This following post contains spoilers for the eleventh episode of Series 4 Doctor Who. If you don’t wish for the episode to be spoiled for you, do not continue. Otherwise, please read on, as I have no control over stopping you. So yeah, don’t comment saying “OMG! U RUIND IT 4 ME!” or anything to that effect, ’cause it just means you’re stupid for not heeding my warning

This will be my first post on Doctor Who, and what a place to start. Turn Left is the first part of the three-part finale. Series 4 has, for me, been really good, perhaps even the best yet, only the finale will tell. I’ve had laughs, I’ve cried (I’ve done a LOT of crying), I’ve had plenty of excitement, my pulse raising (most notably whenever I see Rose, but also when I watched the preview for Episode 12!)

So, Episode 11. I heard the name of the episode quite a while ago, but I couldn’t figure out what it meant. “Turn Left”, what has that got to do with anything? But then Donna meets a fortune teller and it all becomes clear. This fortune teller distracts her while a “Time Beetle” locks on to her back and she is told to do one thing – Turn Right. This one little change, an insignificant thing, causes all the events of the episode to transpire. Everything good the companions had done since Donna met the Doctor go wrong, and nobody wins.

But then, along comes a rose, or rather THE Rose. She convinces Donna that she is more important than she thinks, that she’s not “just a temp” (something Donna likes to call her self quite a lot). Jump forward quite a few scenes and some “chance” meetings, stars start going out, and we find ourselves in “The Circle of Mirrors”. This is where Donna’s defining moment takes place. Before she gets sent back, she asks one question, “so I’m not really gonna die”, and Rose only has one answer, something The Doctor says quite often, “I’m sorry”. This moment just made me cry. Donna’s running along, trying to make herself turn left, but she’s too late! Her other self is already at the place where she turns, but look! There’s a lorry! Donna kills herself so that she may live (I know, where else but Doctor Who?) and everything is put right. Before returning to the Fortune Teller, Rose tells Donna to say something to The Doctor. Two words. Two words that will change everything … that’s right, you guessed it!

BAD WOLF! The Doctor understands, he knows what it means. Rushing outside he sees it all over the signs, the signs that were in a different language earlier now all say Bad Wolf. All the writing on the TARDIS says Bad Wolf. He goes in the TARDIS and hears it. The worst sound The TARDIS can make … It’s the Cloister Bell. The bell to signal the end of the universe …

And that’s where we leave it, with a nice little preview for the next episode which had me giddier than a guy on <insert drug of choice here>. It has me itching to grow my own TARDIS (Fact: TARDIS are alive, and grown. Take a look on Jack’s desk in Torchwood, notice a bit of Coral there? I’ll say no more!)

So, stay tuned, my next post shall most probably be on the Bad Wolf. What is it, where does it come from and where can you find it!

Ah, the first time. It should be the most wonderful time, full of excitement and wonder, but is often full of pain and ridicule. Yes, the first time blogging (not whatever you nasty people out there might be thinking) is a hard time because you have to think about what to write, how to write it, how long it should be, because you want to make a good first impression on the (few) people who read your blog. So, what’s this entry going to be about? It’s going to be about a little game called Mechquest …

Mechquest is an online RPG that uses mecha (those giant robots) as a fighting system. It’s from Artix Entertainment, the makers of two other fantastic, yet throughly different games. Actually, three other games, but the third is barely released at the moment. The general idea of the game (like any game) is to train and gain money (the money in the game is called credits, how space agey and totally not cliche…) Unfortunately, in order to buy the things you need, you’ll have to spend a while farming for those credits. However, the hard part is not getting the money. No, that’s relatively easy. In the average battle at my level (level 15) I get 620 credits per enemy. The hard part is getting experience to level up. For that one enemy that gives me 620 credits, I’ll get perhaps 70 experience. Most other games have it the other way around, but not Mechquest.

The battle system is good. It’s nice and simple but doesn’t leave much room for expansion. The idea is you buy a mecha, and that mecha has a certian amount of slots (Front/Back Arm, Front/Back Shoulder, Head, and occasionally a Body slot) that allows you to equip items in to (Body items, at the moment, are not equipable, only available as a default). So, you get 5 or 6 weapons. Each weapon has a weapon type (whether it’s ballistic, explosive or laser) which takes the place of a conventional element system (Fire, Ice, Water, Earth, Energy, Wind, Light, Dark, Bacon [Yes, one of the Artix Entertainment games uses a Bacon Element]) and each one has a weapon cooldown (how long you have to wait before you can use it again) and an energy cost (how much of the environment you’re going to pollute with greenhouse gases … no, just how much power it takes). Each mech has two stats, HP and EP. HP is your typical Health Points, while EP is most akin to Mana or MP (Mana Points). The Energy Cost says how much energy the weapon loses.

Weapons get further split beyond how much EP they use and what their cooldown is or where they’re equipped. Some give boosts to stats while others cause status effects on the enemy. The two main effects (which are divided up in to smaller categories that do the same thing but have a different name) are Stun and DoT (Damage over Turns). These are very useful in the game to have! DoT allows you to do extra damage, usually over 4 turns. Countless times it has saved my hide as I get the enemy down to 1HP with myself in a similar situation, and the DoT finishes off the enemy for me (it applies before the enemy attacks).

So, now that the weapon and battle system has been glossed over, let’s move on to the gameplay. The many city is called Soluna, a university based town. You are a student at Gears University and as such must save people because the SDF (Soluna Defence Force) are missing. Well, I don’t want to give too much away, so I’ll just mention the big bad guys and move on. The Shadowscythe. To find out who their leader is (or to deduce who it is after a cutscene) you’d have to be familiar with Artix Entertainment’s other games.

A.E. always bring good yet punny games to our computers, and this game is another one of them. You can possibly expect me to write some reviews of released content down the line somewhere when I have an established blog, but don’t think it’s all I’ll write! Look forward to television reviews, movie reviews (less likely/often) and other things! It’s been a pleasure writing and I hope to do more.