I Just Wanted You to See This

Remember how fun this game was the first time you played it?

Plants vs. Zombies

Wow, another zombie game. The latest (and arguably greatest) from PopCap games, masters of all things casual, is a cute, wonderfully designed tower defense game with loads of extras, and quite a bit of replay value as this sort of thing goes.

In PvZ, a variety of zombies are trying to invade your home, and your only defense other than a series of lawnmowers are the rows of plants that you place in order to prevent passage. You collect a number of "seed packets" (which are basically cards) that allow you to place a specific plant on the "lawn" which is basically just a grid. Each plant has a specific purpose, cost, and downtime before they can be planted again, and the order and manner in which they are placed will pretty much determine success or failure. The sunflower, for example, is your only means of producing sufficient "sunshine" during the day--the points you have to collect in order "buy" a plant, so they are essential to success. They must be planted early, but they cannot defend themselves, so it is up to you to also set up some defense early on, in the form of a pea-shooter, etc. so you can defend the lawn, at the cost of not being able to plant as many sunflowers right away. There are also wallnuts, which are edible barriers that block encroaching zombies and buy you some time to set things up, but they don't last forever. Every plant in the game is useful, and it allows for a broad array of strategies, as there are only so many slots for the seed packets--you have to choose carefully.



There are at least six main levels in the game, consisting of 9 or more stages in each level, with at least two or three waves of zombies to survive in each. Some have great little twists on the game play thrown in here and there. Some levels don't allow you to pick seeds at all; instead, you are randomly tossed seed packets that you must plant as the zombies invade. These levels are hectic, as you have to adapt your strategy on the fly using whatever you are given. There's also zombie bowling, in which a swarm of zombies approaches as you try to take out as many as possible by throwing wallnuts down the rows.

Stages take place during day or night, sometimes with various weather effects, and play during the night is completely different than during the day, as all of the plants are different (it's a fungal theme), and so the flow of any given level changes. New challenges are also introduced, as graves rise from the ground and take up valuable grid space, as well as spawn more zombies during the final wave of each level. Fog will obscure at least half of grid at times, so you have to choose whether or not to use up a valuable card slot in order plant something that will push it back.



The art direction in the game is awesome: endearing and funny, with a wide variety of zombie types, each with different powers (though as my wife points out, there are no female zombies, which is weird), and a few will probably make you laugh. You can access a compendium of all plant and zombie types, and the descriptions are fun to read. The music is subtle, and there isn't a whole lot of variety, but it fits the theme well, and fills it's in the background nicely. There's almost no voice acting to speak of except for the occasional moan or cry for brains from an approaching zombie. But it's all good. The sound effects for the plants are enjoyable, especially during the later stages where you'll have several rows of different shooting plants, each with a different effect. It makes the craziness of it all seem more tangible.



After beating the game you open up dozens of challenge and puzzle levels, and in a lot of ways they're more enjoyable than the adventure mode itself. There's a survival mode, in which you must evolve your defense over a five day period under certain conditions (with at least 3 waves each day) in order to win. There's "I, Zombie", in which you play the zombies themselves, and you have to choose the right zombies in the right order to get through the plant defenses and make it to the sweet brains at the end. There's also a great assortment of puzzles that have you playing anything from Bejeweled with your plants as a zombie swarm approaches, to actually having zombies with plant heads shooting down your defenses. You also open up the zen garden, where you feed and nourish plants you find during the mini games or the second play through, and they give you cash or diamonds periodically, or you can sell them back after they're grown for chunks of money. Speaking of which, I'm on the second play though now, and it's a lot of fun. You have all the plants you've collected throughout the first run ( I still haven't seen all of the plants, or even all of the zombies), but the catch is that the game will automatically select three plants that you have to take with you, and this can often make the levels more challenging than before, as they often would not have been the seeds you would have liked.

Overall, this is probably the the best $9 I've spent on a game in a long time. The art style, the humor and game play are fun, and while the game isn't very hard overall, specific levels are quite challenging, especially towards the end. The main adventure mode will take you 4 or 5 hours to complete, but with the dozens of extra games lasting at least that long, and a worthwhile second play through, it's a lot of game for the price. You can also buy it through PopCap's sight as well, but it's twice what the Steam price is, but will probably have free content for download in the future.

Zombie Shooter

Perhaps the most efficient and direct game title ever, Zombie Shooter is in fact, a zombie shooter. There is no story; you simply begin the game with one of two generic characters whose descriptions I didn't bother to read, and slaughter literally thousands of zombies, while occasionally fighting your way to power generators or dynamite caches in order to open new parts of the level. Other than that, kill everything. The floors of any given level will literally be caked with the viscera of what the game description on Steam claims is" a thousand zombies on every level, 100 on screen at once", and each zombie killed almost immediately being replaced by another one.

The graphics are actually pretty good for this sort of game, but your main character resembles a broken doll, as you move around with the W,A,S,& D keys, while rotating and aiming with the mouse. This means the torso tends to twist around unnaturally when things get crazy, which now that I think about, just adds to the overall feel of the thing. As you mow your way through this gore fest, you gather little orbs that give you experience points which you use at the end of each level to raise your characters stats, which have a noticeable effect on the game play. Raise your speed, and your character will move faster and be able to avoid the swarm a little better. raise your accuracy, and you will do more damage with each shot, etc. Zombies also drop monies, which can be used to purchase armor, ammo, health packs, and weapons upgrades.



The best part of this game, by far, is the weapons. It is immensly satisfying to kill in this game, and each weapon is equally suited for taking down dozens of enemies at a time in some cases. You start with dual wielded pistols, which is immediately cool, but quickly gain a shotgun, a grenade launcher (my favorite), a rocket launcher, a chain gun, a flame thrower, a laser rifle, a laser canon, a laser chain gun, and this thing that shoots saw blades. The pace of this game is relentless, and I literally said "holy shit!" out loud a few times as I was surrounded by scores of undead (and some other crazy stuff ), and it was only by running around like a mad chicken and using every weapon and just about every bit of ammo I had that I was able to survive. On and on it went until I played through the entire thing in three hours without stopping, And I enjoyed every minute of it.

Zombie Shooter is not the best game you will ever play. For $4.99 on Steam, you will get a 3 hour game with literally no ending, only this:


but with multiple difficulties, and a decent survival mode and a few other extras, you will get your money's worth. If you enjoy zombie games, or just want something intense and well made, even if it is a bit generic, go buy this.

Winter for the Adept

Well, that didn’t last long. After listening to The Land of the Dead a couple of months back I was incredibly excited about hearing more Doctor Who audio adventures. I discovered the Big Finish audios at just the right time, having viewed well over half of the 159 stories from the original television program that ran from 1963 to 1989. I was also thrilled that I enjoyed Peter Davison’s portrayal of the Fifth Doctor far more now than when he first took on the role back in 1981. When I looked at the stories I had to choose from I decided on one that immediately followed The Land of the Dead called Winter for the Adept. Unfortunately, it was quite a disappointment.




Every now and then in Doctor Who there appears a story that doesn’t play by the rules. Sometimes these stories are brilliant (Ghost Light, Blink) and sometimes they’re absolute rubbish (Underworld, Love & Monsters). Winter for the Adept doesn’t exactly play by the rules, either, but it in this case maybe it should have. It’s not that it has any glaring flaws, but it seems much closer to uninspiring fan fiction than the work of a serious author.

The story begins with a woman reading an old diary entry and the melodramatic way in which she does so immediately evokes the mood of Jane Austen and 19th century England. Unfortunately the story is set in Switzerland in the winter of late 1963, so we’re already off to a rocky start. At least the locale of a finishing school for young women has the air of Austen about it, if indeed that is a good thing. A couple of girls find themselves stuck in the aged academy for the Christmas holiday and decide to make a break for it…in the freezing cold.

Meanwhile, the Doctor’s companion, Nyssa (Sarah Sutton), is all alone on a nearby mountainside…in the freezing cold. She’s left to carry the early part of the story on her own as the Doctor won’t arrive until the end of the first half-hour episode…when he explains why Nyssa ended up here in the first place. Nyssa isn’t very well written in this story and comes off sounding more like Tegan (the complainer) or Adric (the whiner) than her usual logical self. Of course, having nearly been frozen to death by the Doctor may certainly explain her behavior. A Lieutenant Sandoz discovers Nyssa and accompanies her to the academy where he’s surprised to hear the two girls have run off. He goes after them and it’s later revealed that Sandoz and one of the students, at least twenty years his junior, were planning on eloping.

And it just goes downhill from there. The story makes a surprising amount of left turns and none of them quite work. There’s a plotline about one of the characters being psychic, in the middle of the story we find out the school is haunted, and the final episode is inundated with aliens. The aliens, referred to as Spillagers (because they spill into different worlds and pillage them…get it?) would probably work better in a story that focused on them exclusively and not merely used them as bookends to a melodramatic ghost story.

I mentioned in my review of the previous Fifth Doctor audio story The Land of the Dead that I recognized none of the actors that were part of the supporting cast, but I was rather impressed with their work. In Winter for the Adept I found the opposite was true. I recognized many of the people involved, but I couldn’t say they were all that remarkable. The head of the school, Miss Tremayne, is played by Sally Faulkner who memorably appeared as the young photographer in the 1968 Second Doctor story The Invasion. I wouldn’t have known this if I hadn’t looked it up, because Tremayne is a pretty forgettable caricature. Lt. Sandoz is played by Peter Jurasik, best known for the role of Londo Mollari in Babylon 5, but he really takes a back seat in the story and seems wasted in the part. Finally, India Fisher plays one of the school girls, but you probably know her as Charley Pollard, the Eighth Doctor’s companion in over two dozen audio stories.

Only Peter Davison remains on top of his game in Winter for the Adept, but as he’s almost entirely absent from the first episode it’s a long wait for not much of a pay off. I recommend skipping this story unless you’re a big fan of the Fifth Doctor as there are so many better audio stories available. Winter for the Adept was enough to put me off of the Peter Davison stories for a while and I decided to move on to his successor Colin Baker, but that…is another story for another time.


2 Daleks (out of 5)

Across the Nightingale Floor

Tales of the Otori, Book One

Set in an ancient world of warring clans, birthright, and ancient powers we start our first story of the Otori clan – Across the Nightingale Floor. Whether you look at this story as a brilliant fantasy or a skilled presentation of storytelling in multiple points-of-view, it’s a book not to be missed. Set in an alternate feudal Japan, we are introduced to a people of fierce pride, honor, and hidden skills. The sword is still the greatest weapon and the mainland is mainly stories told by the scarce few who have actually seen it. The emperor is still deferred to, but he is a distant figure on a distant throne, far from the lives of our characters.
The Three Nations have been in upheaval for half a generation now, ever since the battle of Yamagata which secured the strength of the Tohan and pushed the Otori back to a minuscule remainder of their land. To the west lie the Seishuu, the Maruyama, and the Shirakawa who have so far stayed out of the bloodier struggles, but now they feel pressure from the Tohan to cooperate or be quashed as their neighbors have.

Otori Shigeru has been left alive but striped of his position as ruler of the clan, instead he travels the land studying and improving farming methods and food storage. At least, that is what his resentful uncles and enemies have been led to believe – that the once powerful and beloved Otori Shigeru has been reduced to nothing but a simple farmer. Will he be able to prove that the love and loyalty of his people and knowledge outside of a standard ruler (you must all obey me) is the true key to success?
The Hidden, persecuted, hunted down and adamantly anti-violence to their deaths. Wanting nothing more than to be left to their quiet lives and simple beliefs, these people are slowly but surely being eradicated by the Tohan. Tomasu spent his life in one of their quiet villages until Iida Sadamu, lord of the Tohan, burned it and his family to the ground. With this one violent act, his destiny spirals out of his hands as his true history and future potential exceed anything quiet and gentle Tomasu could ever have expected… and his new life as Otori Takeo will most literally fill books.
The Tribe: families with a blood line spawning from the mystic history of the island and possessing abilities bordering on magic and impossibility. Isolated from the rest of the clans of the three nations as are the Hidden, they instead use their skills to churn and use the ruling classes to their advantage – performing assassinations here, working as mercenaries there, and always in an elaborate web everywhere. Muto Kenji slips in and out like an omnipotent wraith, helping to lead Takeo towards his future, proving that sometimes blood is held above loyalty, no matter what one’s heart might want.
Heart is also a strong motivating factor in this story, or more rightly love. Be it love hidden and stretched across the years with the powerful and graceful Lady Maruyama Naomi, or new lust kindled by former political hostage young Lady Shirakawa Kaede, the women of the realm are not ones to be crossed. Prepare to fall into a fast moving world of loyalty, love, and power, then prepare to scramble for the next in the series: Grass For His Pillow.

The Book Shanty

Okay, so I haven't played many games in the past couple of weeks. Disheartened by the lack of worthwhile Virtual Console purchases of the past couple of months, and in general feeling a little underwhelmed by a lot of the freeware I've been checking out lately, I've turned to books for solace. And by that I mean I've been reading like a maniac the past two weeks. Seeing as how I'm broke and all, my strategy is this: scour the Science Fiction Book Club website, refusing of course, to purchase my featured selections, then putting anything interesting in my wish list there and reading through user reviews to see if it suits me. I cross reference the general feedback there with that of Amazon, often adding the same items to my wish list there so I can receive recommendations for other books I may be interested in. Then, I go to the local library's online website, and add the chosen books to my wish list there, or outright request them, depending on what I'm interested in. They give me a call when my shizzle is ready, so I roll a mile down the skreet and make the pick-up, gangsta style. I'm talking free books, yall. As long as I don't accrue late fees.

I'll start with A Dirty Job and Practical Demon Keeping by Christopher Moore, both very funny and light reads. He seems to have a thing for thrusting the everyman into the most bizarre occult/supernatural situations possible, and the results are almost Pythonesque.
I also read the first two books of Alan Campbell's Deepgate Trilogy, Scar Night and Iron Angel, both of which are bit stranger and bleaker than what I expect out of a fantasy novel. I then devoured two books by my current favorite fantasy author, Peter S. Beagle, A Dance for Emilia, a novella, and Tamsin, hands down the best ghost story I've ever read. I first read another of his ghost stories, A Fine and Private Place about a year ago, and loved it.

By far the best book though, has been The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson. An amazing bittersweet love story about a porn star who is hideously deformed after being burned in a car wreck, he finds meaning and love when he meets a mental patient who claims they were lovers in another life of his, though she herself is 800 years old. It get's really interesting and wonderful from there. If I had a top ten list for the best books I've ever read, this would be in it.

On the Sci-Fi front, I just discovered Robert J. Sawyer with his latest novel, WWW:WAKE, the first in a trilogy about a blind girl who, with the aid of experimental technology gains the ability to see, not reality at first, but the web itself--while at the same time, an awareness is forming in within cyberspace, and it's fate and consciousness is bound to that of the girl. I wasn't sure about it after reading the jacket, but it's was a great read, and I've added a few more of his books to my library que.

Doctor Who: The Time Meddler

One of the better First Doctor (William Hartnell) stories after the departure of Ian (William Russell) and Barbara (Jacqueline Hill), The Time Meddler is at its best when the Doctor and the Meddling Monk (Peter Butterworth) are on screen together. Their chemistry together is impressive and Hartnell is really on his game here, perhaps spurred to such heights because he was working with an actor (again Butterwoth) of his own caliber. Vicki (Maureen O'Brien) and Steven (Peter Purves) are quite a team as well and certainly better than some of the companions to come (i.e. Dodo Chaplet).

Keep in mind, this is the first time in the history of Doctor Who when audiences discovered there was another individual flying through time and space in a TARDIS. It's impossible today to fully appreciate the importance of the cliffhanger in 'A Battle of Wits' (Episode 3) when Vicki utters those words: "The Monk's got a TARDIS!" Furthermore, how the Doctor decides to deal with the Monk is simultaneously hilarious and rather cruel, but you can't say he didn't deserve it. All in all, a fun pseudo-historical romp and an excellent way to end the second season of the original Doctor Who!

4 Daleks (out of 5)

YAY

This comes out today. Do want!

BitTrip.Beat

Available for the odd price of $6.00 on Nintendo's WiiWare service, BitTrip. Beat will make a man (or woman) out of you, depending on your gender or preference, assuming you can even get your name on the high scores list--which will in the very least, require you to achieve a score of 50,000 points or greater in a given level. Good luck with that.



BitTrip.Beat walks through the valley of the shadow of Pong in a slick, attractive fashion, with addictive rhythm based game play and a twist on the old Pong formula. You play as a rectangle thing floating along through space with groovy 8-bit music and colorful, distracting pixelly stuff happening in the background while dots and blocks come at you from the right, intent on making sweet music with you.

There are two "life bars", one at the top, the "Multi" bar, and on the bottom, the "Nether". As you deflect dots, adding blips and beeps to the ongoing rhythm, the Mulit meter fills up and once it reaches max, you enter Hyper mode; the music gets funkier and more complex, and thus more enjoyable, while the graphics also get a face lift, adding flashes and effects to the game play. Eventually missing too many blocks will throw you back into normal mode, which is sad. On the opposite end, missing too many beats in normal mode will throw you into the Nether Realm, where there is no music, and the graphics are reduced to Pong-like black and white shapes with blips coming through the Wii-mote in a bland and dissatisfying way, until you earn your way out by successfully hitting enough blocks to get back into normal mode. It's a simple formula, and it will humble you, as the game gets more complex, the backgrounds more distracting, and the dots come at you faster and faster--often shifting behaviors and patterns without warning, forcing you to adapt quickly or suffer for your incompetence. Strangely, over the course of play I actually adapted to my incompetence, so there's really no need for me to play this anymore.



There are only 3 levels in this game, and I have only seen 1 1/2. You must progress through each level to reach the next, every time you play, unless you get your name on the high scores list for a given level , which took me over a week to do for the first track. Each level or song is at least ten minutes long, so you can imagine how frustrating, nerve wracking, and emasculating it is you get through the first song for the 50th time, then getting to the same gaw-damn spot in the second track for the 50th time, and having to go through all that shit again. My tail is tucked, and I am officially running away. I should have bought Star Tropics, or a 12 pack of grape soda instead.

If you're the kind of asshole that's good at old arcade games games like Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, Pong, etc., then by all means give this a try. Us cool people need to steer clear of this nifty nightmare.

Urban Dead

“Urban Dead is a low-tech zombie apocalypse browser game where thousands of survivors and zombies battle for the control of a quarantined city.”

So reads the front page of what, out of necessity, has become my favorite online diversion in recent months. It’s rather fitting that the only game my shambling wreck of a computer can run these days is one in which humans stalwartly slog it out with semi-functional corpses. If anyone is here looking for a game on par with Resident Evil, Dead Rising, or even Zombies Ate My Neighbors in terms of graphics and storyline then you’ll be sorely disappointed with Urban Dead. If, however, you’re looking for an intriguing text/browser-based zombie MMO which also happens to be free…then you’ve come to the right place.

As I’ve alluded to already there are no real graphics and there is virtually no story in Urban Dead. What you do have is an intelligent game based on the time-honored horror movie premise of zombies taking over a city and the human survivors fighting for their lives. The game is set in the city of Malton which is divided up into a 10 x 10 square grid of suburbs. Each suburb is further divided into a 10 x 10 square grid of streets, buildings, cemeteries, parks, monuments and so on. These 10,000 squares give players a pretty big sandbox to play around in and as far as I can tell a freshly created character might begin the game in any of the one hundred suburbs that make up Malton.

Creating a character is quick and easy as you simply select a class, provide a name and password and begin the game. There are nine classes from four different categories to choose from all with distinct advantages and disadvantages. The Military classes are the Private (your basic grunt who is competent with a gun), the Medic (a healer armed with a pistol) and the Scout (the most effective class at evading zombie threats). The Scientist classes are the NecroTech Lab Assistant (who deal directly in identifying zombies and in turning them back into human survivors) and the Doctor (who begin the game with the ability to see the hit points of all fellow survivors). The Civilian classes are the Police Officer (similar to the Private), the Firefighter (specializing in the fire axe), and the Consumer (John Q. Public armed with a random improvised weapon and a mobile phone). The remaining category is Zombie and there’s only one class – the Corpse (any of the above classes can become a zombie if infected or killed by another zombie, but the Corpse starts out stronger than survivors who are later turned into zombies).

The four categories of classes directly relate to the four types of skills available to characters in the game: Military, Science, Miscellaneous (or Civilian) and Zombie skills. Civilian characters pay the same amount of experience points (100 XP) for all four types of skills. Military characters are predisposed to learning Military skills and can thus purchase them with fewer experience points (75 XP). However, as it’s further from their area of expertise, Military characters must spend far more on Science skills (150 XP) than other characters. The exact opposite is true for Scientist characters. I have yet to play the game from the point of view of a career Zombie, so I can’t say exactly how it works for the Corpse class.

Military skills are based almost exclusively on the use of firearms. If you want to gun down zombies with a pistol or shotgun (the only firearms available in the game unless you count the one-shot flare gun), then you’ll want to focus on Military skills. Perhaps the most universally useful Military skill, however, is called Free Running. It allows survivors to move from building to building throughout Malton without having to travel through the zombie-infested streets. Free Running is extremely useful for staying alive in Urban Dead as survivors often over-barricade buildings making many of them inaccessible from outside.

Scientific skills are of basically two types: 1) those related to NecroTech Labs and 2) those related to mundane healing. The NecroTech skills allow you to create and use devices such as DNA Extractors (used to test a zombie to see what abilities they possess and who they were before becoming zombies) and Revivication Syringes (which allow you to turn a zombie back into a survivor). The healing skills are just that, they allow you to either heal more points with first-aid kits or to diagnose survivors.

Miscellaneous or Civilian skills are simply skills that don’t fall into either of the above categories. It includes everything from Construction (allowing you to barricade buildings and repair equipment) to Body Building (providing you with a bonus of +10 hit points). There are quite a few of these skills and they’re far more varied than either Military or Scientific skills.

Zombie skills are exactly what they sound like: skills which improve the Corpse class by leaps and bounds. While I haven’t played a zombie myself some examples include Lurching Gait (zombies move as fast as survivors), Memories of Life (zombies can open doors to buildings) and Scent Fear (zombies can track badly wounded humans). Each of these allows access to greater powers later on. For instance, Scent Fear leads eventually to Scent Trail, allowing a zombie to track any survivor who has recently occupied the same square in which the zombie is located.

That’s pretty much it for skills. All characters start the game with 50 hit points and some equipment related to their chosen class. This equipment could be anything from a pistol to a pool cue or from binoculars to a first-aid kit. First-aid kits are the best way of healing either yourself or fellow survivors, but bottles of wine or beer will heal minor wounds in a pinch. Long-distance survivor-to-survivor communications require that both characters have a Mobile Phone and that they are on each other’s Contacts List. Properly tuned Radios will allow you to listen to anyone broadcasting from a specific station with a working Transmitter, as well. There’s an assortment of other items, both useful (reading books is a slow, but safe way for characters to gain experience) and cosmetic (newspapers, poetry books and crucifixes are attainable, but they serve no practical purpose).

The goal of Urban Dead is simply to stay alive or, if you happen to be undead, to convince survivors to join your ranks by gnawing on/killing them. The usual set up is that survivors barricade themselves inside buildings and zombies try to infiltrate those buildings and attack survivors, but sometimes you’ll see this scenario turned on its head. I once saw a military fort filled with survivors get overrun by zombies and just two days later the entire fenced-in nine square city block was populated with the living dead. Of course, sometimes the best defense is a good offense, so you’ll often see survivors venture out into the streets to try and take down some zombies and earn some sweet XP. This is fine as long as you remember to give yourself time to back to safety before you run out of Action Points.

Everyone starts out with 50 Action Points which regenerate at a rate of 1 point every half hour. These points, as their name so aptly states, allow a character to perform 50 actions per day* before becoming exhausted. Everything your character does from searching an area to moving from one street to another to firing a weapon uses up one Action Point. If you happen to run out of Action Points your character immediately goes to sleep. If this occurs while your character is outdoors the next time you log in you will likely find yourself zombie chow…and thus a zombie yourself. If this happens you can either decide to make a career of eating people or you can find your way to a revivification point ASAP. Revivication points are various places in each suburb (often a cemetery or an area near a NecroTech Lab) where NecroTech scientists have established a safe zone for zombies looking to return to their former lives. Of course, there’s nothing stopping a survivor who doesn’t know better from blowing your undead brains out even if you’re standing in a dedicated revivication point. For that matter there’s nothing to stop survivors from blowing each other’s brains out either…

Player Killing (PKing) is prevalent in most MMOs so it should be no surprise to find it in Urban Dead. In fact, there are entire groups dedicated to PKing. Groups are basically organizations of like-minded players working towards a common goal. The most common type of group is a Pro-Survivor group, but there are also Pro-Zombie groups composed of deadites and even some groups composed of mortals who were once Zombies and seek to aid their undead brethren by working against the survivors. You can find groups that are extremely militant, groups that focus solely on healing, groups of axe-wielding Firefighters…pretty much anything you can think of.

A lot of the joy of playing Urban Dead is lost on those who only give it a cursory glance. If I had a computer that could run anything other than solitaire or owned a console, I probably wouldn’t have taken the time to get beneath the surface of this game. If you really want to learn how to play the game you’ll pretty much have to familiarize yourself with The Urban Dead Wiki. It’s invaluable to the player who doesn’t want to stumble around blindly and wake up dead or lost every time he/she logs in.

Beginners should also probably choose a class based on what they most want to accomplish early on in the game. Privates are the best choice for a character who wants to focus on firearms. Scouts are great for traveling long distances right off the bat because of their Free Running skill. Firefighters make the best melee combatants as they’re already trained and equipped with the fire axe. If you don’t mind staying close to one area and avoiding combat, the Doctor is easily the best choice as they can gain XP by healing other survivors. Either way you go the first skill you’re going to want to procure is probably Free Running. It’s the safest way to travel and the easiest way to get access to heavily barricaded buildings.

Survivors tend to keep most buildings EHB (Extremely Heavily Barricaded) which means they’re virtually inaccessible from outside unless you have a Crowbar and want to spend all your action points tearing down walls so you can get inside. Only buildings VSB (Very Strongly Barricaded) or less are accessible from the street and these usually serve as Entry Points for survivors while the EHB buildings basically act as walls to keep out zombies. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy for an incautious survivor to end up trapped out on the streets. Again, referring to The Urban Dead Wiki is probably the wisest choice as you can locate Entry Points before your character starts wandering around aimlessly.

Urban Dead isn’t the kind of game you can just run into blindly and start hacking and slashing. It’s more or less like an elaborate chess game set on a gigantic board with the ability to customize your playing pieces. While it is an MMO, the game has no set system for creating and maintaining parties, so even if you do play with a friend you won’t be able to share XP or trade items. In fact, all you can really do with an ally is communicate, attack walking corpses that are in the same area and heal one another. When it comes down to brass tacks, however, you’re basically on your own in Urban Dead. Just like in any good zombie movie.

*A final note or those interested in running multiple characters. I would suggest you read up on the Hit Limit and how you can exempt a character from said limit by making a one-time donation in support of this excellent game.

Close Range

Once in a while a shooter comes along that reinvents the genre, breaking boundaries in game design and storytelling, and giving the genre a new set of tools to move forward with. This is not that shooter. It is, however, hilarious. And grotesque. Be sure to watch the "news" clip on the site before or after playing the demo.

5 Days A Stranger

5 Days A Stranger is a traditional point and click adventure made on the cheap by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, the often funny critic behind Zero Punctuation. The first of a Quadrilogy of games in the "Chzo Mythos", 5 Days A Stranger begins as the gentlemen thief Trilby infiltrates the ominous DeFoe manner in search of loot, only to find himself inexplicably trapped with 4 other people, and a bloody secret the mansion has held for over 200 years.
The graphics in 5 Days are typical of what you might see in an old Sierra or Lucasarts adventure, but a little bit simpler, but seeing as how the game had a budget of $0.00, it actually does an admirable job in terms of the character art and environments. Everything is colorful, and the "hotspots" are generally easy to find. The interface is clean and simple. The sound effects are sparse but repetitive, particularly when you're walking, but the occasional ghostly footsteps and whispering add some ambiance. Where this game really shines though, is the script. With the exception of a few inconsistencies in logic, and one or two tedious dialogue trees that you will have to wade through repeatedly to get to the one correct result, the dialogue is very well written, and often funny. Trilby is an excellent character for this sort of game, and his dry, sarcastic quips add a lot to the experience.
The game isn't very long--in fact, I would say it's about the perfect length for an adventure title: it doesn't wear out it's welcome, but it doesn't feel like anything in the story was left unresolved. It will probably take you about three or four hours to get through the whole thing--the puzzles aren't really that tough, and overall, it reminded me of those good one-shots The X-Files used to have during their first couple of seasons. There's more to this story if you want it, but what you'll find here stands up well enough on it's own.

Top 10 Most Underrated Doctor Who Stories

My last blog focused on the Top 10 Most Overrated Doctor Who Stories, so it was only a matter of time before I offered up its antithesis. Here are ten stories that are, on the whole, underappreciated by the majority of Doctor Who fans. Once again, these are based on the Outpost Gallifrey 2003 Reader Poll and all of the stories I've listed fall in the bottom third of the 159 original Doctor Who stories. The Dominators (#1 on my list) ranked 152 out of the aforementioned 159 stories while The Mysterious Planet (#10 on my list) ranked 111. In my opinion all of these stories are better than their reputations, though I won't say that all of them are classics. In fact, some of them are quite mediocre, but they're still better than the hardcore fans would lead you to believe.

1) The Dominators (Second Doctor: Patrick Troughton; Season 6; Story 044)

The Dominators has its fair share of problems, but by no means does it belong in the bottom ten of the original 159 Doctor Who stories. In fact, I find a lot to praise in this modest, formulaic tale of tyrants versus pacifists. The Dominators themselves are pretty effective as sort of Flash Gordon styled villains while their servants the diminutive Quarks are easily predecessors to droids as seen in Star Wars nearly twenty years later. The leads are at the top of their game in this story, as well. The Doctor is forced to behave like an imbecile so that the Dominators won’t see him as a threat and Troughton pulls this off with comic aplomb. Both Jamie and Zoe get a chance to shine on their own in several episodes, too. At five episodes The Dominators is slightly overlong and it’s hard to really care about the badly dressed Dulcians (whose very name is an apt pun), but this story is significantly better than its reputation.

2) The Web Planet (First Doctor: William Hartnell; Season 2; Story 013)

The Web Planet is like an imaginative but naïve child who is inevitably the subject of much bullying and ridicule. This is a well-written story that far exceeds its meager budget and is thus judged mainly on its stagy exterior. To be fair, The Web Planet does contain a great deal to laugh at and some of the costumes are terribly amusing, but for me the scope of the narrative and the committed performances of the stars make it all worthwhile. How often do we encounter a planet in Doctor Who that has more than one form of intelligent life on it? Even a hint that there are multiple cultures such as one might find on Earth? Not often enough, I say. The Web Planet, aka Vortis, offers three distinct races of sentient beings (and at least one sub-race) each with their own function in the story and that sort of thing should be applauded. The dedication of the actors here is amazing, really, because it’s their ability to take the story seriously that makes the whole thing work. There are some marvelously simple techniques used to give The Web Planet a true sense of otherworldliness, too, such as the Vaseline-on-the-lens trick when they’re on the planet’s surface. Like The Dominators, The Web Planet could stand to be an episode or two shorter, but all things considered it’s hardly the worst thing to come out of the second season and better than pretty much everything that survives from the third.

3) The Sensorites (First Doctor: William Hartnell; Season 1; Story 007)

Some consider The Sensorites to be the worst story of Doctor Who’s premiere season, but I don’t agree. Like the stories I mentioned above, I certainly don’t think it belongs in the bottom 10 percentile of all the original Doctor Who stories. Besides, the story which inspired the Ood can’t be all bad, can it? Episode one of The Sensorites is excellent stuff and the cliffhanger is chillingly convincing for a low-budget program in its infancy. The Sensorites are a well-conceived alien race, physically grotesque (from a human point of view) yet on the whole as complex and varied as human beings when it comes to personalities. It’s a true testament to the show that the first “scary-looking” alien race we encounter in Doctor Who (not counting the Daleks, because we never really see them) is not merely a collection of like-minded baddies out to destroy the Earth or conquer the universe. Instead, they’re a highly-civilized people who, like humans, consist of individuals who run the gamut when it comes to motivations and behavior. If The Sensorites has a flaw it’s the distinct lack of action necessary to fill six episodes, but despite that this cerebral story offers some wonderful moments and interesting ideas along the way.



4) The Power of Kroll (Fourth Doctor: Tom Baker; Season 16; Story 102)

Somehow The Power of Kroll is considered one of the two worst stories from Tom Baker’s seven year run as the Doctor, but here’s a list of half a dozen stories I enjoyed less: Planet of Evil, The Invisible Enemy, The Armageddon Factor, The Nightmare of Eden, The Horns of Nimon, and Meglos. I didn’t even mention Underworld, which really is Tom Baker’s worst story. I can see why people find so much to dislike in The Power of Kroll what with a bunch of guys painted green running around and, of course, Kroll himself…a giant squid/Not-So-Great Old One. I actually think Kroll looks pretty good for a television show of 1978, especially as the writer, the masterful Robert Holmes, received pressure from the script editor to feature “the largest monster ever to appear in Doctor Who." It’s a gritty story for the most part and features some fine actors like Philip Madoc (best known for his role as Solon in The Brain of Morbius) and John Leeson (the man behind the voice of K-9). The penultimate story of The Key to Time season, The Power of Kroll is judged almost entirely on its surface appearance. It’s still better than some people would have you believe and a veritable masterpiece when compared to The Armageddon Factor which ended the season.



5) The Krotons (Second Doctor: Patrick Troughton; Season 6; Story 047)

Ah, The Krotons. Usually, the kindest thing I hear said about The Krotons is “at least it’s not The Dominators.” Well, I’m here to tell you you’ve been mislead. The Krotons is actually a very enjoyable story filled with some of Patrick Troughton’s best moments as the Doctor. From his initial emergence from the TARDIS with umbrella in hand to his mirthful envy of Zoe’s superior intellect when they both find themselves subjected to the Teaching Machine, Troughton really shines all the way through. The Krotons themselves are big, ungainly crystalline beings, but they’re a refreshing change from flesh-and-blood aliens and robots that generally dominate Doctor Who. It bears mention that this was Robert Holmes first story for the show and, while it’s by no means his best contribution to the series, it certainly shows promise. The Krotons may not be as good as The Invasion or The War Games, but I prefer it to The Dominators and The Seeds of Death and I'll likely pick it up when it's released on DVD.



6) Dragonfire (Seventh Doctor: Sylvester McCoy; Season 24; Story 151)

Known as the best story of the otherwise dreadful 24th season, Dragonfire still suffers from a great deal of criticism…and most if it is reasonable. Iceworld isn’t terribly convincing (though it might have been twenty years earlier in black & white), Bonnie Langford is ready to annoy as companion Melanie Bush, and Doctor Who as a whole was in serious jeopardy of becoming a parody of itself (see the infamous literal cliffhanger at the end of episode one). Perhaps the best reason for watching Dragonfire is the introduction of Ace (Sophie Aldred), who eventually becomes my favorite companion since Leela was at the Fourth Doctor’s side almost a decade earlier. It’s interesting to see Ace here at her most unrestrained and troubled and it makes her maturity by the time of Survival (the final story of the original series) all the more apparent. Sabalom Glitz, possibly the best thing about The Trial of a Time Lord season, returns for another run-in with the Doctor and this gives the story an added layer of humor and charm, as well. While it’s no classic, Dragonfire provides a fitting departure for Mel and serves as an interesting prologue for Ace. Furthermore, at only three episodes long there’s no worry of it overstaying its welcome.



7) The Creature from the Pit (Fourth Doctor: Tom Baker; Season 17; Story 106)

I mentioned in my previous blog that City of Death was the best story from “the otherwise atrocious season 17,” so why am I now defending the story that immediately followed City of Death? It’s because some Doctor Who stories are so preposterous and ridiculous that they’re absolutely endearing and The Creature from the Pit is a perfect example of this category. This story is hilarious on a multitude of levels, both deliberate and inadvertent, and as a result it is one of my favorites. "The Creature" in question is a massive blobby being called Erato who pursues the Doctor and company around "The Pit" with what appears to be a giant green phallus. Then we have the wolfweeds, which look like a cross between tumbleweeds and testicles and function like a pack of rabid tribbles, glomming onto enemies and incapacitating them with their…um…glomminess. Myra Frances gives a deliciously over-the-top performance as the domineering Lady Adrasta while Tom Baker is at his zaniest. It’s also hard not to notice the hand of Douglas Adams at work as script editor in this story and I find The Creature from the Pit funnier than either The Pirate Planet or City of Death, stories which Adams wrote (or co-wrote) himself. Underneath all the delicious campiness, The Creature from the Pit contains an engaging plot with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing about what will happen next. All in all, a highly recommended story for when what you really want is a laugh.



8) Terminus (Fifth Doctor: Peter Davison; Season 20; Story 127)

No, you’re not hallucinating; I’m about to stand up for a Peter Davison story even his fans don’t seem to enjoy. Terminus appears in the middle of a trio of stories often referred to as The Black Guardian Trilogy, but it does little to move that story arc along, instead focusing on the Terminus ship itself and the eventual departure of Nyssa. Because she’s my favorite Fifth Doctor companion and she gets a very proper send off I’m perhaps a bit more lenient with this story than I might be otherwise. Looking at it objectively, however, I still think Terminus is an atmospheric and well-plotted story. It’s true The Garm is reminsicent of Barf from Spaceballs, but I’ve seen worse creatures in Doctor Who. The guards on Terminus wear what looks like an ancient prototype for the Power Suit from Metroid and the space pirates obviously came straight from the planet Thunderdome, but it was the 80s. And while The Black Guardian/Turlough plotline takes a backseat, it still provides an ominous backdrop to the already grim events taking place center stage. A bleak story for the Fifth Doctor is a good thing in my opinion as it sufficiently counters Peter Davison’s uninspiring take on the character and Terminus is nothing if not bleak.



9) Death to the Daleks (Third Doctor: Jon Pertwee; Season 11; Story 072)

Death to the Daleks is without a doubt my favorite from this list. Surprisingly it’s considered the worst of the Third Doctor’s three Dalek stories according to the Outpost Gallifrey 2003 Reader Poll. In my opinion, this is one of the best stories of Jon Pertwee’s final season, second only to The Time Warrior. Sarah Jane Smith (Elizabeth Sladen), my all-time favorite companion, is relatively new to the show at this point, but you wouldn’t know it from her rapport with the Doctor. Although she is sidelined for a great deal of the story, she has some great moments in the first episode and later on when she meets with the Exxilons. The Exxilons are a strange, diminutive race, but quite charming in their own way. Like the the Sensorites, the Exxilons are more complex than your average alien race and are extremely well used in this story, particularly Bellal, who serves as the Doctor’s pseudo-companion for much of the story. You’ve also got human soldiers, mutants and…oh, yeah…Daleks! They’re somewhat overshadowed by the Exxilons and their sentient city, but it’s nice to see the Daleks trapped in the same boat with their archenemy—the Doctor. Fine direction and solid performances make Death to the Daleks well worth a second look.



10) The Mysterious Planet (Sixth Doctor: Colin Baker; Season 23; Story 144)

Colin Baker was royally shafted on Doctor Who. He was forced to wear a patchwork quilt as a coat, stuck with a companion whose only redeeming feature was her cleavage, given the worst introductory story of any Doctor (The Twin Dilemma may be the worst Doctor Who story ever) and then cursed with a year and half hiatus between his only two seasons as the Doctor. His second and final season was a fourteen episode affair called The Trial of a Time Lord which consisted of four interlocking stories. The first of these stories was The Mysterious Planet and I personally think it is the best story of the entire season. It's clear that the Sixth Doctor and Peri have gotten closer in the time they've spent together. Peri has matured and the Doctor has mellowed somewhat in regards to her so there is little of the petty bickering that went on in the previous season. Sabalom Glitz, the mercenary and profiteer, makes his debut in this story and his repartee with his sidekick Dibber is an excellent example of Robert Holmes witty dialogue. Sadly, this was Robert Holmes final complete story for Doctor Who as he died not long afterwards. While it's hardly top shelf material, even Holmes worst stories make for better than average Doctor Who. If the remainder of The Trial of a Time Lord was as good as The Mysterious Planet, I'd have no qualms about recommending the entire season. Unfortunately, it goes downhill from here.



So, there you have it. Ten Doctor Who stories spanning a quarter of a century that aren't nearly as bad as everyone says they are. Unfortunately only three are currently available on DVD (The Web Planet, The Power of Kroll and The Mysterious Planet) and two of them really only work as part of grander, season-spanning storylines. Still, if you can track any of them down they're worth seeing. They might not be The Talons of Weng-Chiang, but each one has something to offer the receptive viewer.

Bars of Black and White

Yet another cool but brief experiment by Gregory Weir (The Majesty of Colors), Bars of Black and White stands in sharp contrast to it's predecessor. You use arrows to navigate around a sparse, crudely drawn apartment while solving simple puzzles and using items you find along the way to open up new areas of the game. Of particular interest is the game's main gimmick of using a bar code scanner to reveal hidden messages. A creepy little game worth checking out.

Don't Shit Your Pants

I think we can all identify with this. In this "survival horror game", You have 40 seconds to guide a fat man to the shitter (or find some other solution) before he poops his man-panties. Your only means of doing so is by typing the right series of text commands in the proper order. The game is not very picky, so proper grammar isn't necessary, but expect him to be shat upon a few times before you get it right. Saisissez la toilette! Pro tip: you can gain more time by relieving some of the pressure.

Top 10 Most Overrated Doctor Who Stories

I love Doctor Who. I want to make sure everyone knows that before I get started here because this is the kind of list that would probably get me throttled at sci-fi conventions. When I began to delve deeper into this long-running television program I needed a way to separate the wheat from the chaff without having to try and track down over 750 episodes and watch them all. Naturally, I turned to websites like Outpost Gallifrey and The Doctor Who Ratings Guide to see what long-time fans had to say. For the most part they served me well, but there are a handful of stories that I feel are given far more praise than they deserve. Likewise, there are certain stories I think are far better than the majority of the fans rate them, but I'll save that for another blog.

In 2003, the 40th anniversary of Doctor Who, Outpost Gallifrey conducted a poll asking its readers to rate all 159 of the original stories (as well as Doctor Who: The Movie and various specials, none of which I'm including here). My basis for this list was this poll in addition to postive reviews and ratings I've seen elsewhere. All of the stories I mention are in the top half of the poll and I've listed them in descending order. For instance, City of Death (#1 on my list) came in 5th place out of all the original Doctor Who stories while Resurrection of the Daleks (#10 on my list) came in at a middling 77th. The other stories I mention here placed somewhere in between.


1) City of Death (Fourth Doctor: Tom Baker; Season 17; Story 105)

Tom Baker, a script by Douglas Adams, location shooting in Paris, a villain played by Julian Glover and a Pythonesque cameo by John Cleese…I must be mad to say this story isn’t genius! Well, it isn’t. Don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely the best story of the otherwise atrocious season 17, but is it perfect? Far from it if you ask me. There are numerous holes in the plot, Lalla Ward is too cute by half as Romana, and just what kind of accent does Professor Kerensky have anyway? Russian? Romanian? Italian? Who can tell? Furthermore, Scaroth’s rubber mask with plastic eye isn’t really that convincing, so why does director Michael Hayes decide to zoom in on it fully lit? And I haven’t even mentioned the endless padding, Tom Baker and Lalla Ward running up and down the streets of Paris just so we’ll all know they're on location. Is it a good story? Absolutely. Does it deserve praise as one of the top 10 Doctor Who stories ever? Not a chance. I'm not even sure it's in my top 10 Tom Baker stories.


2) Earthshock (Fifth Doctor: Peter Davison; Season 20; Story 122)

I’ve mentioned in a previous review that I don’t really care for Peter Davison’s Doctor, but he’s not the real problem when it comes to Earthshock. Like so many Fifth Doctor stories, this one starts off strong (apart from the bickering in the TARDIS) and goes down hill from there. This is a much-loved, much-remembered story due to the involvement of the Cybermen and the death of Adric, the Doctor’s very own Wesley Crusher. I happen to think it’s a load of crap. Here the Cybermen are only different from humans in appearance, being annoyed one minute and irate the next, and are far from the emotionless beings they were in the 60s (or in the new series, come to think of it). And would someone tell me why the Cybermen need android servants? I’ll tell you why…to keep the audience from realizing Cybermen are the villains until the end of the first episode. While it does boast some nice effects and music, there are serious problems with Earthshock…and the silent epilogue for Adric at the end is definitely one of them. The realization that Adric is no longer on board the TARDIS is at least some compensation.


3) Logopolis (Fourth Doctor: Tom Baker; Season 18; Story 116)

To prove I’m not just picking on Davison, here’s another story from my favorite actor to play the role of the Doctor – Tom Baker. Of course, it’s not his fault it's a bit of a stinker. In fact, Baker is probably the best thing about Logopolis. I’m not a big fan of Anthony Ainley's Master, mainly because he seems to use an over-the-top laugh as a substitute for punctuation, but I think what really doesn’t work in Logopolis is the writing. There’s just too much going on in this story for a four-parter. We have the introduction of Tegan, the return of the Master and Nyssa, the mysterious (and while spooky, rather pointless) appearance of The Watcher and the death of the Fourth Doctor all in about an hour and a half. Speaking of the Fourth Doctor’s death…he falls off a radio telescope. That’s it, really. After facing the Daleks, Davros, Sutekh, Magnus Greel, and countless other baddies, how does the Master finally defeat the Doctor? Gravity. Apparently, the Fourth Doctor’s fatal flaw was an extremely weak grasp.


4) Revelation of the Daleks (Sixth Doctor: Colin Baker; Season 22; Story 143)

Whether you like Colin Baker or not it’s hard to deny that his tenure as the Sixth Doctor marked a nadir in the history of Doctor Who. The “other” Baker was at helm when the show went off the air for an eighteen month hiatus, right in the middle of his two seasons in the role. While it might seem that I’m being awfully forgiving of the leads, here again I cannot fault C. Baker for this shoddy story. In the one season of the original Doctor Who where stories were divided (mostly) into two 45 minute episodes, why on earth would you spend one of those episodes with the Doctor and Peri walking around aimlessly before reaching Tranquil Repose? At the end of that first episode a statue of the Sixth Doctor falls on him, but at the beginning of the second episode it turns out to have been a fake, not heavy enough to really hurt him. The Doctor says it was part of an “elaborate practical joke,” but I think the joke is on the viewers. What was the point? And don’t get me started on Alexei Sayle as the DJ, who may win top honors for the most annoying character ever to appear on television. Sure, he’s less offensive once he’s not doing his on-air persona, but that doesn’t dull the ache of what has come before, or of his weapon that shoots an “ultra sonic beam of rock and roll” to destroy the Daleks before he dies like a chump. In the end, Davros and the highly underutilized Daleks cannot save this sloppy story that many fans inexplicably consider the Sixth Doctor’s best.


5) The Mind Robber (Second Doctor: Patrick Troughton; Season 6; Story 045)

I almost feel guilty saying that The Mind Robber is overrated, especially given that so few of the Second Doctor’s stories survive today. Conceptually speaking I have to say that it’s the best story on this list, but the execution leaves much to be desired. The first episode is a surreal trip that has little to do with the actual story proper, but upon repeated viewings I found it may be the best of the five that make up The Mind Robber. After that we’re into the Land of Fiction where anything can happen – toy soldiers, mythological beasts, various literary figures appear, but they don’t do very much, really. Maybe my suspension of disbelief needs some work, because I can imagine seeing this as a child I would have fallen for it hook, line and sinker, but having watched it for the first time at the bitter age of 32 I just found it rather unconvincing. Fictional characters just seem to be thrown at the Doctor and his companions at random and by the end of the story there are quite a few unanswered questions. For example, who built the Master Brain computer the Master of the Land uses to conjure up all these literary characters? Then there’s the fact that after five episodes of general chaos, Jamie and Zoe defeat the computer simply by pressing buttons at random. While The Mind Robber is somewhat overrated by fandom, it’s maybe the most unique story within a very unique show and treasured primarily for that very reason.


6) The Five Doctors (Fifth Doctor: Peter Davison; Season 20; Story 122)

What a spectacular mess. This movie-length 20th anniversary story is essentially a Doctor Who convention on film. It’s got everything: Cybermen, Daleks, Yeti, Time Lords, the Master, a gaggle of companions and five, well, four…um…okay, three Doctors all in one massive story! I just like to pretend it doesn’t exist, really. One would think that if one of your lead actors was dead (William Hartnell) and another refused to participate (Tom Baker) that you’d just think of something else to do, right? Nah, just use a stand-in and some old film footage and work around them instead. Nothing in this convoluted waste of film makes any sense and the only real reason to watch it from an objective point of view is Patrick Troughton’s brilliant performance as the Second Doctor. Everyone else seems to be phoning it in or hamming it up. However, if you're watching just to see how past stars have aged there's nothing better than The Five Doctors.


7) Black Orchid (Fifth Doctor: Peter Davison; Season 19; Story 121)

Maybe it’s a little unfair to be picking on this inoffensive little two-part time filler, but I had such high expectations for it based on the reviews I'd read that I think it needs singling out. It all hinges on the fact that somewhere on Earth there’s a girl who looks exactly like Nyssa, companion to the Doctor and native of Traken. This sort of thing pops up a lot in Doctor Who, such as Romana looking just like Princess Strella in The Androids of Tara, but there’s not quite enough going on in this story to warrant another one of these highly unlikely coincidences. Basically, the first part of the story involves the Fifth Doctor playing an inordinate amount of cricket and Adric stuffing his face at a masquerade ball. (You know you have problems when a two part story has this much padding.) The thrilling conclusion being that someone wearing the Doctor’s mask and costume ends up killing the girl who looks just like Nyssa and for the entire second episode the Doctor has to prove he isn’t the murderer. Often touted as the best of the two-parters, I’ll take The Edge of Destruction, The Rescue or The Sontaran Experiment any day of the week. The best thing about Black Orchid is the title.


8) Carnival of Monsters (Third Doctor: Jon Pertwee; Season 10; Story 066)

Along with City of Death and The Mind Robber, Carnival of Monsters is another story that I actually enjoy, but I don’t quite think it’s worthy of its legendary status. The premise here is that the Third Doctor and his companion Jo Grant end up materializing inside an illegal device called a Miniscope. It's a machine that contains miniaturized worlds and creatures for the viewing pleasure of anyone willing to buy a ticket. Essentially, it's Jurassic Park meets Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (though obviously predating both) and while it is very entertaining, it’s one of the ugliest stories in Doctor Who. The sets look particularly dodgy, the aliens are rather unimpressive, and the costumes make the Sixth Doctor’s coat look tasteful by comparison. Carnival of Monsters is a fine example of a Doctor Who story that works despite its superficial flaws, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. All in all, it’s a great story with solid performances let down only by its unparalleled gaudiness.


9) The War Machines (First Doctor: William Hartnell; Season 3; Story 027)

As the only surviving story to feature companions Ben and Polly, I really wanted to like The War Machines. I’m also a big fan of William Hartnell’s portrayal of the Doctor, but what remains of his final season is rather disappointing stuff. Everyone points out the fact that this story is the prototype on which the earthbound Doctor Who stories were built (The Invasion, Spearhead from Space, Doctor Who and the Silurians, etc.) and that’s certainly true, but that doesn’t make it terribly enjoyable. It’s filled with too many plot holes for me to begin to mention here while the WOTAN computer and the War Machines make for fairly dull villains. Dodo Chaplet, the Doctor’s companion at the beginning of the episode, makes her exit off-screen, which is another disappointment. Perhaps the biggest gripe of all, however, is that WOTAN constantly refers to the Doctor as “Doctor Who.” It’s a petty complaint, but one that never fails to get under my skin. A forward thinking story, but a boring one.


10) Resurrection of the Daleks (Fifth Doctor: Peter Davison; Season 21; Story 134)

What a surprise, another Peter Davison story! Resurrection of the Daleks has perhaps the most perplexing tangle of plot threads ever to make its way into a Doctor Who story. It all starts off well enough (there’s that Fifth Doctor jinx again), but falls to pieces in the latter half of the story. We’ve got Davros, Daleks, renegade Daleks, doppelgangers and mercenaries all in a big Doctor Who gumbo, all vying for air time and everyone acting independently of one another. It’s too crowded and many characters exist solely for their input regarding one small aspect of the overall story and are then nonchalantly discarded. Speaking of being discarding, Resurrection of the Daleks is well-known for being one of the most violent Doctor Who stories ever aired. It contains numerous on-screen deaths and many of them are rather horrific. By the end of this story even the normally pacifistic Fifth Doctor is holding a gun to Davros’s head. While I’ve always scorned the Fifth Doctor for not being more aggressive, this seems like an immediate about face for the character as played by Davison. As with several of the stories on this list, the biggest fault lies in the script.


All in all, it's easy to poke holes in Doctor Who stories. They were incredibly cheaply and quickly made and even the best of them has something that stands out as inadequate. These days, however, that's really part of the charm of the original series. While these stories are singled out as overrated, it doesn't mean they're all bad or that you should avoid them altogether. Just don't go in with particularly high expectations and you'll likely find them rewarding in one way or another. I know I did!