So I've finally managed to get in the Mists of Pandaria Beta, I've played through the starting area for the Pandaren, and I'm happy to say the starting quests have been great. As previously announced by blizzard, you start out on the back of a turtle, the area is called the Wandering Isles, where Pandaren monks train, and you make your way around the island receiving various lessons from the inhabitants.
Pandaren Character Creation screen
Check out the screen-shots, but beware of minor spoilers in the starting quest chain plot.
Pandaren Starting area
A nice little travel quest that leads you into another area on the Wandering Isles
some nice scenery as you move along to your next objective in MoP:Beta
Some background story on what's been happening to the Pandaren over the years
Nearing the end of the quest chain
"If you know what I mean"
for the first time - A view of the turtle that carries the Pandaren Island
for the first time - A view of the turtle that carries the Pandaren Island
for the first time - A view of the turtle that carries the Pandaren Island
More Mists of Pandaria Screenshots after the break.
As you may know it is Open Beta Weekend for Diablo 3 right now, so anyone who wants to try the game out can head onto battle.net and download the client to try out the game. If you've had any doubts so far about purchasing the game now may be a good time to test it out and see if you like what Blizzard has done with the franchise.
Personally, after having playing the beta a month or so ago, I liked what I saw. The art style is genuine Diablo universe, there's been a nice mash up of the classes, and the spell sets are simplified, yet still seem to be interesting enough to play. The main focus is once again on getting the items you need through various sources like monster drops or chests, but this time there's the third option of crafting your own items through the Blacksmith's workshop, where you can disenchant (or as it's called 'salvage') items for the materials they give and then use those materials to buy items from that particular NPC. You can also upgrade the workshop for a price to get access to better items.
One other difference is the health orbs that pop up every now and again and somewhat relieve the need to stack hundreds of potions at a time. At the same time those orbs pop randomly from enemies and more frequently from bosses, so you can't rely solely on them to be safe in the game.
Lastly the main selling factor for me is the game Lore. It was a dark and enticing story from the beginning, with the first Diablo game, and then with Diablo 2's brilliantly choreographed cinematics and extensive travelling, each Act bringing you to an entirely new world in the game. Since the Beta is actually limited to lvl 13 which pretty much covers 90 minutes of gameplay or the first quest chain in Act 1, you won't be seeing much of that until May the 15th when Diablo 3 is officially released. But for a taster this weekend can help you make up your mind weather you actually want the game or not.
You read it right - Fallout is now available for free download on the GOG website. Good Old Games is a generally a great place to get old titles, that you wouldn't normally find in stores anymore and they're available for a token price - mostly around 5-10$.
And here's a list of all the free stuff you get with the game.
- Fallout Manual
- HD wallpapers
- a refference card
- The Fallout Bible
- The Soundtrack
- Vault Boy avatars and various artwork from the game
So if you ever needed an excuse to play this brilliant classic title, that also happens to be one of my favourite games ever - here's a link to their site, where you can download the full game: http://www.gog.com/gamecard/fallout
Keep in mind that the offer is only available for 48 hours, but you can add the game to your account now and then download and play it whenever you like!
Battle Royale and the Hunger Games. Having watched both movies, I think it's appropriate to do a comparison between them. WARNING - MILD SPOILERS AHOY
The most obvious thing both movies share is the theme of kids killing kids. In Battle Royale, the kids are part of the same class, in the same age group (17-18 as they're finishing high-school), while in The Hunger Games, the participants are randomly selected among various age groups, some as young as 11-12. In that train of thought The Hunger Games wins the award for 'What the Hell Were They Thinking!?' - 'they' in the case being The Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins and the producers of the movie. Even though The Hunger Games is a lot milder with the blood and gore, it's still unnerving to be watching 5th graders participating in a fight to the death. And seen as how this adds nothing to the immersion or the plot, I'd say it's a completely self-propelled tear-jerker. In Battle Royale a bunch of high school sophomores kill each other out of paranoia, jealousy and stupidity. In The Hunger Games a little girl dies after a guy with several weeks of training throws a spear at her for 100 points. You choose which one is the more disturbing movie. The scene where the girl is 'burried' in flowers by the protagonist doesn't help in my opinion.
The second thing that bears amazing similarity is the way the games are presented as a game-show type reality-TV event. Now Japan has had a lot of experience with reality shows and hence in Battle Royale the school kids watch a tape of a genki-genki TV presenter jumping around while explaining how they're supposed to murder each other, and overall the rules of the game. In The Hunger Games movie, the role is given to an extravagant lady dressed in steampunk-ish high-class attire with an unmistakable British accent. Both serve to give us an idea of how widely accepted the games are, and how nobody thinks of them as anything else than entertainment. In The Hunger Games, though the show is much more public, and we see the typical presenters and talk-show hosts before and after much in the style of Big Brother. In Battle Royale, the game exists for itself, and the movie suggests that the rest of Japan is aware of them happening, but nobody's actually watching, besides the school teacher and a bunch of army guys.
When it comes to the rules of the game, once again the similarities are striking. In Battle Royale, the participants receive a satchel with a random weapon and basic survival necessities like water and bread. One may contain an uzi, while another one may have only a set of binoculars, or a pot lid. In The Hunger Games the weapons are in plain sight, and several people die just in the first few minutes, as they're struggling to get the better weapon. What mainly drives the plot in Battle Royale is that nobody knows what anybody else has as a weapon, so they're constantly on the outlook, and at the same time killing someone else gives you access to their weapon. In The Hunger Games the weapons are plentiful and on top of that if the producers of the show like you they may send you relief packages. Also in Battle Royale there's a time limit of three days, after which if there is no winner, everybody dies. In The Hunger Games the plot twist hinges on the fact that it's a ratings show, and nominating a winner acts to keep people from rebelling, which is used against the bad guys near the end of the movie. In The Hunger Games there also doesn't appear to be any time limit. In Battle Royale the group is stuck on an island, while The Hunger Games is set in some patch of forest, with remote controlled traps which are used to stop participants from escaping the perimeter.
Another gimmick present in both movies is the announcements of who died, while the game is running. In Battle Royale that's done over loudspeakers, while the much more technologically advanced The Hunger Games world uses holographic projectors in the sky as well as cannon shots. Same difference, if you ask me. In the end of both movies, two people survive, although in The Hunger Games the way that's done is as I mentioned before by exploiting the fact that the producers need to nominate a winner, while in Battle Royale the escape is a lot more satisfying and achieved in a much more complex way.
All in all the movies are similar in their premise, but the main difference is that death in Battle Royale is somewhat of an exploration of the psychology of a killer, everybody starts off innocent, and they have to kill the people they've known for years to survive. Some go with it from the first second, others have to learn how to get over themselves. Some become naturals, while others are gullible enough to allow themselves to be killed. Some even go as far as committing suicide in order to avoid becoming murderers. Groups of people who trust each other form and are disbanded all the time, while in The Hunger Games only one group exists, from the start until the end, and pretty much everyone except for the main two characters and the little girl are completely evil. In The Hunger Games there's no second guessing about the nature of killing another person, besides the main character. In that respect Battle Royale is a much more layered experience, going a lot deeper into the human condition.
Lastly Battle Royale is a self-contained plot, while The Hunger Games is drawn out as a trilogy, for whatever reason... The feeling I'm left with after seeing both movies is that I'd love to read the Battle Royale novel, while I don't really care about Suzanne Collins' books. Believe me, I couldn't care less if Collins saw Battle Royale before or after she wrote the books. It couldn't possibly make less of a difference to me. What's important is that one of the movies is an exploration into humanity, and the other one is the next anti-utopian saga about nothing in particular, with some superficial shockers and some choked up tears of anger.
Battle Royale is a 1999 movie from Japan that deals with a fictional world where the Japanese society has been hit by a recession, with a 15 percent unemployment, several million people have been left without a job, the students have started boycotting schools, and in response the military clique has organized a yearly event, where one class of forty two students have to fight to the death. The film gained popularity for a short while and has come to attention recently because of its similarities to The Hunger Games books by Suzanne Collins and the recent 'Hunger Games' film, that came out only a few days ago.
watch the trailer below
Battle Royale starts with a class of students celebrating their last days in school with a field trip, on the bus, they're drugged by their teacher and transported onto a remote island, where the game is going to take place. They're instructed that only one out of the forty two is allowed to survive. They're all fitted with explosive collars that track their every movement and there's only three days for them to kill each other off and if there's no winner by then, everybody dies. They're each given a bag of equipment, water food and a randomly chosen weapon, which could be anything from a pot lid to a set of binoculars to a sub machine gun.
It turns out later on that between them, there's one who joined for the fun of it, posing as a transfer student, arguably the most deadly of them all, and another one who's got some history with the game. The movie itself is a brilliant exploration of how quickly the mindset for survival takes hold, as they quickly learn that nobody's joking, and nobody's a friend any more. Every now and again a group of the students will try to organize to better their odds, but eventually it all breaks down when suspicion sets in. A couple who refuse to fight die off almost instantly, another two commit suicide, and the daily briefings that their teacher gives them over a loudspeaker system, set up across the island, are a gruesome reminder of what they're all fighting for. Someone or another's death is shouted out through the speakers, by the teacher himself with a sense of demonic satisfaction in what he believes to be a valuable lesson that should eventually bring Japan out of stagnation by forcing its people to deal with reality as if it's kill or be killed.
With that premise in mind, the movie doesn't push too hard to be overzealous in shocking its viewers. There's none of the dramatized editing, that's typical in Western movies, to stress the tragic death of someone or another. In other words what Holywood often sees as an opportunity for a B rated flick, Japan has turned into an exploration of the mindset of the hunter and the hunted, in a game where there can be no trust whatsoever and nobody is left completely innocent.
Battle Royale is based on the novel, by the same name, from Koushun Takami, the novel is said to be even more controversial than the movie itself.
Planescape Torment is a classic RPG from 1999 by Black Isle. The game is based on the same Infinity Engine (by Bethesda) that is getting a big renewal right now for Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 (expected sometime this summer). Planescape Torment is a party-based RPG with a unique world set in the rules of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, although it has its own unique storyline and setting, which revolve around the various Planes that exist in constant motion around the city of Sigil.
Sigil itself is a place, loosely based on some Forgotten Realms lore, where people end up in a sort of limbo, between life and permanent death. You wake up on a stone slab in the mortuary, and soon find out that you have a very interesting past. Apparently you've been reborn various times, and you have some kind of problem with achieving that permanent death, and to top that you lose your memory each time you die, so the only clue to what happened to you in your previous lives is a set of tattoos on your back. Also people tend to refer to you as the Chosen One for some reason.
The game possesses all of the basic RPG elements of the era and some more, you have item slots for your gear, potions, and various objects in the game acts as keys to solving the quests. What makes the game special is the strangely unique world. Nothing works right in Sigil. The city is in constant motion and the decisions you make may even end up changing the architecture. As a result of completing some quests it's possible to end up with some NPCs never existing, with no-one having any recollection of them. Every arch-like structure in Sigil is also a portal to various places within the Planes, if you're carrying the correct object with you, or humming the right melody. Hence the people of Sigil are in constant terror of walking through an arc and ending up in a pit of fire, or in some other dimension full of demons.
The character has some very weird past, it seems every time you were reborn, you ended up as a different person. As you go through the game some people hate you and call you a monster, others remember you as a saviour. A constant theme in the quest to find who you really are/were is the question "What can change the nature of a man?"
Along the way you'll also meet several interesting companions - among them a floating skull, named Mort that's been following you for quite a while and is there with you from the very beginning.
What makes this RPG a cult classic, that's gathered a solid following throughout the years, is the incredible imagination of the developers. Every choice in the game is meaningful in some way, the characters are layered and fascinating each with their unique story. If you're into the Baldur's Gate series, or you enjoyed playing Fallout 1 and 2, this one is definitely for you.
With Diablo 3 coming out on the 15th of May, it's time to take a look at the armour sets that will be available in the game. They all look pretty epic, keep in mind that these are dyes of one armour set per class. There is bound to be more options.
In the D3 Beta for example each class of gear comes with a different visual style. That is a studded leather vest looks entirely different from a wizard's robe. There's bound to be more variability in the end-game content but these are the ones that are available for now.
If you want to skip all the recolours, keep on clicking on the right-most thumbnail in the album. You'll get through the list quicker and won't have to see ten versions of the same model.
Ultimately what I'm eager to see in the game is the unique-level gear. I have some fond memories of finding unique items in Diablo 2 that came with their own unique 3D model. Names that come to mind would be Undead Crown, Lidless Wall, the Brain Hew great axe. Some of the best 2D art on the items was also reserved for the unique-level gear.
Cruel Intentions is a 1999 drama with Sarah Michelle Gellar and Reese Witherspoon. The movie follows the lives of four college students, the wealthy and powerful Kathryn Merteuil who recruits her step brother, Sebastian, to take revenge on her ex by seducing the girl he dumped her for (the overprotected daughter of high-class parents). Sebastian (Ryan Phillippe) refuses as he has plans to pursue the dedicated virgin, Annette(Reese Witherspoon), instead as his own personal project.
The story gets twisted when Kathryn offers her step-brother a bet. If he can't get in bed with the puritan Cecile (Selma Blair) Kathryn gets his vintage Jaguar, if he can succeed in his mission - he gets Kathryn. From then on it's a wild game of trickery and charm and some unexpected twists and turns. Who ends up with whom is a matter of great plotting, and for love to find its way in the whole twisted conspiracy something extraordinary will have to happen between the cold, distant and playboy-ish Sebastian and the more reserved Annette.
This movie is a classic for the nineties and I recently watched it again, after more than ten years. I definitely recommend this to anyone who's interested in the classy although often downright evil plotting and scheming between the overly-wealthy and bored inhabitants of high society.
Archer is a new animated TV series on FOX, that according to its creators should be a mix of James Bond meets Charlie Sheen. The simmilarities with the famous secret agent aside, Archer is a playboy of 'epic' proportions according to his own oppinion, and the show does a pretty good job making fun of both the stereotypes of the 007 thriller and the infamous 'player' and womanizer.
The running gags in the show are pretty standard for the format, we've got the mad scientist that's aquired a but of a darker taste for disturbingly unnatural experiments, we've got the nymphomaniac secretary and the gossiping head of HR. Also a nerdy accountant, that somewhat resembles Wilson from House MD. And of course we have Archer whose mother is the head of the agency - somewhat of an Anna Wintour character that's drunk with power and a habitual drinker.
Every episode is a deconstruction of the tropes that build up action thrillers, Archer usually gets himself in some sort of trouble, because he's too obsessed with his own macho image to care about his work. Then his empowered female counterpart has to get him out, while every now and again she proceeds to shoot him in the foot when his chauvinistic ways get the better of him.
The show is set in today's world so the characters go through a lot of the motions you'd expect from a bunch of 2012 people trying to keep up the appearance of an 80s secret spy agency. In one of the episodes the characters go on a strike with regards to a cost of living adjustment to their salary, in another the agency almost gets sold to a rival.
All in all it's a nice show if you're tired of watching the usual FOX round-up of Family Guy, American Dad and the Cleveland Show. It's definitely something new, the visual style reminds me more of a graphic novel, than the usual cartoonish look of the above shows. I'll definitely keep watching even if only to take my mind off of Seth McFarlane doing everything he can to run Family Guy in the ground.
Like most people I watched Fight Club before I knew who Chuch Palahniuk was. Nevertheless his novel that started a cult following back in the 90s, is equally as important as the Brad Pitt and Edward Norton movie.
Chuck Palahniuk is a writer, based in Portland Oregon, the author of Fight Club and one of my favourite writers of all times. My first experience directly of his work, was with a story called Guts. The story was around 2008 circulating around the less-savoury parts of the Internet as a sort of literal gore-fic. People copied it around to scare other people, and for a while, as I was unfamiliar with who or why wrote it I was wondering myself if it was a true story, or a figment of somebody's imagination. The story of Guts revolves around a particular practice of pleasuring ones self through the sucksion of a swimming pools filtration system. That is as much as I feel comfortable telling you about it without ruining any of my reader's dinner. You know how content gets labeled Not Safe For Work, things get bleeped out to spare you your supposed innocence, well this one is the embodiment of Not Safe For Life. With that warning it is available on the author's website here: Guts by Chuck Palahniuk: The Cult.
Chuck Palahniuk's style of transgressive fiction is unique in that he does his research thoroughly to uncover the most shaded places of the human experience. Palahniuk's experience is equally as unique. Early in life he worked as a diesel mechanic, then he got a journalism degree and sometime along the way he started some fiction writing classes. Meanwhile he held such peculiar jobs as driving victims of various illnesses to their help-groups, what inspired him to write the beginning episodes of Fight Club with the ascending bowel cancer, the testicular cancer, the blood parasites group. In these groups Palahniuk would sit throughout in a corner and listen to the stories people had to tell about their lives, stories of suffering, detachment and eventually absolution, and that's what made his writing style so genuine. His characters are in a sense derived through the best source available - that of the experience of real living people. In these meetings he acquired a sense of how people would tell their stories - what parts would they influence to interest the others listening in the group, how would they rationalize their suffering weather it was an AA meeting, or a Survivors of some terminal disease or another.
The Fight Club novel is not so different from the movie, except it's got a different ending. And it feels like it's told a bit differently along the way. Less of the Brad Pitt macho appeal, more of the actual characters, unassociated with the Holywood stars. You know - the parts that didn't fit in the movie, because the reel was already way too long for cinema, even though David Fincher meticulously filmed nearly every scene from the book. For any fan to claim to understand the movie, the novel is an important part of the message. You can find Fight Club, as well as the rest of Chuck Palahniuk's books here:
What is behind a great MMORPG? Blizzard's World of Warcraft stands tall as the leader on the market for Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games, but is there something that's missing recently? With the Mists of Pandaria expansion that's up and coming in the fall, the outcries of the WoW fan base have been louder than ever. Sure there's always been dissatisfaction among the fans whenever a change has been introduced to the game, but this time it seems the angst has reached an all-time high. So what can we honestly expect from the expansion?
Mists of Pandaria Preview Trailer
Here's a list of the changes:
- new continent in Azeroth - new race, shared by both the Horde and Allience - Pandaren - new class - Monk - a completely new Talents System - abandoned stats - new levels of duifficulty for dungeons - entirely new Vanity Pet Combat System and random exploration vanity pet encounters
Seems like a lot, but Blizzard has shown a tremendous dedication to putting out new content in a timely manner, when it comes to World of Warcraft. Starting from the last point on the list, the new Pet Combat System is something the several million WoW players have been stupefied by from day one. The associations with Pokemon are inevitable. From the point of view of my current experience of WoW I could never imagine myself standing in the middle of Stormwind, engaged in an epic duel between a Mini Diablo and a Mini Tyrael. But then again I could not imagine myself, back when Wrath of the Lich King first came out, chasing after achievements just for the sake of it. In hindsight I've got a couple 85 characters and one of them has pretty much every achievement that doesn't require raiding. I made World Explorer in a single day, right after I got my Red Drake mount. I've also spent countless hours (unsuccessfully) fishing for a Sea Turtle mount in Northrend.
Fight Club is a 1999 movie by David Fincher, starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter, based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, about a man who struggles to make sense of the reality he's forced upon himself. The fighting club from the title though, is nothing like your regular underground kickboxing ring, it's a philosophical movie, about the way corporate reality has changed the definition of what a man is, how he should act and behave in society, how he should lead his life. The philosophy of Fight Club can be portrayed best in one simple line: "How much can you really know about yourself, if you've never been in a fight?"
Since I've posted about GameTrailers giving away Diablo III beta keys yesterday, I've been playing the game and I've managed to do a play-through of the entire quest-line that is available in the beta content. So here's some first impression notes, before I review every detail of the game separately. (More info on how to get a beta key: Diablo 3 Beta Code Giveaway)
The Quest-Chain, available for the beta, starts in New Tristram, located near the Ruins of Tristram in Westmarch, which is entirely over-ran by the undead as a result of a strange occurrence. A Fallen Star has descended upon the old Tristram Cathedral (which we know from the first Diablo game) and your role is to find out what happened. As it turns out the Fallen Star is a meteorite that has crashed through the several layers of the Cathedral, leaving it hollowed out. There's also a Skeleton King involved and the Crown of Leoric, though from the somewhat rushed playthrough I couldn't really understand what their role was other that it is connected to the Fallen Star episode. I'll look into that the second time around, as the beta allows you to take your character and run it through the quest-chain as many times as you like.
I have to admit I only watched The Devil Wears Prada, because I generally admire strong independent women. I've always been fascinated by their ability to be a professional of exceptional standards, and at the same time to be able to create a home and a family. Anna Wintour is one such woman, who's managed to rise up into the status of a fashion-industry icon, and rightfully so. The daughter of a newspaper publisher, her only goal in life from day one seems to have been the Chief Editor position in American Vogue. And now there's a movie about her life, as portrayed by Meryl Streep.
Ally McBeal is a TV series from 1997, about a bunch of lawyers working together at a small private law-firm. Most of them are friends from childhood, and Ally joins them shortly after a scandal with her former boss, only to find out later on that her childhood love is working for the same firm. The story is trivial, they'd known each other forever, and hit it off around high-school, but had to part ways for college. Now she's single, but he's married. Ally proceeds to go through it with equal parts of denial and manic-depressive. The rest of the series revolves around the equally quirky office environment of the law firm, with strange cases, and an even stranger couple of senior partners, who run the place.
The Rum Diary is a 2011 move that follows in the limited success of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It all started out with Johny Depp, a long time friend of Thompson, who spent some time living at his ranch, and was one day digging up stuff in his attic, where he found the manuscript to an unpublished book of his. Hunter Thompson's Rum Diary is a semi-biographical work, following his trails in San Juan, where he was working as a journalist for the local newspaper.
Written under another pseudonym of his, or another character as you wish, it's an objective and compelling view on how other nations, affected by the US, see the states, as both a savior, bringing on financial opportunities, and a monster, capitalizing on local resources by any means possible.
The New Girl, is a relatively new TV series in the US, focusing on the life of a twenty-something schoolteacher, who finds out that her boyfriend is cheating on her, and in the haste to find a new appartment ends up living with three guys. So yes, it's another sitcom, but somehow adapted to our times, which can be both a positive and a negative.
I recently watched Twilight: Breaking Dawn which is the fourth movie in the installment, on request of my friend who's as much into the movies as I am. I guess she just wanted to have a laugh. And by God did we do that.
The movie starts with Bella and the sparkling vampire guy getting married. They then proceed to travel to an Island near Rio de Janeiro, where they have a very romantic fifteen minutes of a honeymoon, which ends abruptly as Bella finds out that she's been knocked up by the guy, and is now pregnant with a monster of a baby, that's growing at an insane rate, and in the process is sucking up all of her blood.
By that point we're already pretty cosy on the couch, and I'm throwing jokes about various ways Bella could have died in pretty much every scene of the movie. A tidal wave could have hit the island, she could have tripped on the way down the stairs, I even speculated about the beautiful morning light in one scene suddenly erupting in luminescence as a nuclear blast scrapes the piece of rock clean off the face of the Earth. Then after politely being told off, we resumed watching, in a somewhat more quiet state of bewilderment and disgust.
Mr Sparkling Vampire, proceeds to freak out and ditch the scene as Bella is told she's got a flight arranged for her to return home, to see if something can be done. From then on the movie is a wild speculation on weather she'll die by means of vampire demon baby (which I have to admit would surpass all my wildest speculations on various ways she could have met her end) some of the werewolves, the Jacob guy in particular teams up with the vampires against the other werewolves who're suddenly hellbent on killing her. A somewhat less of an epic battle occurs between vampires and werewolves in the night of her delivery and in the breaking dawn of the day, after the baby is born healthy, Bella wakes up from what appears to be a dormant state between death and vampire-ism, her broken shell of a body is restored by the vampiric forces, her chest puffs up from a negative B to a healthy D, and she acquires magic make-up in one of the most awe-inspiringly stupid sequences in the history of CG. Also her eyes turn blood red.
So yeah... we're rightfully expecting the next part of the movie to be about Bella kicking ass as a newly established vampire. It's also going to be interesting to see weather the vampire version of Formula involves blood pudding on some level or another.
Here's another one of my favourite old shows. This and Alf used to be just about the only TV shows worth watching back then. Everybody Loves Raymond, and everybody loves Raymond bloopers. So enjoy and if you haven't seen this show you're definitely missing out.
Also Ray going: "They don't pay me enough to... oh wait a minute, they do! I shouldn't have pants on for... (what they pay me)"
Mirror, Mirror is a 1995 TV series, filmed in New Zealand about a bunch of kids who find a magical mirror, that when placed in the house where it originally was and aligned perfectly with its former self, can transport people between the present day (well 1995) and nearly a hundred years in the past. Time-travel hilarity and drama ensues as the characters explore both the old colonial world, and respectively the new futuristic world, from the perspective of the children on the other side of the mirror.
Classic time-travel moment. "I'm in naa-tee naan-teen?" *gasps*
In present day the series is a depiction of modern day New Zealand, with the kids involved in some school projects like archeology, history etc. In the past though some serious historical events are unfolding with the involvement of a young Russian monarch, treason, betrayal, all in all it switches between slice-of-life and period drama, whenever someone touches the mirror.
At one point the couple (hardly so, but heavily shipped throughout the whole series) end up in a sort of purgatory, a timeless place in 'reality?' where they're stuck until someone saves them. And a lot of the rest of the series focuses on moving the mirrors from one place to another so for example someone from the future can enter a locked jail cell, by placing the past mirror through the bars.
Time-travel is played with in all ways possible. People see their graves, or their great great grandparents, as kids their age, time is not what it seems to be since you can leave a groceries note in a tree trunk for the future folk, and ten minutes later someone will pop out of the mirror, asking you if you want your OJ with or without the pulp.
I remember watching this series ten or more years ago, and it was one of my favourite things to watch. It's clever, it's exciting, Mirror, Mirror is all in all one of the great memories of my childhood along with Pokemon (the Gameboy version) and my Nintendo 8bit.
