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Mini Ninja’s, a game I picked up because I was told it was “cute”. As I’ve been struggling to find a game to enjoy recently, I decided to give it a go. I’ll admit, it’s not that bad for a bit of “stress free relax with a bit of fun” time, but it’s not the most interesting game by any chance. In all fairness though, it is aimed at a more younger audience, something older players will become immediately aware of; not because of the story or the graphics, but because of the constant hints the game gives you at the start, far beyond where it needs to.

The basic premise is several ninjas have been sent on a mission to find out what is going on with an unknown evil enemy that has appeared but they do not return. So you, the youngest ninja called Hiro, are dispatched as a last attempt to find out their fate and to try and stop the evil yourself.

For each ninja you rescue, they become a playable character with their own special skills such as the first guy with his huge hammer that bashes things that are too big for Hiro to hurt. Throughout the game though, Hiro is clearly the best of them all as he is the only character capable of casting Kuji magic that can do a variety of things from possess creatures to rain down lightning on your foes. All of this is done in a child friendly way I should add, enemies die in a big poof of smoke, no blood in sight: then after they die, a cute animal appears in their place that then runs free (enemies in this game are animals transformed by magic.)

The game is pretty linear, every level has a definite goal and often only one way to pass a particular part. However the game does offer wide open areas to allow you to attack enemies in a variety of ways, so you can attack them head on, hide in a bush or sneak up behind them – you are a ninja afterall.

As with most games like this, you do level up as you progress, defeating enemies is obviously the primary way of collecting experience but there are also extra’s such as gathering herbs and freeing animals trapped in cages. The more of this you do, the easier the game will be (not that it isn’t easy enough already); even if you decided to do the mad rush through the game though, the further levels will be tougher, but even then, you’ll be able to do it, the checkpoints will ensure you never have to repeat too much.

For anyone with young kinds, or any adults that want a fun simple game, I’d recommend giving Mini Ninjas a go.

You can purchase it at Amazon for the xbox, PS3 and Wii.

The UK is continuing to push ahead with equality for all.

From queeried.com:

The UK prime minister Gordon Brown has said in a interview with gay lifestyle magazine, Attitude, that he is focused on making sure the rights of British civil partnerships are recognised across the EU, including Eastern Europe, believing “respect for gay people was due”.

Saying that agreements with both France and Spain are already in negotiations, Brown pointed to the proposed roll backs of civil partnerships in the USA as inspiration saying these “…are people who have made a commitment to each other and clearly loved each other, who are now to be faced with this idea that it was going to be rescinded. It’s totally unacceptable”, and how he was not willing to see couples who had had civil partnerships in the UK lose their rights when living across Europe.

While at the same time, a congressman is actively fighting against LGBT rights even though his dad was an LGBT activist:

The son of the man who wrote a book that acted to promote tolerance of the LGBT community, and show gay couples can be as stable, loyal and devoted as any heterosexual couples, is trying his darned hardest to do the exact opposite.

When I was younger I wanted to live in the states, that dream has died more and more over the years and now, it’s the last place I’d want to live. The “free” country is a distant dream, as the world moves forward, America is left behind.

It’s Christmas Eve, so here are some festive lolcatz to tide you over the next few days.

We went to see St Trinian’s 2, the Legend of Fritton’s Gold on Sunday in Bradford at Cineworld. It was fun to watch, but sadly, it was definitely a sequel, it failed to live up to the sheer audacity and stupidity that St Trinian’s 1 offered. I’m not saying it was terrible, far from it, it’s lines like “We’re your worst nightmare” - “You’re not The Beegees…Take That” that make a film like this good, they’re quick, disappear in a flash but give you a good giggle when they’re delivered (those lines are in the trailer below.)

St Trinian’s 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold sees Annabel (Talulah Riley) promoted to Head Girl at St Trinian’s in the absence of Kelly (Gemma Arterton), who now has a new and exciting career as a superspy. Annabel struggles to unite the warring cliques of Posh Totties (led by Tamsin Egerton as Chelsea), Emos (led by Montserrat Lombard’s Zoe), Rude Girls (led by Zawe Ashton’s Bianca), Geeks (led by Ella Smith’s Lucy) and Eco-Warriors (led by Juno Temple’s Celia) but when the evil, woman-hating Lord Pomfrey (David Tennant) stages a raid on the school looking for clues to a 400-year-old treasure, the girls realise that they’ll have to work together if they’re going to solve the mystery and beat him to it.

Meanwhile, headmistress Camilla Fritton (Rupert Everett in full-on Camilla Parker Bowles drag once again) faces difficulties in her relationship with Minister Geoffrey Thwaites (Colin Firth), especially when it’s revealed that Geoffrey might be a member of Pomfrey’s secret woman-hating cabal.

The film has unfortunately had a lot of negative reviews, but these are the people who review every film, even if it isn’t their style. St Trinian’s 2 offers pantomime style comedy in a movie situation. True, the story could have been a bit more polished and slightly more in line with the first film, but nevertheless, the film is still worth a watch, but not until you’ve seen the first! As always, not-so-big films like the first one are cheap to buy, Amazon has it for less than a fiver; you can buy it here.

Well, the good news is, the X-Factor single didn’t reach number one, no matter how you look at it, that is a good thing, it would have been yet another year, yet another X-Factor winner – many people are sick of that. However, the Christmas number one is now Rage Against the Machine – Killing in the Name – why? The couple who started this (the same couple as last year) chose a completely non Christmas related song, not only that, but one that contains quite a bit of swearing, so it can’t really be played while the family are sitting around opening presents now can it!

As I said, this is not the first campaign the couple (Morters) have launched to try to influence the charts – last year they attempted to get Rick Astley to the top spot.

Mr Morter, 35, said he learnt “how the charts work” from that experience, and “what you can get away with”.

“When this year came around I just thought, let’s have another go. If anything, last year was fun. This year it has gone stratospheric.”

His wife Tracy said: “It was one of those little silly ideas that make you laugh in your own house.

“We really love music and remember when were were young the charts were really exciting. We just thought, wouldn’t it be funny if that song got to number one?

“It took something really strong and forceful to get people behind it.”

I think it’s great we’ve got a non X-Factor number one this year, but I just wish its replacement was a bit more festive and a bit less…violent?

The excerpt I was just reading from BBC News goes as follows:

A Christmas card has been withdrawn from two Tesco stores in York after complaints that it makes fun of children with ginger hair.

The card shows a child with ginger hair sitting on the lap of Santa Claus, and the words: “Santa loves all kids. Even ginger ones.”

Davinia Phillips, 30, of York, whose three daughters are redheads, said she found the card offensive.

This is ridiculous, it’s called humour, apparently this is yet another stupid woman who has a lack of one. Does she not watch any late night comedy? Everyone is fair game as the target of a joke and it’s funny! In fact I’d go as far as to say it’s even funnier now to make fun of people than it ever has been because of the P.C. world in which we live. Now, when someone makes an offensive joke, people not only laugh at the joke, but laugh at the risk of it as well – the comedian nearly always is safe too. But it is people like this mother who should be removed from the country, permanently. Why? Because anyone who takes PC too far is no better to me than people who are racist, sexist, etc. They’re just the opposite end of the spectrum, neither ends are good.

At the weekend I finally caved and bought Super Mario Bro’s Wii, I loved the older Super Mario on the SNES and the Wii version seemed to go back to Mario roots with this new game – at least, the advertisements made it look like it did so I would have been royally pissed if it didn’t – but it did and man, it’s great. Below are screenshots from the old SNES Mario and the new Wii Mario, the Wii is clearly improved graphics wise, but the key thing to note here is the fact the new version still plays the same as the old version, horizontal scroller style.

There are 9 worlds in total, the first 8 are standard do a level to progress, occasionally with alternative routes from A-B, but mostly linear. One thing we found out, that I did not like, was in several worlds there are shortcuts to future worlds, for example you can jump from half way through world 1 to world 5 if you find one secret exit (that was not that hard to find.) We just went back and did worlds 2,3 and 4, but I know people will be tempted to skip ahead for now, just to rush to the end – don’t do it!

The 9th world is different, you only get access to it after clearing the first 8 worlds, and then can only do levels there as you collect special large coins (star coins) from the previous 8 worlds. So to unlock 9-1 you have to go to world 1 and collect all the big star coins from all 8 levels there.

The powerups are very similar to other Mario’s, again, very welcome. Things like the mushroom, star and fire flower all make welcome returns. Powerup’s like the ‘copter hat are great for some levels where the primary purpose is balance – of which there are several.

I would recommend to anyone who wants to relive the good old SNES days to try the new version; I guarantee you will love it and want to play it repeatedly.

Oh this is just adorable, reminds me of when our cat was just a baby.

Google has recently launched their own version of public DNS servers, much like OpenDNS. After trying them out briefly this morning, the response time does seem to be very quick from an actual user point of view (browser seems to start downloading sooner than it used to do.)

Google even provides a quote to help people who don’t fully get DNS to understand it, kind of:

Most of us aren’t familiar with DNS because it’s often handled automatically by our Internet Service Provider (ISP), but it provides an essential function for the web. You could think of it as the switchboard of the Internet, converting easy-to-remember domain names – e.g., www.google.com – into the unique Internet Protocol (IP) numbers – e.g., 74.125.45.100 – that computers use to communicate with one another.

Follow the Google guide to get started here.