Author Archives: Olivia Cottrell

About Olivia Cottrell

Olivia lives in Chessington and as such finds the distraction of video games, books and television a necessity. A former student of Cardiff University, Olivia has an abundance of strongly held opinions, most of them contradictory. Her favourite things include video games, Marvel comics (especially ones from the Sixties), feminism, books about magic that don't feature young men going on an epic journey of self-discovery, Iron Man, and thinking far too hard about nerdish things.

Fantasy Doctor Who Film Draft

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We’re four years old today! And to celebrate, we’re challenging David Yates to his own game and coming up with our very own Doctor Who movie.

High concept ideas. Multi million dollar budgets. A cast of thousands. These are just some of the things we’ll never be trusted with and, on the strength of this podcast, that’s probably a wise move. But we let our imaginations run riot and cook up not one, but six competing movie pitches.

Who are our Doctors of choice? Which monsters will they be facing? And who will write and direct the madness? Join us to find out!

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:17:52 — 71.3MB)

Once you’ve heard the podcast, head to our Facebook page or the comments section below to vote for whose film you’d choose to see. Find IMDB links on our choices page – contains spoilers for the podcast!

Random Encounter #2 – Tell Me a Story

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Monkey Island

Welcome back to Random Encounter, the monthly digest of gaming’s hot topics. This month, Olivia Cottrell wants to know where all the good scripts have gone.

Last week, I had a very strange moment. I was sitting in my living room, controller in hand, and I cried. Not big, dramatic sobs, just a sudden overflow of emotion that left me scrabbling around for a tissue. This was not prompted by anything melodramatic. All the game had done was build a character up through interactions and dialogue, then scripted something for them to say that touched me in a way that only a few things ever have. This had never happened to me in a video game before – but perhaps I should have seen it coming. Continue reading →

Random Encounter #1 – Girls, Guns ‘n’ Games

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Welcome to the very first edition of Random Encounter. Running as a counterpoint to our retro games column Visual Memory, this new monthly feature tackles the issues facing gamers in the here-and-now. Podcaster, reviewer and hardcore gamer Olivia Cottrell kicks things off with a matter very close to her heart…

All the Mass Effect news lately – especially the trailer featuring the female version of Commander Shepard – has gotten me thinking about the first game in the series. Mass Effect introduced me to gaming as a hobby (some might say an obsession), but why did I latch on to that particular game when I had played others before it and have enjoyed others since? What made Bioware’s space opera so special? Which buttons did it press that others didn’t?

Continue reading →

Merlin – Review and Discussion

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It’s time to ride to Camelot in our second podcast of the day…

Caleb Woodbridge, Sarah Burrow and Olivia Cottrell discuss the fourth series of the BBC’s other big telefantasy success – Merlin. Does it pay to play fast and loose with Arthurian myth? What direction could the show take next? These and other searching questions are answered in our latest podcast. Click below and listen!

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:53 — 27.4MB)

NB: This podcast was recorded via Skype so the audio quality does vary in places.

Video Game Review – ‘Doctor Who: Worlds in Time’

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For such a diverse show, Doctor Who has always stuggled when it comes to video games. Could Worlds in Time be the one to buck the trend? Olivia Cottrell takes her virtual TARDIS for a spin…

Pity the Doctor Who fan who also happens to be a video game geek. While the Doctor might initially seem a perfect fit for the video game world – his universe of strange aliens, dramatic stories and quirky characters is already one with a touch of the virtual about it – the franchise’s attempts to cross into video games have so far been decidedly lacklustre. While perfectly decent for free titles, a clunky control system and broken AI meant that the recent range of downloadable 3D Adventure Games were frequently frustrating experiences.  As someone who considers herself both a video games nerd (I’ve spent too many hours shouting at dragons over the past month to successfully argue otherwise) and a Doctor Who fan, I was ready for something more satisfying.

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Book Review – ‘The Whisper Jar’ – Carole Lanham

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Some secrets are kept in jars – others, in books.

It’s book review time again, so join P.G. Bell and Olivia Cottrell as they tackle a collection of short fantasy tales from acclaimed author Carole Lanham. In The Whisper Jar, you will encounter a Blood Digger who bonds two children irrevocably together; a young woman who learns of her destiny through the random selection of a Bible verse; and a boy whose life begins to reflect the stories he reads…

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:38 — 12.5MB)