GRAND THEFT AUTO: NORTHAMPTON

Arriving in the shops today is the latest ground breaking game in the hit series. Set across a sprawling ten square miles of the English county of Northamptonshire, the game sees serial criminal Kingsley Heath relocated to the new patch following a daring escape from the gangland world of Swindon.

Featuring miles of inner town ghettos and stiff upper-lipped countryside to explore the game features fifty stunningly diverse missions.

Missions include:

M1.10
Struggling to get on in the new town, Kingsley has to take on the roll of fountain cleaner on the town market. With dynamic physics and stunning graphics, you must keep control of the out of control urine and faeces that keep appearing in the water. Mission complete after accumulation of 10 tons of waste matter.

On completion of M1.9 the first town unlock occurs and Abington Street becomes accessible to traffic.

M2.1
Following the opening of Abington Street to traffic, chaos ensues as an epidemic of out of control five year olds find themselves in danger from vehicular transportation. Your task this mission is to save one hundred children in five minutes from the perils of un-pedestrianisation.

M2.10
The sedate and pleasant locale of Kislingbury Lawn Bowls Club is being terrorised by the evil rogue radio DJ John Griff and his bowl polishing machinations. With grip gone and bowls flying in all directions endangering the old members, you must team up with Griff's Radio Northampton colleague Helen Blaby and rough all the bowls up before the Presidents Cup.

Upon completion of M2.10, the second map unlock occurs adding a further three square miles of play area with the opening of this roadway:

M3.05
Kingsley finds himself in the pay of an unscrupulous building developer and given control of a bulldozer, he is tasked with "accidentally" destroying a listed building that the land owner has been having trouble with. You have 90 seconds to destroy the building before the police arrive.

M3.10
Market Stallholder Eamonn "Fitzy" Fitzpatrick needs your help and quick. A criminal market trader has flooded the fruit and veg trade with exploding plums and carrots. You have three minutes to clear the stalls of the explosives before disaster strikes.

Upon completion of M3.10 A greater part of the Sixfields area opens up for play:

M4.01
Chronicle & Echo sports writer Jefferson Lake is concerned when Northampton Town start winning games and with the aid of colleague Callum Jones and editor Steve Summers they discover the team has been duplicated by alien replicas under a slow infiltration of the planet Earth. In control of a fixed cannon, Kingsley must defend Sixfields from the ever increasing numbers of alien invaders.

M4.10
The black bin bags are out of control. Piling up in the street, Enterprise have no way of containing them. Controlling a super bin lorry, you have two days to clear the streets of rubbish before Northampton is buried under a mountain of waste.

M5.03
The Northampton Clowns are out of control. Increasing in numbers every day, Kingsley must use his hosepipe to remove one hundred fake wigs and noses before the town becomes a total circus.

M5.10
Following a botched genetic experiment, Northampton Kingpin David Macintosh is infected with harmful material and grows to magnificent proportions. Having gone insane he threatens all of the inhabitants of Northampton. In control of a gunship, Kingsley finds himself in the final battle to save the town. As David Macintosh hangs from the lift tower can you finally overcome the monstrosity he has become?

Television Review: Blackout

Following a fine tradition of British docudramas that have included The War Game and Threads, Channel 4's Blackout set out to depict several days in Britain following a nationwide electricity failure.

Supposedly this could be a very real threat in the near future and the programme depicted the event through the eyes of several characters in a very impressive and understandable way. From the mother and child to the Tom Good character, it provided the stark truth of life in such an event.

Using camera footage and and real life footage we were left feeling pretty much repulsed by what could and indeed what did happen with regard the 2011 riots. So much footage from those riots was used, it could have been hard to have even made the programme effectively without them. However before them riots, maybe a drama like this would have been less effective. Since them though, we "the normal" people can really see how truly close we are to anarchy in the UK.

The key character was indeed the person who was most prepared for this event. Providing for his family in a most complete way, everyone watching knew from the outset that he was going to the target from the desperate and undesirables of the world. His decent from always prepared scout mentality to looter and effective thug depicted well that to be honest you might as well not bother being ready.

Keeping it real throughout we were offered snippets of facts, generally showing how unprepared we truly are for such an event. Whether this could be suggested as scaremongering or not could be up to the viewer. The fact that the batteries in the hospital only last thirty minutes could probably be the most concern. Even my old Samsung phone lasted longer than that.

The cast, as is the case in these programmes, were generally unknowns and in the main were impressive enough, although the girl in the hospitals make-up was perhaps more dynamic than the performance. The pacing was excellent, with the final half hour "containing very strong language" giving a good pay-off for the gradual build-up of the first hour.

Overall though, it was a valiant attempt and was disturbing enough and in one particular case at the end, shocking enough to live up to the billing.

*****

An exclusive still from a deleted scene from Channel 4 docudrama #blackout pic.twitter.com/BPNm7lr8cO
— A Small Mind (@asmallmind) September 9, 2013