and covered with story-critical locations, locations essential to side-quests and even locations just there for you to stumble across in random exploration. This is a huge change from the base game where most planetary areas are procedurally generated with identikit bases with the same layout, and the same small pool of events constantly happening. If anything, Shattered Space might spoil you (well, more) for the main game.

The collection of quests here is a notch above the original game, and occasionally it surprised me. One quest involved helping out a confused elderly gentleman after his daughter and only carer disappeared in the incident. This quest makes a big play for an emotional story - something not so much not in modern Bethesda's normal wheelhouse as not even in their galaxy - and almost pulls it off. A lot of the side-quests tie into the annihilation of half the city and its people, selling it as a big, traumatic event in these people's lives (and perhaps explaining a bit better than usual why they immediately trust the total rando who's shown up to save their arses for them). The main mission chain is more predictable, requiring you to bring the three ruling factions of the city in line by doing favours for them, then recovering vital equipment to allow you to get inside the lab where the incident began. But it's executed at least moderately better than the original game.

Where the expansion falters, not unlike the core game, is in comparison to its forebears and contemporaries. It feels like the expansion is aiming at a similar experience to Fallout 4's splendid expansion Far Harbor, including the hand-crafted smaller map, better story focus, and even its focus on one of your companion characters (Andreja is from this planet and bringing her along can open new dialogue options). But the game isn't quite as compelling as Far Harbor's, which had much more bittersweetness and character depth, and a really thorny moral quandary at the end. Shattered Space is less engrossing, and Andreja's extra ten lines of dialogue or whatever it is can't compare to Nick's much greater direct involvement in the Far Harbor narrative. Also, as a lot of people compared Starfield to Cyberpunk 2077 (both being first-person SF RPGs with an open world) and found it critically wanting, so Shattered Space is not even operating on the same level as Phantom Liberty.

Shattered Space is basically 12-15 hours or so of more Starfield, which some might find a questionable proposition, but the more focused storytelling and characterisation is at least a moderate improvement over the base game, even if that does insanely mean dropping the space travel bit from your sci-fi RPG. Graphically it's very pretty (especially if you're a big fan of purple), and it feels like the environments are a step up over the base game. Still, it's hard to conclude anything different to the original game: Shattered Space (***½) is solid but underwhelming. The expansion requires Starfield to run and is available on PC and Xbox Series X/S, and via the Xbox Game Pass service.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

15 years ago (somehow) I visited Belfast whilst they were filming the GAME OF THRONES pilot

The Internet informs me that (mostly) celebrated medieval fantasy TV show Game of Thrones entered production just over fifteen years ago, despite it clearly actually being twelve minutes ago. Although I was unable to wrangle a set visit, I did get to meet many of the cast and crew at special events hosted by George R.R. Martin for fans in Belfast that week.

On 3 November 2009, he arranged a book signing in Easons Bookstore in Belfast, Northern Ireland, near the main set at the Paint Hall Studios (aka Titanic Studios). Ostensibly this was for his newly-released fantasy anthology Songs of the Dying Earth, a tribute collection to the classic fantasy author Jack Vance (fellow author Matt Hughes was on hand as well), although obviously most fans turned up with copies of the (then) four Song of Ice and Fire volumes in hand.

George R.R. Martin and Matt Hughes, authors in SONGS OF THE DYING EARTH.

Sophie Turner & Alfie Allen

Kit Harington

Ron Donachie & Richard Madden

Maisie Williams & Sophie Turner

Ron Donachie, Alfie Allen, Kit Harington, Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams, Richard Madden & George R.R. Martin

Multiple Game of Thrones actors stopped by and were happy (if slightly bemused) to sign books: Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark), Maisie Williams (Arya Stark), Richard Madden (Robb Stark), Alfie Allen (Theon Greyjoy), a very tired Kit Harington (Jon Snow) and Ron Donachie (Ser Roderik Cassel). Rory McCann (Sandor Clegane, the Hound) stopped by briefly as well, but alas too quickly for me to snap a picture.

That evening we repaired to McHughes, a bar in the city which had been booked out (for "G.F.F. Martin," apparently). We were joined by Esme Bianco ("Red-Headed Whore," soon to be renamed at George's insistence, "Ros") and several members of the crew, including extras, stunt coordinators and some of the vfx team. One fan even proposed to his girlfriend (she said yes) and George R.R. Martin was proud to announce that Richard Madden had been officially crowned "Best-Dressed Man in Scotland", in absentia because he was obviously filming in Winterfell.

Sophie Turner, Esme Bianco & Maisie Williams

Esme Bianco, Richard Madden & George R.R. Martin

Ron Donachie & George R.R. Martin

George was unusually forthcoming and let us in on some juicy plot info from the upcoming Dance with Dragons, but further revelations were curtailed when Ron Donachie joined us and immediately engaged George in discussion about American football. This was one of GRRM's blog posts come to life.

The main points of discussion were some nervousness, as the pilot was expensive and HBO had not done fantasy before. Everyone agreed the books were great and if they were adapted well, the show could find some success. But I think if you'd told anywhere there that it was going to become The Biggest Show on Television, arguably worldwide, for the next decade, and spawn multiple spin-off projects, I think you'd have been laughed out of the room.

But, of course, that's how it went down, and for the next few years fan gatherings would be held in Belfast to celebrate the show (initially ad hoc but then turning into the more formal TitanCon convention, which ran annually until 2019). The first spin-off show, House of the Dragon, moved production to the Warner Brothers studios at Leavesden, just outside London, but A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has returned to the original production base in Belfast to resume filming there.

It was a great night and a great set of memories to have.

MechWarrior 5: Clans

AD 3049. Almost fifteen hundred light years from Terra, the self-exiled Clans, heirs to the fallen Star League, live lives of ritualistic combat and the pursuit of honour. The arrival of an exploration vessel from the Inner Sphere shocks the Clans, who hold themselves to be technologically superior and safe from the constant infighting of the Sphere. Faced with the threat of the Inner Sphere powers discovering the Clan homeworlds and attacking, the Clans resolve to strike first, launching a massive invasion of the Inner Sphere which throws the Lyran Commonwealth, Free Rasalhague Republic and Draconis Combine into chaos.

Clan Smoke Jaguar is assigned the task of sweeping through the lightly-settled Periphery and then driving hard into the Draconis Combine. Their first target is the independent world of Santander's Bay, followed by the Combine world of Courchevel and then a determined strike on Luthien, the Draconis capital. A newly-assembled Star (five-mech unit) under the command of Jayden is tasked with helping the Smoke Jaguars seek victory...but their leaders' utter ruthlessness, indifference to civilian casualties and seeking honour only when convenient to them leads Jayden and some under his command to question what they are fighting for.

Five years ago, Piranha Games released MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, a freeform game where you gained command of a detachment of BattleMechs (big stompy robots) and a starship, and guided them to fame and fortune through a mixture of procedurally-generated missions, handcrafted jobs and a lengthy story campaign. The game was released in an iffy state but was rapidly fixed and then expanded through six DLC campaigns to become a very solid game of stompy robot fun in the BattleTech universe, augmented further by a very healthy modding scene. Whilst the game was very solid, its grindy, freeform nature came in for some criticism, so Piranha decided to address that with a new game with a much more focused, narrative approach.

MechWarrior 5: Clans depicts the full-scale invasion of the Inner Sphere by the Clans, arguably the biggest and most consequential event in all of BattleTech lore. BattleTech games are largely set either in the pre-Clan period, which focuses on political intrigue and conflict between the five Inner Sphere powers, or the post-Clan period when the Inner Sphere's rearranged borders and polities are trying to adapt to the Clans' arrival. By depicting the invasion on-screen for the first time (it has been depicted before in Michael A. Stackpole's splendid novels), Piranha are answering the wishes of a lot of die-hard BattleTech / MechWarrior fans.

The invasion is straightforward enough - these bonkers semi-Klingons from elsewhere in the galaxy are trying to invade Earth (sorry, Terra)! - and takes place early enough in the timeline that newcomers won't be lost either. And it's an interesting stroke on Piranha's part to not only have the players fighting for the Clans (the "bad guys" of this story, but only very relatively compared to the ruthless realpolitik-governed Inner Sphere), but arguably the least-pleasant Clan of them all, Smoke Jaguar.

Extensive cutscenes introduce the plot and cast of characters. You get to know your starmates through surprisingly polished and extensive cutscenes, as well as in-battle banter. As usual in these games (forget the number, this is actually the eighth mainline game in the series, not counting expansions), you can customise your mechs before battle, maybe choosing to switch to different models and then choosing weapons loadouts. If you're fighting on a hot desert world, you may want to ditch those lasers for cooler autocannons, but if you're in an arctic environment, you can go hogwild with the pew-pew. You can also choose how much armour you want your mech to carry, and if you want a cool jump jet or not. Outfitting your mech is supposedly made easier by the presence of Omni-pods which have preset loadouts; in practice I found these mostly useless, and tinkering with the loadouts more directly was often more effective. Newcomers who don't know their PPCs from UACs may find the default loadout for each mission to be perfectly fine and stick with that.

You then hit the battlefield and have to achieve objectives, which are usually some variation of "go here and kill all the things," although occasional pursuit, rescue and defence missions liven things up. When battle is joined and lasers and missiles fly, the results are a splendid feast for the eyes, enhanced by the switch to Unreal Engine 5 for this excursion. Not only do you have to pilot your own mech in battle (from either first or third person), but you can also direct your starmates to hold particular areas of the battlefield, target your opponent or follow you. You can also switch to an overhead battlemap for more granular control of the battlefield, briefy turning the game into an RTS (and makes the heart pang for a new MechCommander game), although in practice I found controlling the battle from this viewpoint to be more confusing than from the cockpit.

The game is linear, but at several moments you have a large choice of different missions to select, which you can approach sensibly (do the missions in escalating order of difficulty) or not (do the toughest missions first to accrue the most honour and resources). There is also a big decision you make towards the end of the game which completely changes the final few missions. But the whole point of Clans is to offer a more curated, story-driven experience with memorable characters; if you want the freeform open-world approach, then MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries (or the classic turn-based tactics game BattleTech) is the place to go.

The cutscenes and story are both surprisingly enjoyable. There's little surprising here, the fact that you're playing for the bad guys and become increasingly aware of how evil they are as the game continues makes things fairly predictable, but it's all executed with enough panache and character you can bear the unoriginality. Your five starmates all have their own personality and attitude to things (although I confess I found Ezra and Liam to be a bit interchangeable), and their disagreements are useful in shaping your own attitude to the Clans. The supporting cast are splendid, with a special mention reserved for Cordera Perez, your commanding officer, who is both a spectacularly unrepentant arsehole and has the most outstanding "total dickhead" voice performance I have heard in many years. I am disappointed we don't see more of the famous lore characters, like Leo Showers, the supreme commander of the Smoke Jaguars, who gets a memorable cutscene near the start but otherwise doesn't show up again.

The game is also surprisingly meaty. Normally a game like this - story focus, linear campaign missions - would top out at 10 hours, maybe 15, but MechWarrior 5: Clans lasts around 30 hours of stompy mech action, more if you replay the game to see the alternate ending. This length does mean the game occasionally struggles to keep things fresh - the "shock plot twist" of a late-arriving, heavily armed dropship you have to disarm under heavy fire is used a few times too many - but the campaign moving on between several different planets, the supporting cast changing (as this is a war, and people die) and the story of the war taking several unexpected turns keeps things ticking over nicely. There are several brutal difficulty spikes which may frustrate players, but the ability to switch difficulty levels if a mission is particularly kicking your arse means you can usually find a way of getting past them.

MechWarrior 5: Clans (****½) is a splendidly enjoyable slice of fun. You stomp around in robots blowing things up, against the backdrop of an epic space opera saga which is well-told. The strategy command element adds depth to the game, and you can go down a deep rabbit hole of mech customisation options if you want, to optimise your combat experience. Hopefully Piranha can match the generous DLC they provided for Mercenaries to expand on the war, maybe giving you the opportunity to play for other Clans or maybe crossing over with Mercenaries with a freeform mode. MechWarrior 5: Clans is available now on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, as well as via the Xbox Game Pass service.

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