Once again it seems appropriate for littleeye to report on the reality show with which it shares the same Orwellian basis (even if 1984 only partly inspired the name for this venture some years back). I am of course talking about Big Brother, the UK version of which launched its sixth iteration last night. If you’re not too fond of BB, or you’ve fallen into with the sceptic crowd, then you may just want to skip this post..

Big Brother 2005
With this latest series, production company Endemol could not do much worse than the last two runs, which were - despite some undeniable characters and particular moments (such as they are) - pretty awful. Not everyone agrees with that summation, but I’d risk that the majority of the hardcore does. That said, my own cynicism over the return of show for another year was yet again overwhelmed during the past few weeks by my unabaited fanboy enthusiasm for more Davina, Dermot and BB-related chaos.

At 9pm the 13 housemates gradually made their entrance into the famous enclosure, which, I might add, looks incredibly gorgeous - and interestingly similar design-wise to BB2 (which remains one of my favourite years). My intitial reaction was twofold; despite finding the majority of housemates fairly obnoxious in their video clips, at the same time I was excited to see how they all mixed up once inside.

It’s now 4:30am, and bar several phone conversations (naturally about the show) I have been glued to the live stream ever since. I’m happy to confer to you that I think the housemates are both variously FANTASTIC and fantastic choices for the show. The VTs were astonishinly bad portrayals of nearly all involved - and I sincerely hope that people have stuck with it like me.

By now you’ll either be tuning in or will have long since browsed off - so I shall continue with a brief rundown of my current thoughts on the gang, in the order the entered (if only to follow in the tradition of this sites reportage format!):

	Derek VT summation: likeable, intelligent, plummy chappy with his head screwed on firmly even if he seems wont to go a little floozy at times. now: the same.
	Lesley VT summation: a ridiculously shallow, self-obsessed broad. now: the same- although she may or may not be harmless. First to get voted off.
	Sam VT summation: INTELLIGENCE! Rather likeable although she seems to overhype her sexuality which undermines her other qualities. now: possibly really nice. Quiet and friendly.
	Max VT summation: north-london wideboy with a dismarming no-nonsense attitude, although laddish tendecies a bit of a letdown. now: a nice enough guy.
	Vanessa VT summation: a self-described bitch. Juvenile and pointless. now: friendly, open, actually quiet retiring, her VT did her a misjustice. Maybe.
	Anthony VT summation: an utter cock who can’t see the wood for the trees whose sole aim is to look pretty and ’shag birds’. now: he’s probably a cock, but he has managed to entertain some conversation that didn’t revolve around fuckwittage, and was far less noisy than his boistrous introduction.
	Roberto VT summation: intelligent older guy, possibly a bit vain though likely that was show. now: one of the nicest of the bunch, a diplomat, a listener, a debater, good stories. Top bloke.
	Makosi VT summation: wow, cute. oh, a bitch. oh, she’s just silly. no, she’s really quite thick. actually-.. now: the one housemate who will probably infuriate and charm in equal measure, from a Reality-TV point of view she’s pure gold - a contradiction waiting to fall down (a African-born Christian virgin who has an obssesive interest in sex, and more), or not. Likeable enough when she doesn’t shout down everybody. Makosi got the booby-task of having to get people pissed off so that she gets the most votes and therefore immunity from her auto-nomination, so not sure whether she’s playing a game or not. Great TV.
	Craig VT summation: opinionated wassername, possibly a twat but one that I personally agree with on some issues now: not a twat. Pretty intelligent guy who had a lengthy debate with Makosi in the snug (with Roberto and Mary) about sex and nudity, a good debater, probably a nice chap even if he says “you know what I mean?” WAY too much.
	Mary VT summation: kooky is cool, a white witch who charmed the pants off me by being NICE. now: my favourite housemate of the bunch so far, she was nervous following a chaotic entrance, but found her form in the den later. Really intelligent, not at all weird, pretty adorable. Mary to win! etc
	Science VT summation: awesomely cool wanabe-rapper from the Tupac school of things (ie, not a cock) - he even looks like him. now: down to earth, waiting to find his footing but will probably shine in coming weeks depending on company.
	Saski VT summation: INTELLIGENCE! Not merely a pair of tits, as she stated rather astutely. now: a real likeable lady - took Mary to one side for a long and really caring chat about her nerves and generally seemed like perfect housemate material.
	Kemal VT summation: very bright young guy with his head fairly screwed on. now: the same. And experimental dressing to boot!

Right, I’m knackered. littleeye out.

Obscure movie photoshopping joke of the day.

IN OTHER NEWS, littleeye and affiliate sites will go down at some point over the next week or so while I switch hosts and change nameservers. Should be back within 24 hours.

My brain has started making up poetry.

I had a dream earlier today which ended with some kind of film featuring Bill Murray in the lead, in fact only the end of the film. It was some awesomely happy moment when old friends were hugging and everyone was happy, and the music was beginning to rise, and it was snowing outside. There was a shot I can vividly remember where the camera zooms into this poster of a friendly old Santa hanging on the front door, and the Santa winks - then there’s a slight transition and the camera has passed through the door into the streets outside, where the gathered friends are dancing down the street heading towards some kind of party somewhere. Santa runs off in the background.

Then the poetry.

Bill Murray’s character is sitting crestfallen in the snow. He says “So… it was all make believe then?”
Then one of the women says “There’s this line by a great poet called Bordard [sic - possibly Baudelaire]:

“How are you John, in the land of the pixies?”"

I like that.

The curtains fall on the Star Wars Sextilogy with Episode III
Verdict: Lucas’ finale for his thirty year old galactic film franchise is the strongest yet - never less than thrilling from start to finish, a bonafide five-star virtuoso masterpiece that hits all the right notes and a film to match if not exceed Kershner’s helming duties on Empire Strikes Back. The various technologies, honed to perfection on his previous films, here take an unobtrusive supporting role to the character dramatics and provide one of the greatest visual experiences ever brought to the screen. All the returning actors reprise their roles with gusto, most notably Ian McDiarmid and Ewen McGregor who pin down the central arc and, along with another outstanding score by John Williams, tie the gap between the two trilogies.

One of the best films of recent times. See it now.

******

XBOX360

Xbox 360 @ E3

Microsoft just finished giving an incredible promo of their newest box of tricks at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in LA. To say they blew Sony out of the water is an understatement - this console has blown the entire gaming industry out of the water.

In brief, before I go to bed, here are some of the most interesting things that they featured, briefly edited from a running commentary I was giving to my friends:

- Microsoft’s aims behind 360 is to unite the world behind gaming.
- We’re passing a “watershed moment” for the gaming industry.
- “In the next gen, videogames will become an essential component of global pop culture”
- “Halo 2 created entertainment history by grossing 152mil in one day at retail”
- Microsoft state their aim is to get 1 billion users during this run, on the most powerful gaming platforum in the world.

- Trailered titles for Xbox 1 before the X360 launch:
(more than 200 new titles THIS year - presumedly for both consoles)
- HL2
- motogp 3
- ultimate spiderman
- full spectrum 2
- batman begins
- hitman [4 - it had a subtitle, I missed it]
- LA Push
- Dungeon Seige - which looked incredible with loads of units on screen in that one
- Burnout Rampage - also looked incredible, streets exploding with mayhem. Can’t believe this was running on Xbox 1.
- Crash: Tag Team Racing - looked like a platformer meets mario kart
- Destroy All Humans
- Madden
- Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend
- From Russia With Love (some Goldeneye wanabe? looked interesting)
- Star Wars Battlefront II

They then officially announced X360’s backwards compatibility (as if the clues weren’t apparent enough!)BY 2006 we will have 2X the games on live

- Then there followed a Dead or Alive 4 promo trailer, which showed off incredible in-game footage. Essentially vast arenas which play a part in the battle, we saw Hitomi running off the wall and kicking an opponent, and someone getting thrown down some steps of a vast temple before being kicked over a balcony - and some monkeys.

There was also a LOT of cut-scene footage (that Team Ninja love so much) which hinted at a possible single-player STORY. If it does have a story then it will be incredible - masses of robots and lasers and crazy shit uniting all the characters. We can only hope it wasn’t just character backstory FMV.

In one of the scenes a car piles into a fighting character in the busy streets of LA (which looked like video) and he went flying. In another sequence there was a fight in a wrestling ring. The models all looked gorgeous.

- J Allard: MS want to expand to encompass the whole breadth of ages and stereotypes and embrace the mainstreaminstead of just the 18-20male - to fill the couch and “put everyone back in the living room”

- x360: “delivers experience where he player is always center stage” and ‘reflects our optimism for the medium in its brightness’

- shot of all the new peripherals, headset, remote and video camera

- KAMEO was seen briefly. Looked a lot like Fable.
- this was to demonstrate the Live system - you press a button and this live panel comes up where you can access all the menus, check invites etc

- XBL (2) will matchmake to zones, like family or pro gamer to get appropriate aged/typed players for games

- you can leave messages for people if they’re offline as in Halo, and voice + video clips
- XBL stores last several 100 people you’ve played with so you can find them

- Then a dramatic pause: Xbox 360 will offer free Live service out of the box - the Silver package. you can upgrade to Gold for maps and additional downloads

- they want 1 billion consumers.

- he’s now talking about types of gamers
- it will “thrill the core audience of gamers, but that’s not enough to get to 1 billion”
- nevertheless, a look at profile of generic male gamer who will be happy on it.
- he’s talking about another gamer called ‘Velocity girl’ who prefers chilled out games - xbox arcade will have games like tetris
- she’ll be able to download demos and trailers via Xbox Live
- Marketplace:
- - says its crucial to their philosophy
- - she can design and sell things over the marketplace
- - stickers, t-shirts and things
- - things for games she might not even play
- - she can view music and see live bands

- ‘BeatBuilder’ - he’s a trendsetter, he’s got HD, he’ll adore X360.
- it can connect to hundreds of digi music players, cameras, not just from partners but from competitors
- (a picture was shown with the X360 in the center of an array of stylised gadjets (ie, just cliparty images not photos) and one of them was most obviously very much like the iPod

- Xbox media player:
- - share things like photos with people around the world and talk about them with people live
- - sample + purchase music online
- - play radio
- - play DVDs (T2 is shown)
- - you can watch TV on the console (?), record it, and recall it later
- - (we see a NFL game - then a game invite flashes up)
- - he presses the menu and looks at it

- X360 to have “truly mass appeal”
- “we’ve thought about everyone + we’ve got em all covered”

- Peter Moore enters the stage.
- “we’re going to deliver a lucid dream”
- Lost Odyssey trailer, from creator of the original FF
- - looks like an awesome, epic, roving samurai type game with tons of enemies on screen; the phrase ‘a man who cannot die, forced to see so many deaths’ (paraphrased) stood out. It looked great.

- every game will be 16:9 and HD supporting
- but all of them will look great on standard TVs
- minimum of 5.1 surround

- PGR III
- - in-engire footage of cars screeching around a european city. The sound - even only through headphones and a crappy stream - seemed incredible.
- - “Gotham TV” you can scout opponenents and thrill your friends
- - the game (might have) racing seasons and massive tournaments
- - a million for the winner of a PGR tournament?? (sponsered by real-life racing sponsers)
- - where 250,000 fans can watch the final

- Ubisoft now.
- Ghost Recon 3
- - whoa
- - futuristic soldier sim
- - third/first person again
- - awesome looking HUD which has I.F.F and targeting and video cameras ‘in-built’
- - hiding against objects fluidly
- - a bomb explodes, the soldiers all react - intercomm, particle effects

- NBA 2K6

- Then he goes “this is something we talked about the other night (MTV) and everyone thinks it’s going to be Perfect Dark but it was…

- Kameo
- - ..but it looks amazing still, incredible environments and enemies - one shot sees at least 50-100 units moving fluidly on screen and attacking Kameo who is riding a dinosaur (?).

- CoD 2
- EXCLUSIVELY on xbox
- looked alright, graphics a bit dodgy.

- THEN “OMG”, he announced Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion at launch
- it looked amazing.

- Gears of War
- - scary ass survivalist horror in a post-war world, graphically stunning, MAHOOSIVE Serious Sam style enemies.

- an EA presentation pledging their support to MS, and they showed off games like The Godfather, Fifa 06, NFL, Madden and others.

- SQUARE ENIX, they showed off a whup-ass trailer for Final Fantasy XI which will be online over Live, and plegdged their support to MS because they said they love the console and think it’s the dog’s.

PHEWF!

This was one of those designs without much forethought, I just suddenly had the urge to replicate the lead of Studio Ghibli’s finest flick (still waiting for Howl’s Moving Castle..).

These pictures don’t really do much justice to how cool it looks in game. It’s not entirely accurate for a few reasons - Forza doesn’t have any dark browns so Sen now has black hair, and also because I think it’s probably near-impossible to make her in the required number of layers (her hair alone took about 40 layers). Or maybe I’m just not tight enough skill wise. Still, it was good fun :)

Check out my Ghibli number plate too, heh heh :D

More Forza spray-based hijinks for you.

This one took a little under 3 hours. I’m an absolute nut when it comes to good typography, and I’ve always had a fetish for Rockstar’s particular chunky logo font - so this was an accident waiting to happen. Looks killer in-game.

Unfortunately the car’s sidepanels are too small for me to make any use of them, otherwise I would have sexified them too.

6.5 hours build time. Not bad for a first effort?

XBOX360

Well that was a laugh and a half. Riding the crest of a hype wave across the internet aboard the good ship Eurogamer. Seeing the entire US side of things kick off at 2:30am was hilarious information overload.

On the subject of the MTV party: it’s crap, give it a miss.

Instead, I was compiling links throughout the night. There’s a tonne of information out there now. Go forth and ABSORB. If you wish…

Hello, I am back.

I had a whole post about politics lined up in draft form, post-election, then my internet died at the start of this week off-and-on, and then off for the most part until today (yesterday). So, scrap that post. In summary form: good, Blair won.

Why am I so excited about 2:30am. Nothing good can come of launching on MTV. Oh, well, we shall see..