This year (2011/2012 season) is the twentieth of the Premier League. Thats two decades of the highs and lows watching 20 teams battle it out for glory.

• Best Team
• Best Players
• Best Quote
• Best Season
• Best Manager
• All-time Premier League Fantasy Team

So who do you think deserves recognition?

It would be hard to see past Sir Alex for the manager award. Manchester United players will also undoubtedly dominate the awards, winning 12, maybe even 13 (perhaps fittingly their twentieth league title in total) of the 20 Premier League titles available.

The “All time Premier League Fantasy Team” could arguably be made up totally from Manchester United with Schmeichel, Neville, Vidic, Bruce, Irwin, Ronaldo, Keane, Scholes, Giggs, Cantona and Rooney all having strong claims for the honour, and what a team that would make.

Thats not to say other players do not deserve a mention. Thierry Henry, Gianfranco Zola, Alan Shearer, Dennis Bergkamp, Ginola. Matt Le Tissier, David Beckham, Tony Adams, Sol Campbell and many more fill out the lists, making the choice a difficult one.

Here are my choices for the votes:

• Best Goal – Eric Cantona Manchester United v Sunderland (1996/1997)

Beckham’s half-way line goal deserves a mention.

• Best Celebration – Same as above.

The celebration is pure arrogance but that goal deserved it.

• Best Match – Tottenham Hotspur 3 – 5 Manchester United (2001/2002)

Will always remember people saying the game was lost at half time. What a comeback. A Manchester United comeback.

• Best Save – Peter Schmeichel Newcastle United v Manchester United (1997/1998)

The Great Dane. What a keeper.

Yes I may be biased ;p but feel free to put me right in the comments and dont forget to cast your vote!

Thanks for reading.

thebettertwin

Longleat, while quite expensive is definetly worth visiting – Try to use Tesco clubcard vouchers if you can, it will save you a fortune.

Well enough rambling, to the pictures:

Laughing Monkey

Rhino

Bambi

Tiger

Simba

Wolf

Yawning turtle (love the colours in this one!)

Nemo!

I hope you have enjoyed this post.

If you would like to see more check out my facebook.

Thanks for reading.

the better twin.

I imported my character from the first two games, however, the custom face failed to import properly, not that I remember what he looked like so default Shepard it is for me!

The game starts in an introductory fashion in case you had forgotten how to play the game and its actually a good start with the reapers arriving all guns blazing rather than repeating the “reapers are coming” mantra from the first two games.

I also like the way the game case cover can be flipped to display a female version of Shepard if that’s your persuasion.

I dislike the long wait to connect to EA servers when I load the game, however, as well as the – what now seems obligatory – online pass.

Unfortunately, I am going on holiday tomorrow so wont be able to experience the full game for a while.

I will, however, update this post as I play through the game.

Otherwise its down to you. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Did Mass Effect 3 live up to the hype? Is it really ”a sci-fi masterpiece” as some critics are claiming? Voice your opinions here.

============================

After some serious playtime of Mass Effect 3 (30+ hours), I thought I should update the original post with my opinions. Firstly, if you didnt like the first two games in the trilogy, you should probably stay away. ME3 continues the successful formula of the first two, while managing to get rid of some of the more boring aspects of the first two games.

Planet scanning, a bane of ME2, still remains, but is much more refined, allowing you to scan for signals when you enter a star system. It may take away some of the exploration, but the sacrifice is certainly worth it.

Side missions have suitable back stories and are more fleshed out than the previous two games, although you will begin to wonder how small the galaxy is after “accidentally running into people you know” repeatedly.

Co-op is a welcome addition allowing the more action minded players some Reaper blasting fun. New players should beware of a community that will kick lower ranked players without pause, however. Co-op can lean towards the repetitive side.

The story, a strength of the series, flows nicely and keeps you coming back for more. The feeling of a galaxy at war is suitable melodrama to draw you in and try your best to gain support for Earth.

However, I should stress, I havent yet reached the conclusion of the story. A conclusion which has drawn ire from fans all over the internet and has even led to Bioware suggesting they may release a new ending. Strong stuff indeed and I will have to see for myself, whether the criticism is justified or the overblown noise of keyboard warriors.

============================

Thanks for reading.

the better twin

The portfolio is a result of me playing around with custom post types and allows for me to feature new pieces in an easier fashion, adding them straight from the WordPress back end.

The logo tries to show the “reflective nature” of being a twin and the colours are supposed to be welcoming and friendly, but not overbearing, hence the use of subtle shadows and textures throughout the site.

You may notice a few bugs with the site as I try to iron out all the kinks (*cough* IE *cough*) but if things break down horribly, you can contact me here.

Otherwise, if you want to know how I did a particular thing, or would just like to voice your opinions, drop me a line in the comments.

Thanks for reading.

thebettertwin

I know I havent posted in a while but I’ve been quite busy with a new job.

So what’s new? Well I’ve taken the plunge and got my first smartphone, a Nokia lumia 800. Being a Zune fan I can’t help being impressed. Both the phone and the Window Phone OS are works of art.

I’m using the WordPress app to post this and it works very well so expect lots of new posts from me. Oh and look out for a new site redesign which I am currently working on and hope to have live soon.

Thanks for reading.
Thebettertwin

I have finished the Ricky Gervais show drawing I showed a glimpse of in my previous post.

Check it out and let me know what you think (Click to enlarge as always):

In addition to the drawing above, I have been playing around with Inkscape, getting to know how it works and all about Vectors.

I followed this tutorial from Chris Spooner to create a retro superhero book cover.

His tutorial was for Illustrator and Photoshop, but the same principles can be applied to Inkscape and Gimp.

Here is the result:

I applied the same concepts to create a Batman book as well:

The results turned out quite well I think and I learnt a few new techniques for both programs.

Feel free to tell me what you think.

Thanks for reading

thebettertwin

I am still trying to get used to the Wacom tablet pen at home. I’m finding it easiest to draw cartoons at the moment.

Heres a little work in progress.

While practising with Gimp I also created a gif for use in forum signatures;

At work I have mostly been helping with design related aspects.

Here are some pictures of the banners and business cards I created.

(click to enlarge as always)

I am also currently working on a new company brochure so may be able to share that soon.

As you can see I’ve been quite busy over the last few months, let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading.

the better twin

The overwhelming emotion as a gamer is best described through a 3 letter word;

Meh.

Microsoft kicked off the show, repeating the method they followed last year, showcasing another Call of Duty demo. Early on the controller disconnected. Looking back it was an ominous sign of things to come. The demo played out exactly as anyone would expect, i.e. simply another COD (Yawn!).

Moving on we saw a demo of Tomb Raider, best described as an Uncharted rip off which also borrowed from a porno flicks soundtrack.

EA came on stage to announce Kinect support in future sports titles. A pretty meaningless gesture that can easily be backtracked on especially as they didn’t show anything. They did however, demo Kinect support for Mass Effect 3. Instead of pressing a button for dialogue you now shout out a phrase only for the main protagonist, Shepard, to repeat what you have just said but in different words. This is a use of Kinect that totally bypasses the whole idea of motion control while also showing nothing that could not be simply integrated with the cheap headset that the Xbox ships with. Well done EA.

Next  up, Ubisoft and Ghost Recon, ignoring the presenters irritatingly high pitched voice, they demoed Kinect integration. The American audience went wild over a feature which allowed you to break apart any gun and add attachments with your voice. While it was a neat trick, the next second they demoed trying out your new gun and all excitement evaporated. The aiming was inaccurate and slow. To look down the scope a user would raise their hand, not the best idea for a sniper. To fire, you would have to open your fist in an exaggerated manner.

This demo served to highlight how Kinect simply does not work for games as we know it. It makes developers resort to exaggerated gestures to perform the simplest of tasks.

The one positive to take from the conference was the redesign of the Xbox dashboard. I really like where MS is going with their unified approach to design, and being able to search with Bing is pretty neat. However, ever the cynic, I would question how well this will work in countries outside the US with their limited content support.

Gears of War 3 again showcased nothing new and was not enough to win me back after the shotgun-fest that the Beta proved Gears multiplayer remains to be.

Then a new game, excitement abound, we got to have our first look at the game Crytek have been working on, initially called Codename: Kingdoms, now entitled Ryse. Unfortunately, it appears to be a simple head butt simulator, using Kinect.

Forza 4 time now and it shows nothing to justify why MS are so keen to pump a new one out every other year.

Core audience satisfied (yeah right!) Microsoft proceeded to show the very best of what Kinect has to offer.  From a laggy on rails Star Wars game to a laggy on rails Fable game.

Neither looked remotely sophisticated and I would argue that not even children could be satisfied by the pre 90′s arcade like gameplay.

The best selling Kinect games, Dance Central and Kinect Sports received their obligatory sequels (although I would argue with an attach rate of 1:10 neither can really be classed as “best selling”) while a new Disney game and Sesame Street will have surely excited the massive number of children eagerly tuning into E3.

So Microsoft was left to round the conference off with an announcement of a new Halo trilogy barely 6 months after they shipped the last one.

So what have we learnt from Microsoft at this years E3?

Firstly, that their promises of not forgetting the Core gamer were correct, but not in the way most were thinking. Instead of showcasing stunning new franchises for us gamers to get excited about, they have attempted to shoehorn Kinect into existing titles with pretty meaningless functions or features.

They have shown that they believe a cycle of Gears, Forza and Halo is what they expect to rely on the next couple of years as they have done the last few.

Quite simply they have shown how out of touch they are with the Core gamer.

The Core gamer does not want mindless rehashes ala COD, they do not want motion controls full stop. What they want are exiting new games which thrill, games which define the reason for choosing one console over another, games which companies like Rare are capable of making but seem content to be consigned to history.

Games which, sadly, no longer exist on the Xbox.

the better twin.

(Images courtesy of Joystiq)

It is my first pen tablet so it has taken some time to get used to.

It seems to work well with Gimp. I especially like how it works well with pressure, so you can adust colour, size, opacity and hardness depending upon how hard you press.

Here’s a picture I drew while I was experimenting with the pen:

Hopefully I will have some more drawings to share in the near future.

Thanks for reading

thebettertwin

IE9 is really good and I have been using it all the time. However, it still lacks some key functionality that other browsers have.

Spell check is one of them and thats where Speckie comes in (it works on all versions of IE; 6,7 8 or 9).

It works in all text fields I have tried, and highlights spelling mistakes in the same way Word would. Just right click to see suggestions for correction.

It also offers a wide choice of dictionaries to install.

Best of all its free.

Download it now and spread the wrod (word ) !

thebettertwin.