What's going on here then?

Hello, an ethernet cable snaking out of the router in my bedroom. But where's it going?

Out my room

Down the stairs...

Into the sitting room...

And, it would appear, into the back of an xbox 360. Well lawks a lordy!








So I finally cracked, and a few hundred nicker later I'm the proud owner of a 360 premium package, a spare controller, Blazing Angels, Elder Scrolls Oblivion and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon. Initial impressions are favourable (which is just as well given the cost of the thing). It's especially nice to see that Microsoft can get operating systems right, if only on their consoles. It's intuitive and pretty much plug-and-play - xbox live set itself up in a matter of minutes. The online service is incredibly slick, though Microsoft aren't shy when it comes to putting their hands out - an awful lot of downloads are subject to a charge in 'Microsoft credits' (which, conveniantly, can be purchased with pound sterling). The 20 gig hard drive is totally necessary - though cheekily only 12 gig is available to the user. I still am not sure if this applies only to things like ripped CDs and downloaded videos, with the remaining 8 gig for system updates and saved games. Will come as a nasty surprise to many though.

That said, this xbox is, with the PSP, among the first consoles to fully integrate the operating system and game-playing experience. For example, entry of character name is done through a standardised menu linked to the 360's OS. similarly it is possible to pause a game and replace the music with a selection from ripped music tracks or even - a sublime touch - streamed from a computer attached to the same network. Though nominally limited to Windows computers, a Mac is no limit here thanks to this lovely bit of software. A bargain at 15 USD for the full version, it allows photos and music to be streamed to the xbox as if from a PC. As soon as - fingers crossed - this becomes true of movies too, I'll be in bittorrent heaven.

As for games, I'm on a 66% success rate, with only myself to blame for it not being higher. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (I refuse to abbreviate the name) is splendidly techno-geeky, and a far more sophisticated second cousin to the anti-terrorist hi-jinks of 24. Oblivion is a stupidly engrossing RPG with FPS tendancies (the mighty System Shock is the closest relative I can think of, though Oblivion is infinitely more varied and involved as well as fantasy rather than sci-fi). Blazing Angels is the duff note in this sequence, but was a choice made for pig-headedly personal reasons - I was hoping for a repeat of the under-rated Secret Weapons Over Normandy but got a rather damp squib of an action-y flight game instead.

The one other downer is the nature of xbox live. As a totally novice on-line gamer it would be nice to have an entry level arena, or some sort of organized introduction. As it is my one serious attempt to play online was stymied when I was booted off servers. Basically it's far from inviting if you're new to this sort of thing. However, this is probably a lifestyle thing and, with any luck, I'll have worked out a way around it before my one month free trial is up.

Capote

As if spurned on by the brutalising I recieved at the cinematic hands of The Cave made a rare foray out of the house to catch Capote yesterday.

As an added bonus, the film was on at the Hampstead Everyman a lovely, cosy venue with comfy sofas, intimate auditoria and licensed premises (even the 10 nicker price tag looks good next to the money I paid to see Doom at Warner West End). Setrtling back with a glass of red wine, was pleasantly surprised by the film too, a much more focussed and meaningful biopic than the good but episodic Walk the Line which seemed to capture the manipulatice, self-centred nature of Capote and also the huge blow dealt by his total immersion in the case of the Clutter murders and in the minds of the murderers that made up In Cold Blood.

Not a perfect film, but then biopics rarely are, beautifully shot and a suitably whingy performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman - definitely the better actor but I'm not sure if battle of the impersonations might have been won by Joaquin Phoenix's Johnny Cash. Good to get a bit of culture though.

F is for...

Shamelessly ripped off Penny Arcade but this was too good to let it fall off their blog:

Sinking lower and lower

Continued my recent foray into the sub(terranean)-genre of spelunking slasher movies with The Cave. My first expedition came a few weeks ago with The Descent, a film so scary the only way I could watch it was via a minimized window on my Mac, while messing around with iTunes so that I was slightly distracted. Anyway, I was able to watch The Cave on a normal TV with no distractions, but this was of little solace as it didn't change the fundamental crapness of the film itself. Confusing, dull and pointless, helmed by a Unit Director from the Matrix movies the one mitigating factor was that it featured Marcel Iures, a central European actor I'm inexplicably obsessed with (he's the Bosnian Serb terrorist in The Peacemaker and he's also in Layer Cake) and let me assure you, this is not much of a mitigating factor. I don't know why I do this to myself. I should really try watching some good films once in a while.

An offer I couldn't refuse...

In a cheery mood today so treated myself to The Godfather video game (it appears to be an informal rule of mine only to buy games based on movie or TV licenses. How did I end up with that shitty duty?) Pleasantly surprising, a half-way competent GTA clone with a nice period feel, though it does rather cheapen the memory of The Fourth Greatest Film Of All Time. Still, nice to hear James Caan and Robert Duvall reprise their respective roles - while Sonny Corleone sounds considerably more grizzled, Duvall appears spookily not to have aged at all. As for the game itself, it fits the GTA system into a tighter package and has a close-combat system that's considerably more fun to use. Shooting's also well executed, with an aiming system similar to 24 - a general target lock on that then allows you to micro-aim at particular areas. Knee-capping a mafia thug with a tommy gun was especially satisfying. Sounds are good, they don't scrimp on the Godfather theme, while graphics are pretty tasty and you can kit out your gangster in all sorts of natty 1940's threads. May well get frustrated with the unforgiving difficulty level - you can be put down with a single shotgun blast if especially unlucky, but a good laugh nonetheless.

Incidentally, what's the deal with Computer Exchange's pricing policy? First they sell 2nd hand PSPs for more than retail price, now I find The Godfather game for 29.99GBP in HMV, yet it's 30 quid in CEX. Doesn'y make any sense, especially as I'd hoped to pick up a copy of the game for a bargain price. Darn.

Retro Hell

Christ on a bike. Just dragged myself away from a 2 1/2 hour binge on Age of Empires 2. I really am a sucker for these older games. Perhaps it's the heady kick of nostalgia, a dreamy reminder of my wasted youth (and I really think you can count the number of hours I pissed away in front of Civilization II as 'wasted').

Empires hasn't aged badly, in the sense that the graphics lacked ambition even at the time, while the sound is an eerily addictive loop of ambient noises coupled with the various regional languages that Microsoft appear to have sourced (well, the Byzantine Latin sounds convincing enough, and I'm buggered if I'm going to check it all). I don't play it properly, preferring some twisted version of tetris; whack the game on easy and build a pleasantly laid out medieval town. As a former history student it's strangely satisfying to rain arrow-related death on the hated French, but on proper challenge mode it shares similar levels of frustration with other games of its ilk. (Warcraft III springs to mind. How does the sodding computer build its champion units so fast?) Still, a nice trip down memory lane, though after the bloddy Koreans chose to demolish my beautiful Byzantine coastal fort this evening, I may go into a bit of a sulk with it.

Gone Dark

Awesome, only just missed the one month-iversary of dropping off this blog altogether. Part of this was not my fault, having spent about a week in sunny moscow.



TRUTH! However, aside from that I have no defence at all. I have actually been out of the house, spending last Thursday evening at the Insomniac's Ball. Much hyped Pipettes did not disappoint, but rather underwhelmed by the proggy British Sea Power live show (still a great album band) and fairly generic ramblings of Battle. Last night was Mighty Boosh at Brixton Academy, about half comedy show, half pantomime (though sadly lacking any chocolate bars being hurled into the audience).

Also time has been spent plowing through the 24 Video Game, which I still rate as the third best season of 24 ever (after the first and third respectively). Incredibly ambitious in plot terms, given that it tries to tie up the gratuitous loose ends of Season 2, and though it doesn't quite pull this off still a valient effort and much better than the rather sorry fag end of Season 5 that's currently on air.

Next project? Probably the Godfather game, but only if I can work out a way of getting hold of it without paying 35 nicker.