An overabundance of bigness

So, I went to see Walking with Dinosaurs – the Arena Spectacular last weekend in Nottingham. And it was awesome.

It’s sort of designed for children; there wasn’t any hard-hitting paleontological facts about Dinosaur breeding habits, for instance. What there was, was robot Dinosaurs in abundance, so it’s all good.

For those of you that have seen clips or adverts and are wondering how it all works, there are a combination of fully robotic Dinosaurs and people in costumes (with, I assume, some level of animatronics built in). The robots have wheeled (and camouflaged) bases they move around on, but their legs still move realistically back and forth; after a while of watching, you can actually believe you are watching real dinosaurs. The set in itself is impressive, with gargantuan prehistoric scenery scattered around, and the Dinosaurs themselves were massive.

Highlights of the show included a Stegosaurus (on of my favourite dinosaurs) and an ENORMOUS Tyrannosaurus rex. I must admit, even though I’m an ‘adult’, I was still a little scared when the T. rex leaned over the audience and roared in our face… It was very primal!

Another good moment was when the lady behind us commented to her friend that she was going to bring her 15 year-old daughter, but that she decided she’d grown out of it; James and I both found this amusing.

In other news, I’ve decided to get the full game of WAR. There are loads of worries over on both the official and the gameFAQs forums (fora?) about the future of the game, but, y’know… What the Hell. I’m going to get straight on a busier (hopefully EU server) and start a new character; I might go with Slayer again, or possibly Witch Hunter. Maybe Warrior Priest.

Or Chosen or Disciple of Khaine on the destruction side. We’ll see.

Anyway, managed to find a load of players the other night; had a classic moment as Thogrizan (or Thog, my character) and Soulfaces (a Warrior Priest) were retaking control points from the Destruction side around Mount Bloodhorn. A group of enemy players was retaking the points we were capturing as we moved around the map, but as there was quite a few of them, we decided against taking them on toe-to-toe… As we moved off from our hiding place to the next control point, I had the suspicion we were being followed; turning, I could see a band of six Destruction characters charging down the hill towards us, full pelt, dark magic crackling around their eyes, and squigs bounding alongside.

We looked at each other, contemplated a heroic last stand, then, as one, turned and ran for our lives. Hilarious :P

I’ll (hopefully) be blogging this week about my other new purchase; The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition. It’s going well, must be just over halfway through at the moment. Will share my thoughts at some point!