By my balls, Girl, I thought you were dead!

I know I said I'd have a look at Golden Axe: Beast Rider, and I did. And it was OK at first, I really wanted to like it, just to voice the silent minority or something. Imagine playing God of War, and it's awesome. Somebody takes it away and gives you Conan, and it's still good but not as good. Same thing happens, you get Heavenly Sword, a bit poo really. Then there's Golden Axe.
The graphics are like a mid-range original XBox game, it has the same washed-out look as Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, and the blood effect is lifted straight from Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, for those who haven't played it it looks like whole tomatoes are falling out of your enemies. The music is great, proper epic, Conan-style score, but with absolutely unforgivable voice acting it doesn't really help the overall sound much. And the difficulty curve is so steep you need climbing gear - the game doesn't believe in checkpoints. Enemies do this thing where if their weopon glows orange, the blow in unblockable and you need to dodge buy hitting L1, and if it glows blue it's undodgeable and you need to block with R1. Or is it the other way round? You forget because the colours have no significance to the buttons at all. And when 15 enemies are attacking, half doing one, half doing the other, what do you do?
Sega have been destroying a lot of their beloved franchises lately, this and House of the Dead springing to mind. I loved Golden Axe when I was younger, and while I do get nostalgic when *that* music comes on and the gnomes appear, and I have to deck some potions out of them, it still upsets me that a childhood friend has lost it's way so much. It'd be like seeing Carrie Fisher do a low budget Porno.
Aside from that, and I'll keep things brief, I tried Little Big Planet, and I can't do it. Although someone has recreated the whole of Resident Evil 4 on there, which was awesome. I've been back on Mass Effect again, and that will always be great, especially as this time I've talked Wrex down on 'the' bit, which greatly upset me the first time around.
And, after finishing 24: The Game last week I started watching season 3, and there's a bit where Jack says that he moved Kim (his daughter) into CTU (his office) because he wants her to be safe. Now Kim was taken hostage in series 1, had a run-in with a Cougar and kidnapped by a crazy guy in the woods in series 2 and taken hostage again in the game. CTU on the other hand, was compromised twice in series 1, blown up in series 2, and invaded by terrorists in the game. Putting the most unsafe person in America in the most unsafe place in America, where she is now working hand in hand with Sylar from Heroes. Good Going, Jack.