On the game training

Got my DS back a couple of weeks ago and have been getting stuck into Phoenix Wright. It's quite fun and much more accessible than Trama Center which, while fun, is off-puttingly tricky. Only downside is that there's an awful lot of text to plough through though it's nowhere near as painful as some game dialogue. Key thing about it probably is the potential it shows for point-and-click Lucasarts-style adventure games. Seems like a no-brainer and raises a, probably over-optimistic,hope for Sam and Max on DS.

Smert Spionem

Woot, woot woot! Casino Royale yesterday. Happy to say that Daniel Craig (seen above with the last Doctor) was the aces in it. He's approximately eighty times better than the oleaginous Brosnan, proud owner of a genuine "face you wouldn't get tired of punching."



Also helps that the film is good. It took the Bourne identity to do it, but there's some actual substance behind the character, which helps tie together the usual run of set pieces and punch-ups. If there is a structural problem it's that the 'source' novel is source only for - at most - a third of the movie (it's a very long film), and there are times - especially towards the end - when it seems as though the usual action stuff is desperately being shoe-horned in. Nevertheless, it's nowhere near The World Is Not Enough in terms of egregiously unnecessary set-pieces, and the parkour stuff at the beginning is genuinely breath-taking - first time it's been the case in a Bond flick since Goldeneye's bungee jump, or possibly even the parachute sequence in The Spy Who Loved Me.

Jolly good stuff at any rate, and the pleasing sight of a 'James Bond Will Return' pay off line at the end of credits.

Two... Weeks...

The whole PS3 pre-order madness thing is something that I'd not dismiss out of hand - after all, I proudly slapped down a pound to pre-order a copy of GTA San Andreas not so long ago - were it not for the silliness of the whole thing. The tipping point came with this Kotaku post, which just rubbed in the combination of obsession and futility - a queue of some 200 people stretched over around 300 yards with a number of huge queue-jumper-tempting breaks all lining up for a pop at one of only 100 consoles at a store in New York. I guess what it comes down to is how good can a console be?

Accepting that this is the most facile post I've ever made and that, simultaneously, it marks me out as not a true gamer (something my Xbox's blog (see right) could have told you a long time ago) I still think it's interesting that a medium which continues to hold up pretty but frustrating curios such as Shadow of the Colossus as "art" still bears all the hallmarks of a reason-less hysteria akin to the South Sea Bubble or Dutch Tulip-mania. Moreover, the fact that a large number of buyers seem intent on flogging their brand new PlayBrevill 3s on ebay underlines the fact that videogames aren't a brave new medium of expression but simply a cold ugly way of making cash.

Admittedly films (cf Star Wars) and books (cf Harry Potter) are guilty of the same thing, while the only way visual art tends to make news is when a painting sells for a particularly thick wad of fivers. Nevertheless it seems that video games tend to be represented solely in terms of consumer demand and the "shifting" of "units". Unless Rockstar are involved. Then it's all rape and bullying.

Thing is with film and books there seems a point to it all. There's a goal to the queueing. A resolution. A need satisfied. Lucky PS3 purchasers will get a tasty doorstop which will play about three mediocre launch titles and a handful of blu-ray movies (presumably at resolution so sharp it will carve the human eyeball in twain). As pay-off for several days camped out on a pavement somewhere, with only fellow obsessives for company, each willing to slash your throat as soon as look at you for a shot at the shiny glossy black prize, that seems pretty lame.

Wi-fine

Very brief as I should really be studying the Actus Reus for murder at the moment. Got sick of tripping over the 30-metre ethernet cable that kept my 360 hooked up to the lifeblood of the internet so in a moment of weakness ordered the Wi-fi adapter. Working like a dream at the moment though have yet to subject it to the Battlefield 2 test.

Incidentally, Hollywoodland = the very, very bad. Even more annoying Affleck was at the screening and I turned down the offer of free beer for the rest of the year were I to declare "Affleck the bomb in Phantoms, yo." Getting chucked out of that film would, I can't help but think, have been an act of mercy.