The Field Marshal's Girls of 2007 Update

2007 draws to a close, but until it's dead and buried I'm still free to steal pictures of attractive women from hollywoodtuna.com add some last-minute entries to my prestigious role-call of the year's top totty.

Krystal Forscutt

Brunette? check Cracking tits? check She's like a cross between Catherine Bell, Lisa Snowdon and with a little bit of Mylene Klass thrown in for good measure.

On the Subject of Vanguard

Lisa Snowdon

"Another sign of the growing maturity of online gaming was the notable failure of titles such as Vanguard.

Although released in February it was error prone and has taken months to become reliable enough."

When even the BBC website calls a game a failure, it must be true.

The Field Marshal's New Years Honours List: Part 2

You didn't think I was only going to give awards to games did you? Hahaha as if. I can't be bothered with any more of that formatting twattery and copying medals off wikipedia so I'll keep it simple this time.
Presenting the Field Marshal's Top Totty of 2007 in no particular order.

Monica Bellucci

I suspect she's the most beautiful woman on earth. Woman of the Year this year, and basically every other year.

Megan Fox

In some ways she's a poor man's Monica Bellucci, but that alone is enough to guarantee inclusion on this list.

Gemma Atkinson

She's arguably not that hot, but she had nice tits even back before the "enhancement" and what with her recent lingerie promotions they're even harder to miss.

Lucy Pinder & Keeley Hazell

They don't really do enough to justify separate descriptions. There's just no arguing with Hazell's stunning figure, while Pinder has larger boobs and a prettier face.

Salma Hayek

Salma's been showing off some serious cleavage recently, and like Atkinson she wasn't exactly flat-chested to start with. Hayek's inclusion might also be motivated by the fact I watched "After the Sunset" again recently.

Alina Vacariu

To be honest I have no idea who she is and I'm too lazy to look it up, but I found some pics of her while I was uploading the others and you just don't overlook a young version of Catherine Zeta Jones in her underwear.


Honourable Mentions
Hayden Panettiere is quite cute, but a bit of a shapeless dwarf. On the other hand Kim Kardashian has some mouth-watering curves, but an annoying, smug face.


Dishonourable Mentions
Britney Spears, one-time top totty, continues to go from bad to worse. The utterly, utterly hideous Amy Winehouse continues to be hideous. As does the equally hideous, droopy-eyed Nicole Richie. Much as I like Jennifer Love Hewitt, the infamous lardy bikini photos were... unfortunate.

The Field Marshal's New Years Honours List

You can't jibber-jabber about games in a blog and not have some sort of pompous awards post towards the end of the year. So after several minutes of careful consideration, here are the Field Marshal's definitive awards (in descending order of greatness).



The Bennett Cross
"... most conspicuous gameplay, or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice, or extreme devotion to entertainment in the presence of the enemy"

The Witcher

A game that might have been highly anticipated by the three people who knew it existed, The Witcher appeared to me out of nowhere and quickly established itself as my game of the year by a considerable margin.
Fast and furious swordplay that gets more impressive as you progress and which shits all over Oblivion's clumsy button-mashing, combined with some beautifully crafted narrative and characterisation. The gameplay might be more linear (in a very loose sense) than Oblivion but that only serves to deliver a richer, more rewarding storyline. And it's nice to play a game which isn't afraid to feature a well-defined, strong lead character rather than the anonymous everyman that's becoming increasingly common in games like Half-Life.
The characters are great, the voice acting mostly excellent, the graphics are excellent, the design is superb. There's lots of shagging, lots of swearing, and even bare breasts if you secure an uncensored, non-US version. What's not to like?



The Bennett Service Order
"... acts of the greatest gameplay or of the most conspicuous entertainment in circumstances of extreme danger"

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Having played the original CoD, and half of CoD2, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what to expect from the latest installment. That was until I got stuck into the full game which turned out to be much greater than the sum of it's parts. As the story kicked in I became remarkably immersed in the action, wanting to push on to help power our lads to victory against the filthy terrorist scum. The cutscenes are exceptionally cinematic, there are some typically big, loud firefights. There are some nice distractions like the airborne, night-vision section and the game is very pretty while still running impressively quickly. While not exactly coming out of nowhere, CoD4 was still a surprise hit of 2007.



The Bennett Medal
"... acts of gallantry and devotion to gameplay under fire"

Crysis

Sadly it has become fashionable to bash Crysis in the weeks since it's release, usually by people who feel "ripped off" because their PC can't run it at a million frames a second.
Admittedly the story is a let down, possibly worse than Far Cry's which is saying something. But the gameplay itself is very solid, and of course the graphics are staggering. It's a very good game, even if it could never live up to the absurd hype that has surrounded it for that last couple of years and even if you're too poor to be able to afford a PC that's capable of running it.


Honourable Mentions
Bioshock was beautifully-designed and essentially an underwater System Shock 2, but I haven't actually got around to completing it. Unreal Tournament 3 is basically a shiny UT for 2007 and is good for quick blast now and then. Portal was innovative and nice, even if it lacks longevity (for me at least). I still haven't got around to Half-Life 2: Episode 2, thanks to my ongoing Witcher fixation, but it's supposed to be the strongest episode yet. Gears of War was ok in a sort of one-dimensional console-y sort of way.


Dishonourable Mentions
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes was highly anticipated as the next-gen MMO but has so far failed to deliver despite it's enormous potential. You never know, it could miraculously become good, but it's nearly a year old and the game is still plagued by many of the same problems it has suffered since day one, not to mention crippled by one of the most infuriatingly smug and self-righteous communities of self-styled MMO veterans of any game in existence. A great shame.

On the Subject of Call of Duty 4

Bar Rafaeli

I played the demo, I was impressed by what they had achieved visually with a relatively limited engine, I was unsurprised by the linear design which is common to the previous installments, I thought it was pretty good fun and bought the full game on Steam.
And the full game is exceptionally good. Yes, it's linear. No, the engine can't hold a candle to Crysis. It is, however, really good fun and it's linear because that's the only way you can deliver a compelling storyline and offer a sequence of genuinely exciting set pieces. That sort of game-play in wartime FPS games really dates back to the Omaha Beach landing stage in the original Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. Lots of enemies, lots of bullets and missiles flying around, lots of shouting and explosions. Great stuff.
It's no army simulation, but it is engaging, adrenaline-pumping action. And for a "limited" engine it often looks stunning. The rim lighting they seem to have added to the characters (especially at nighttime) is slightly questionable, but the depth of field is nicely implemented and adds enormously to the experience of crawling through grass or sniping. And without the mammoth performance hit that post-processing adds to Crysis.
There are some genuinely thrilling stages. My favourites include the whole Chernobyl sequence which is rendered in desaturated tones and provides a beautifully-designed and haunting environment of abandoned buildings and wild dogs. It also features a proper stealth section at the start which includes possibly the most nerve-wracking moment in the game as you lie in the grass hoping you're not about to be stepped on, run over or simply spotted by an oncoming patrol of soldiers and vehicles.
I was also impressed by how the Great British SAS get all the good stuff, while the marines are slightly relegated to cannon fodder, although Marine character Jackson's death (yeah, spoiler, whatever) is both surprising and poignantly handled. In fact the way the story unfolds and before you know it you find yourself immersed in trying to achieve the character's goals is what impressed me the most.
The ending is great - hugely cinematic and rewarding even if it does come a little bit too soon. But then that's a common complaint these days and "wanting more" is not much of a criticism.
It's great to have relatively low expectations and then have a truly memorable gaming experience. CoD4 is light-years ahead of it's predecessors and a much more involving game than Crysis with it's Aliens-by-numbers storyline and old-school big boss ending.
I have no opinion on the multiplayer aspects of the game because I have no intention of trying it. I wanted a fun, straightforward single-player shooter and in the end I got a lot more for my money. That's good enough for me.