camden leisure pirate

Shame-porium

2009-11-01T23:54:00.001-08:00

The mother-lode this weekend - Eurogamer Expo in London. Actually not as painful as I feared, less fan-a-thon more slick trade show. The queues were short, the games were good - the whole thing was well worth the attendance.

Went to one presentation on Brink, which looks very promising as a realisation of the potential of Quake Wars (also from Splash Damage). There's some heavy Modern Warfare inspiration but that's no bad thing, and the emphasis on co-op buys into a very encouraging multiplayer trend (cf Borderlands, that I hope to write about soon). On the floor Left 4 Dead 2 looks promising, though there doesn't seem that much of a development of the graphics from the first one. More of the same is still a pretty good deal there. More gorgeous were Dark Void (which quite brilliantly has implemented Gears of War cover fighting in a vertical axis) and - surprisingly to me - Bayonetta. Previously I couldn't have cared less, but it actually won me over, just for its sheer mental-ness. Honourable mentions to Lost Planet 2 and Dragon Age.

Good fun. And two free t-shirts. Result.

Quiet time

2009-08-19T02:10:00.001-07:00

Bit of a shift in my life recently, and one which renders the title of this blog even more anachronistic. Bascially have moved back to Bath for the foreseeable future though am still commuting (or reverse-commuting) back to London at the weekends. The South-West is lovely and peaceful, and should allow me to catch up on a brutal reading backlog, however lack of an Xbox (still undecided whether to ship it down) is going to seriously impinge on game time. Eternal optimist pragmatist that I am have seized this as an opportunity to get acquainted with my neglected PS3.

Wallop!

2009-07-08T02:46:00.000-07:00

DLC-ya

2009-06-29T01:06:00.000-07:00

Went a bit stir crazy last week and, fuelled by cheap white wine, splashed out substantially on Microsoft points which I then blew on Peggle, Fallout DLC and Lost and Damned for GTA IV.

I've picked up a few bits of DLC in the past, but mainly these were functional expansions (new maps for Halo, the new weapons and vehicles in Crackdown and expanded multiplayer content in GRAW). This is the first time I've bought extra campaigns for existing games and, at present, have the zeal of the convert. In the case of Fallout I'm still tip-toeing around the new content, currently making the most of Broken Steel's lifting of the level cap by polishing off the various incomplete missions from the original campaign, but am looking forward to the mutant hillbillys of Point Lookout. Lost and Damned is instantly gripping however, and particularly exciting for the way it forces a reassessment of GTA IV as a whole.

I was a little disappointed with the game, it lacked the scale and anarchy of San Andreas and the gritty seriousness of Niko's story clashed with the neon silliness of Vice City. However Lost and Damned really brings home the idea of the game as a vehicle for storytelling. There's something compelling about the same setting with completely different characters and - crucially - a totally different storyline. In a sense narrative is the one thing to have radially changed about GTA (compare the Liberty City of IV with that of III, then compare Niko Bellic with the unnamed protagonist of the original) and it seems the one thing that Rockstar are genuinely interested in. They've built their stage, now they can change the players. I've not got too far into the missions, but doubt they are radically different from all other GTAs but the sense of playing as part of a biker gang certainly adds something to the gameplay.

I deliberately avoided the Mass Effect DLC as it sounded lacklustre and slapdash - a new planet is not the most thrilling prospect once you've landed on the first twenty or so in the original game. However what Rockstar has done really seems to push the potential for new content (and even at about 15 quid doesn't feel like too much of a rip-off).

Abandon all hope you who play this game

2009-06-16T02:07:00.000-07:00

I'm as atheist as the next man who's an atheist, but nonetheless couldn't help but applaud this response by Christian gamer groups to EA's shoddy attempt to stir up controversy-based publicity for the still baffling videogame adaptation of epic poem and cornerstone of Italian civilisation Dante's Inferno. My favourite line: "So instead of engaging in a shamelessly anti-Christian stunt to promote your poor excuse of a product, maybe you ought to work on making this game, you know, something better than a blatant God of War rip-off "

I still can't believe this is being made at all: the choice of genre (platformer? point-and-click adventure?) seems almost arbitrary once the main offence of adapting the work has been committed. That said it's laudable of these people to look past the breathtaking dickery of the game-makers to focus on the painful lack of thought and innovation behind the project. I'm still holding out for Dispatches to be adapted into an first person squad-based shooter.

Great Lies of Our Time, No. 1

2009-06-09T08:39:00.000-07:00

Left 4 Dead 2: The Most Important Subject in the News Today

2009-06-08T03:38:00.000-07:00

The biggest news for me out of E3 was the announcement of a sequel to the mighty Left 4 Dead. My initial reaction was positive and has pretty much remained so, basically because any new content along L4D lines is good news to me. This has not been echoed across the internet and seems to have culminated in this. Videogamers do not have a reputation as the most tolerant or balanced of enthusiasts but surely this marks a new low in the indignant, self-important sense of entitlement that manifests pretty much any time a new sequel, franchise or system is announced. To quickly run through the manifesto of this organisation:

• Significant content for L4D1 was promised, and never delivered

And Valve have said that L4D1 will continue to be supported (and that's not even considering the fairly major changes - introduction of Survival mode - that came with the update a few weeks ago).

• Valve put little faith in L4D1 since they almost certainly started working on L4D2 right after release

What has faith got to do with anything? What does this even mean?

• The fact that L4D2 is nearly identical to L4D1 will decimate the community for both games

OK, this is a fair point in theory, but it's important to bear in mind how popular L4D has been as an online game. Look then to Call of Duty 4, another popular online game which has retained a sizable community despite its age and despite a sequel being released last year (the sequel also has a good number of players so there's little indication that either L4D game would suffer).

• The announced date is not nearly enough time to polish content or make significant gameplay changes

Perhaps - and this is just a thought - some dick with a broadband connection is not quite as well-placed as a member of Valve's development team to make this judgement

• The new character designs seem bland and unappealing so far

Yeah, I can see that: riverboat gambler, TV newsperson, high school coach voiced by Cutty from the Wire. Bland and unappealing indeed.

• L4D2 is too bright to fit in with L4D1's visual aesthetic

This criticism sounds familiar

• The fiddle-based horde music is extremely disliked, though the differently orchestrated music is otherwise welcome

Well, it's nice of them to make the latter concession. I for one love fiddles. And banjos. More of both please.

• L4D2's release will result in a drop in quality and frequency for L4D1 content, even compared to before

Well, leaving aside the slight contradiction with their first point this at least makes sense. It's also the crux of the decision that any consumer has to make and of the warped sense of entitlement that is the reason for all this whining. Fact is that Valve put out L4D1 and you (and I) bought it. Played it. Liked it (or disliked it, but in the case of those people I doubt their getting too het up about the sequel). Anything that comes after that is a bonus - nothing more. True, the game is short, and that was highlighted by pretty much every review. Not literally every review - some, like Eurogamer didn't bring this up, but if you are obsessive enough to form a petition against the sequel, then you would have known this before buying the original.

In that case it's caveat emptor. To rely upon any non-specific promise of future content is naive and petty: anything that does come out (like the Survival pack) has done so wholly through Valve's goodwill and was not owed to the community, however much you or I may want it.

• The community has lost faith in Valve's former reputation for commitment to their games post-release

This is the most egregious complaint, and one that sums up why the petitioners are wrong. Basically the lesson Valve should take from this is never exceed expectations. Never support your products. Never give away anything for free. Because the second you fail to do these things subsequently, the spoiled horde of the internet will descend.

For my part I look forward to the sequel. Anything which brings about more Left 4 Dead is a good thing, and if this does happen to take the form of a full-price game then I will go into that with eyes open as an informed consumer. The game is big enough to rely on sufficient people doing that so as to build a decent online presence (and in any event many people- such as myself - play only with friends who they can rely on to buy the new game). Does that make me a sucker on a par with those people who buy Madden year after year? Possibly. But as long Valve make Left 4 Dead 2 as fun as Left 4 Dead 1, I'm happy with that.

Lack of Swastika Update

2009-06-01T09:50:00.000-07:00

After the hasty pasting over of the swastika on the Christian Party's billboard on Junction Road (see below), it looks as though the whole bottom of the poster has been changed - presumably because without that symbol the message makes no sense.

Storytelling

2009-05-27T01:01:00.000-07:00

Back in the day the holy grail of computer games was that of the interactive movie. The idea being that the best features of moviemaking (compelling story, writing, immersion and identification with characters) could be combined with the interactive elements of videogames.

The argument has run ever since. My thinking had been that it’s impossible to compare the two, let alone cross-pollinate them. Movies (and books, and the theatre) provide a linear experience: the audience is led through the narrative, not being given any choice in the matter. In some cases this is the whole point of the experience as lack of choice often challenges the audience to confront feelings and situations that they might otherwise wish to avoid, and this is total anathema to the interactive nature of games. In other cases it provides a vicarious thrill. This is the point where games can most closely replicate a cinema experience but even so the comparison is limited – the player can, ultimately, not be trusted with the narrative, cannot be trusted to make the ‘right’ decisions to lead to the most satisfying gameplay experience. The very act of defining what the subject of a game is sets clear boundaries (to a wider or narrower degree) to the players experience of it in the same way that a script clearly sets boundaries to a moviegoers experience.

For example Mario must always rescue the princess, the Master Chief must always complete his mission objectives against the Covenant, Lara Croft must reach the treasure at the heart of the maze. In all cases the player has freedom but within certain clearly defined boundaries. True interactivity would allow them to ignore these boundaries but would also negate the whole point of a gaming experience.

Even sandbox titles have boundaries in the sense of most having a clearly defined narrative that exists in an arena where there is a degree of greater freedom. In GTA IV the player is not forced to follow the story in their individual experience but if they wish to experience that story they must do so in a rigidly proscribed way (the two or three opportunities for decision-making are exceptions that prove the rule – in each of those cases the player is allowed only two possible options). Often this narrative is necessary to give purpose. In Assassin’s Creed it is fun to run Altair all over the Middle East, but far more so when one is running for a purpose; to a target or away from guards.

Yesterday I picked up Mass Effect for the first time in ages. I liked it on the first playthrough and am having great fun on my second try, even though I know the broad thrust of the storyline. There are no twists for me this time, I know where things are going. However, the fact I am still enjoying it perhaps provides the key for understanding how the videogame/movie hybrid may best be understood. The goal has been freedom for the player – basically tricking them into following a narrative. A different approach is to co-opt the player from the very beginning: to have the player assist in the telling of a clearly defined story. It is entirely possible for a reader to subvert a book or viewer to subvert a movie – either skip to the last page (or DVD chapter) or look up a synopsis on the internet. But people, as a rule, don’t do this. They like to be told stories.

Mass Effect plays like re-reading a pulpy novel, or watching a well-worn sci-fi or action film. There is leeway to the interactive element (different side-quests to complete, alternative dialogue trees and the like) but I’m on this second playthrough not reluctantly, to squeeze out all the content, but rather with a mind to enjoying the whole experience, even those parts in which I don’t have a choice. Some games have deliberately moved away from the interactive movie model (Far Cry 2 is an immersive experience in its own right). Others take the very linearity of video games as a theme (Bioshock). Where this cocktail of linearity and interactive liberty is actively sought, the key is in not trying to trick the player into thinking he or she is at total liberty but rather to enlist them as a collaborator in the telling of the story.

More European Election Excitement

2009-05-26T05:43:00.000-07:00

Recent events look to have made June 4 a potential bonanza for the smaller political parties in the European elections. This has made a large billboard which sprang up near my flat recently especially interesting.

Specifically the white patch (circled in black) blanks out what was an actual swastika - not a symbol one sees with much frequency in British political advertising. It's perhaps not a great surprise that this, literal, cover-up has taken place but it goes someway to create respect for the ballsiness of what might otherwise seem a rather milquetoast religious party.

Annoyed I didn't get any of the poster in its original state.

A Message from David Cameron

2009-05-26T05:31:00.001-07:00

Last Writes

2009-05-21T01:07:00.000-07:00

Farewell then, The Unit. It was a show that never garnered much attention in the UK, probably because - despite a solid cast, prestigious writers and good production values - it could not have been more wrapped in the stars and stripes had it been a military coffin returning from Iraq.

In some senses the anti-Generation Kill, The Unit had the same approach to authenticity as a Tom Clancy novel - obsession with technical details and the nuances of intra-military dialogue in the context of an over-arching storyline bloated with conspiracy, conspicuous heroics and painted in manichean ethical shading. It was at times dishonest (in its representation of anti-war protests especially) but had an earthy, world-weary quality lacking in its ideological bedfellow 24.

Was it good drama? In the sense that it was, essentially, a thinking-man's Chuck Norris film then no. However it was unique in offering a guns-and-bombs thriller with a little more substance than any equivalent on TV. One might disagree with its message, but the message was, on occasion, there.

It heroically stretched the ability of the continental united states to represent settings from Macau to Switzerland, from Afghanistan to the Philippines and never skimped on the action. It featured, briefly, William H Macy as U.S. president and Dennis Haysbert with a shaved head and little goatee beard(for a few episodes at least). It provided a pleasantly jingoistic way of spending the time and showed, terrifyingly, how the safety of the U.S. relies on three minor-character actors, the T1000 from Terminator 2 and that bloke who was president on 24. Semper Fi.

Hiatus

2009-04-30T11:58:00.001-07:00

Been a bit busy for various tiresome reasons, hence lack of posts. One thing worth perhaps brief comment is that last week, for the second time, I bought a second hand copy of a game I'd already traded in. The first was the underappreciated Gun, this time it was Orange Box. It's an odd thing to do but it's symptomatic of the sort of slow-burn interest that can happen with video-games. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, I'll have the urge to pick up a game I've not played in years and will obsess over it. No clever insight here - the same happens with books, films and music - but I thought it worth pointing out what a bloody idiot I am to pay for a game twice.

Love films, hate pretension

2009-04-25T02:40:00.000-07:00

When confronted with Lovefilm's rental queue I get all self-conscious and feel the need to stuff the list with films I feel I should see, even if I'm not really interested. This reached a peak when the Martin Scorsese Cape Fear turned up in the mail. Haven't seen it, have no interest in it, it wasn't even the Robert Mitchum original (which I shamefully also haven't seen) and I'm never going to watch it but, at some point in the past, I seem to have decided that I should. This has been happening for a while now so last week I took executive action, purged the list of all half-thought out foreign film titles and stacked the top priority of the queue with utter trash such as JCVD and Death Race. I'm reaping the whirlwind now as Hitman turned up in the post yesterday, but at least there's a certain honesty in the titles I've selected.

Lovefilm seems to be more a searching psychological evaluation mechanism than a DVD rental service. I had perceived it as a way of catching up on a backlog of classic movies that I hadn't seen. However it seems that rather than a conscientious cinephile I am actually a lowest-common-denominator consumer of trash (anyone with access to my cinema visits over the last two years would have long suspected this). I'm not entirely happy with this new self-knowledge but at least I might watch some of the films I get sent.

Can't we all just get along?

2009-04-22T03:19:00.000-07:00

Left 4 Dead Survival expansion is live! My usual partner in crime is unforgiveably on honeymoon this week, so I was forced back into the jungle of Xbox live random matches. I initially wasn't too unhappy about this. Back when the game had first come out I had a pretty good experience with just jumping into games - more so than I expected given the reputation of Xbox live players. In fact I made a few friends on L4D who I still meet up with now and again.

I played one round of survival and the potential is great - it's been a while since I played anything with such an arcade-y "hi-score" feel. However, my main interest was in the new versus maps so I jumped into a random game on Dead Air. No voice chat, I bumbled through a level (admittedly with little approaching competence) then a vote to kick me from the game. Vote failed but, taking the hint, I ducked out and tried another game. This time I was kicked before I could even spawn. Third time was better, but still the atmosphere was chilly and I quit again. In the last ten minutes I found a game with some pretty decent people but by then I was a bit sick of it all (and in any case was off to the pub).

This is a rambling whinge by a third-rate player I grant you, and it may just have been that I got unlucky. That said it seems a pretty silly state of affairs when a video game is rendered devoid of fun by the hostility of the human participants. It's a game with literally no repercussions - in a random match you're unlikely to ever see the other players again, and there are no permanent scoreboards or any other record.

There's a grim cynical edge to play at this level - abandon the slower players to their fate, rush to the safe-house, grind the game for any glitches to secure an advantage, no matter how joyless this renders the experience. Any error is greeted with abuse. Any perceived failure is unacceptable and means banishment. The fact that someone, at some point, has decided that this particular game should be open to everyone of any ability (by making it a "public" game) doesn't factor into it.

Maybe I'm naive (and also rubbish at video-games) but If having a choice between "friend" and "public" games isn't enough, perhaps there should be the option to label the game "assholes only" meaning no danger of useless players such as myself (who may be foolish enough to want to have some fun) interrupting the meaningless pissing contests that seem rife.

Humiliation

2009-04-20T11:15:00.000-07:00

It's the only word to describe the vicious cruelty that is the only conceivable motivation behind Wii Fit. My girlfriend picked up a copy as a joint Easter present on one of its infrequent appearances in UK stores and we ripped into the box, myself eager to get the closest to a ski slope I've been in several years through the balance games.

However, to get to these games the player must run the gauntlet of registration for, like Brain Training, Wii fit isn't a game so much as a way of life. You can't just jump onto the slopes, or into a hula-hoop (or indeed jump at all - the game will fail you from whatever activity you're embarked on if feet leave balance board) - the Wii will first measure you and, likely, find you wanting. Let me be clear, I have no illusions about my physical condition, but to see my Mii steadily inflate as the game racked up my weight was perhaps my most depressing gaming moment to date. The poor fellow was left waddling around the screen as the wretched software imparted the wisdom that I might want to consider eating less (I had also been asked, after failing a balance exercise, whether I often fell over while walking).

When you get past the hateful initiation, some of the mini-games (this is Wii software after all) are quite fun - the skiing especially is reasonably well done. The 'real' exercise stuff is pretty useless. There's a heavy emphasis on yoga and the like and its difficult to see the benefit in much of the rest of the stuff. Oddly the thing which comes closest to exertion doesn't even involve the balance board - by putting a wii-mote in your pocket and running on the spot the Wii measures your pace and tracks it onto a virtual jogging course. It's surprisingly enjoyable.

Curious to see whether there's life for the board beyond Wii Fit (unlike the under-used Mario Kart wheels and light gun apparatus) or whether it's existence will be primarily to cause me misery and self-loathing.

Important thoughts

2009-04-16T09:07:00.000-07:00

I was going to write a piece about 24 (to be titled, amusingly, "Twenty-snore") but decided to dress it up a bit for Shinyshelf, so instead here is an authoritative guide to which is the best season of The Wire:

Ascending order of objective best-ness:

5, 3, 2, 1, 4

Ascending order of what I like most:

5, 4, 3, 1, 2

That is all.

Cockney Vader

2009-04-14T23:36:00.001-07:00

About the funniest thing I've seen in ages. Incredibly sweary though:

One thing that's exciting, one thing that's terrifying

2009-04-14T05:17:00.000-07:00

ITEM! Every Roger Moore-era Bond film on the big screen at the NFT

ITEM! The Big Sisters in Bioshock 2

Oops

2009-04-06T00:34:00.001-07:00

Sorry, got grabbed by a prehistoric crocodile thing shortly before finishing yesterday's post and only just escaped through an anomaly (or something). If it's any consolation I had long run out of anything interesting to say.

Prime Evil

2009-04-05T01:29:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I bring it on myself - for unknown reasons will become so stuck into something of such little merit, whether artistic, political or entertainment, that I feel compelled to defend it to the hilt against all-comers, however valid their complaints.

Which brings me neatly on to Primeval. It's still difficult to believe that this has made it to three seasons given its quite breathtaking one-two punch of looking very cheap while no doubt costing a packet and its cast, a very byword for mediocrity - one S-clubber, Douglas Henshall and a succession of identikit female villains/love-interests/enigmatic government agents that make following the pretty straightforward stories surprisingly difficult.

It's tricky to pick out anything directly in its favour, but perhaps the thing that appeals to me is a sense of development at its core that comes close to intelligence. Though several light-years behind Dr Who there is at least an attempt at story-telling in a longer term sense and plot arc development which, though woefully anticlimactic last season (the big bad of which was an acne-ridden junior civil servant as far as I could make out) is, on the basis of season 3's opener, once again teasing with potential. Either that or the fact that they have really cool guns in it.

Christ, I honestly don't know why I'm getting so worked up about such a hollow, underwhelming show. The sad thing is its

Wire-d

2009-03-30T10:56:00.001-07:00

Actually that title probably deserves the cliche achievement I attached below. It's been difficult to read a newspaper without bumping into an article about "the best show on television" (TM) - today I even found myself picking up a LondonPaper to read what actually turned out to be a rather good, if largely unoriginal, piece on its appeal - I just hope it's the sort of thing that gets people tuning in tonight.

I am glad that the overexposure hasn't turned me into the sort of person who, when something niche they were into strikes it big, turns into a massive hater, purely on principle. It was touch and go at the start of season 5, but I'm actually rather excited at the whole thing being blitzed on the BBC, an episode a night for - presumably - the next four or five months.

It really is a stand-out show (there's a new thought), the TV equivalent of a song like 'Stuck Inside of Mobile...' or a film like 'The Godfather' or a book like 'Red Storm Rising' that you can listen, watch or read again and again and again and again and still get a slight thrill when hearing the opening harmonica, seeing the opening wedding or experiencing the opening terrorist attack on an Azerbaijani oil refinery. It's one of those things you feel lucky about encountering whenever that happens.

Whore

2009-03-29T08:37:00.001-07:00

I'm within tantalising proximity to the 'magic' 10k achievement point tally, which has led to me booting Left 4 Dead out of my Xbox (for what seems like the first time in ages) to try and hoover up some cheap points.

I've only rarely gone out of my way before to get these points, so hadn't quite realised how fun it can be. For instance storming the mock-up ship at the start of COD4 takes on a puzzle element as you try to trim a few seconds off your run each time (ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: NEW SQUADRON RECORD). This was one I actually picked up a while ago, but today I had a quick go at COD:WAW, mainly because I dimly recalled some achievements based on sniping a German general. Time pressures intruded, so I only picked up a measly 15 point bonus (ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: THE PROFESSIONAL) and that was only thanks to some consultation with Gamefaqs. Just goes to show, there's no intriguing puzzle that impatience and access to the internet can't ruin.

I do understand the achievement whore mindset a bit better - when you're actually going for a self-imposed milestone (a certain proportion of points for each game, or a total of points overall) each step which takes you closer is exciting. It can also be a rather insidious tie to the Xbox above other platforms - why play the same game on PS3 when there's a chance to add to your gamerscore?

Left 4 Dead 4 Ever

2009-03-25T01:04:00.001-07:00

The hold this game has over my free time is scary, especially as I now know the way to Mercy hospital probably better than I do the way to my local supermarket. The most insidious thing has been the way that various friends have joined up at intervals so that now, rather than relying on the - often very good-natured and enjoyable - random teams collated through match-making, I can count on a solid team of three (regular fourth slot yet to be filled).

This is before our group has even got seriously stuck into versus, so that whole aspect remains largely untapped (and this with the expansion due next month). L4D seems to be a title with a very long tail. It remains to be seen how far Valve cater to this with new maps (of which the expansion has none).

World of Potential

2009-03-22T07:50:00.001-07:00

Just as the ipod really got me into listening to music again simply through having my entire record collection to hand wherever I happened to be, so a few days of Spotify have seen me listening at home in a way that hasn't been the case for a while.

It's taken me a time to appreciate it, but with Spotify you have whole oeuvres of music that you might otherwise never listen to just a few clicks away. I've got quite a few CDs but have never felt the need to go crazy on buying early American blues-folk. Happy to say that I've spent the best part of the day listening to Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly and John Lee Hooker.

It's hugely addictive stuff and it feels great to listen to swathes of music that you feel guilty for never having heard before. Just goes to show how the internet still has the capacity to upset cynicism and throw up something that feels fresh, useful and expands your horizons in a way that felt impossible a short time previously.

Revival attempt number 2

2009-03-21T06:53:00.001-07:00

The usual applies - I'm setting out on this with good intentions and all that but we will see. Main touchstones in life at the moment are attempts to elbow my way into the law (at a time when practically everyone else seems to be leaving), far too much Left 4 Dead, and an ongoing and unhealthy obsession with American politics and history.

Back from the dead

2008-10-28T03:23:00.000-07:00

Once again I've managed to leave this blog desolate for a year, and once again it's a state of desperate unemployment which has caused me to revive it. We'll see how long it lasts this time.

Bloated and nauseous

2007-11-19T00:47:00.000-08:00

Ever the early adopter I've managed to give myself the whole Christmas feeling of over-indulgence a good few weeks before the day itself. I blame Microsoft for this. If my Xbox hadn't given out just as this years last batch of big name titles hit the shelves then I wouldn't have felt so deprived and desperate to catch up when the console returned from the menders.

As it is I found myself buying Call of Duty 4 yesterday which joins the pile of barely-touched Orange Box and nearly-done Halo 3. I managed to clear Bioshock on Saturday after a bit of a heavy stint of playing that left me sick and unable to focus properly. I'm getting too old for this shit.

I'm also feeling a bit spoiled by the rich fare of quality FPS. I've put quite a bit of time into Portal, but Half-Life has remained largely untouched. The same is true of the Halo multiplayer, which is going to face stiff competition from Call of Duty if the finished game lives up to the promise of the multiplayer beta.

It's all rather too much for a simple palate such as mine. I'm not sure what the videogame equivalent of gout is but I fear the next few weeks will see me laid low with it.

Shameful waste of resources

2007-11-16T01:17:00.001-08:00

Xbox back from the menders... vast array of next-gen games... Bioshock, Halo 3, Orange Box... what am I loving the most right now? Carcassone. A port of a sodding French boardgame that I downloaded for free off Xbox Live yesterday.

It's like Tetris mixed with some addictive but low-key strategy elements, much more compelling than the similar Cataan. Had a quick look at the demo for Puzzle Quest too, but it's not a patch on the DS version. Which is STILL in Australia. Curses.

Sweet Justice

2007-11-05T12:59:00.000-08:00

Well, patience and trust in a mega-corporation have paid off. My Xbox is here, plugged in and *frantically touches wood* is now working again. Fairplay to Microsoft, 10 days earlier than they said the console arrived all nicely packaged up and even a month of free Xbox live (which nicely covers the time I've spent offline).

It's easy to be sanguine after the event, and I am still annoyed that Xbox 360s in general have a honking great sudden death problem but even so it speaks well of the makers that their support service is so good. Either that or Microsoft know how much of a nightmare they'd have if they hadn't ponied up and put this free repair system in place.

Joyous News X 20!

2007-10-31T02:46:00.000-07:00

Hats off to Microsoft, for all the grumbling attached to to any procedure where a bit of tech has to be shipped off to its maker for repair they've actually done a pretty good job in tersm of allowing for the poor consumer to check the progress of repair on the Xbox website.

Perhaps this rather rosy opinion is influenced by the news I received from said website this morning - that my Xbox is being shiped back to me! I assume this means that the RROD has been exorcised but time will tell there. In any event, the stopwatch has reachd the two-week mark, so Microsoft are only half-way through the 28-day absolute deadline. That's pretty good. It also means I'm going to have to get my Halo 3 back *rubs hands*.

Use-ability

2007-10-25T04:30:00.000-07:00

The period of enforced X-box abstinence continues and my latest attempt to ease the pain took the form of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for DS. I'm only a little way into the game so far, but have seen a startlingly comprehensive approach to all of the features of the Nintendo handheld. I've had to blow out flams, shout to get someone's attention, plot a ship's course using the touch -pad and - best of all so far - draw out the path of a boomerang's throw.

A sea-change in modes of interface has been the big selling point of the current generation of Nintendo consoles, and it is where this is most fully realised that the accompanying games have been most successful. As it stands perhaps only Zelda and Nintendogs have made this work on DS, and while other games (Animal Crossing, Mario KArt, Phoenix Wright) have been big, these two really stand out as full experiences.

Anyway, it's great and I just wanted to say that.

Silver linings

2007-10-22T11:44:00.000-07:00

Discovered some plus points of temporarily losing my 360. First the chance to be selfless and generous by lending my currently unused xbox games to Mark. Secondly the chance to play these games on Mark's own Xbox and DESTROY all-comers in a succession of Halo 3 Slayer matches. Truly was a thing of beauty.

Thrilling up-to-the-minute Xbox repair news

2007-10-17T05:15:00.001-07:00

Well, according to the UPS website my red-ringed Xbox arrived at Microsoft's repair centre yesterday. The clock is therefore ticking, with Tuesday 13 November the deadline for my console's return, if the terms of the repair deal are anything to go by. Was slightly unnerved when the UPS worker immediately guessed that I was sending off an Xbox though - feel there may well be a backlog.

In an attempt to brighten up my Halo-less world I stole some PS2 games from Mark's household. Specifically Killzone and Ace Combat: the Belkan Wars. The less said about Sony's supposed "Halo-Killer" from several years ago the better, but Ace Combat I've found strangely compelling. I played the demo for the forthcoming 360 release and this seems little different. The graphics are high-standard for the PS2, but the rest of it is a little bland. The gameplay is stripped down arcadey dog-fighting but at jet-fighter speed which basically means zipping around and hoping for a missile lock. This makes for a rather uniform experience. The plot is odd, with an attempt to realise a fictional world and contemporary war in rather OTT Japanese game style. However, saying all that it's fun in a limited sort of way.Perhaps it just represents a change from all the FPS stuff I've been playing recently but at the moment I'm enjoying it.

Consider it done

2007-10-14T02:11:00.001-07:00

Had a pleasantly Blue Peter-ish time of it yesterday as I bundled up my defunct Xbox into a cocoon of bubble wrap and old copies of the Guardian and wedged it into a box which was then itself sealed in about a roll of packing tape. I just hope they can get it out at the other end.

Dropping the parcel off also went worryingly smoothly. I had printed out the UPS form sent by Microsoft and the receipt and simply handed it over (with more than a hint of naive optimism) at the counter in Tottenham Court Road's Easyeverything internet place.

Fingers crossed from here on out, and also an inevitable gaming drought. Tried to get back into Mario Strikers Football last night but still pole-axed by grief. Any not much more to do than wait and see.

Inevitablility

2007-10-11T22:58:00.001-07:00

Well, finally summoned up the courage to turn my Xbox on last night, and after 15 fruitless minutes attempting to get a picture to appear on my TV was finally rewarded with... the red ring of death.

This did not come as much o a surprise (see below), and in some ways as a relief, as it means I may get to properly play Halo 3 soon. That said I'm not a natural optimist, and any process involving both the postage of large, bulky items AND reliance on a major corporation fills me with ennui.

Musn't grumble though, at least it's not the dead end that the death of my Xbox original was. Anyway, for therapeutic reasons have decided to record the return process as it happens.

STEP 1: Registering the fault.Actually pretty painless. Because it's now standard policy thre's an online check-in process (which even excess for non-warrantied repairs if you've got to pay) all run through the Xbox website. Spookily Microsoft knew my 360 was out of normal warranty on the basis of my serial number, even though I don't remember registering it to begin with. Also a brief text explanation of how the fault came about was required. This gave me the chance to vent about Halo 3's murderous attack on my console, so I felt better about that.

REceived the confirmation email over night. This gives me shipping labels and drop-off instructions. It's all being done through UPS thank Christ.

One remaining problem is what, exactly, I have to send back. Basically I'm very reluctant to risk losing all the data on my hard drive, so really don't want to include that in the package.

Making FrienDS

2007-10-08T01:10:00.000-07:00

I "enjoyed" the hospitality of First Great Western on two occasions over the weekend, and on both occasions noticed people on PSPs - something I'd never seen before on a train journey. I've also noticed a lot of people with DSs on the tube recently - most playing Brain Age judging by the way they're holding the consoles.

This is not just an attempt to show my interest in the most facile details of the world around me, but also to say that portable gaming appears to be taking off in a serious way in the UK. The question that follows for me is how long until a sense of communal portable gaming arises, if at all?

Both Nintendo and Sony have built wireless networking into their respecitve consoles as a basic feature and - given the charge which is usually levied on public wifi connections and the massive handicap of the DS's friend code system - the main applicability of this is in LAN gaming. Clearly the first step for this is gaming with friends, but the possiblity of pick-up games with strangers while on a train, or sitting in an airport is intriguing. However, at present it remains intriguing, without practical implementation, simply because the element of human interaction remains. This is not meant to sound stupid or facetious. The fact is, as a 28 year old man, walking up to someone and asking if they want to play video games is embarrassing. What is more a lengthy conversation is required to establish what games are shared and which can be networked wirelessly. This is all before the game gets going in situations where only a short playing window may be available.

The ideal solution would be some sort of system where people can choose to broacast a variant of Microsoft's gamer card to anyone within wireless range listing multiplayer games available and giving anyone interested the option of sending a message/invite to the broadcasting gamer.

Of course, the worry over grooming would intrude on any attempt to do this, as illogical as such a worry is in circumstances without voice chat or messaging facilities, but until something like this exists, the potential of next-gen portable gaming will never be fully realised.

Mind you, it looks like more fundamental challenges to wi-fi gaming may be on the horizon.

Last legs

2007-10-05T04:06:00.000-07:00

My 360 has lasted pretty well but after a whole slew of Halo 3 related problems I can't help but feel that the writing is on the wall. Having been stung by the dire battery life of ipod gens one and two (though - touch wood - currently things are ok on that count)as well as my first xbox which upped and red-ringed on me there's a sense of weary inevitability about the disposability of electronics.

My NES still works, until last year I was the proud owner of a monstrous (but fully functional) ten-year old TV, even my PS2 - now clocking in at around its 5th anniversary - still runs San Andreas and Bully. However so important had an ipod become to me that, by the time of its demise, I just had to suck it up and buy a new one. This was the time before affordable and reasonably simple battery replacement, but nonetheless Apple's business model relies on regular upgrades - touch wheel to colour screen to video to touch screen and so on. It's not too much of a leap to make a link to limted battery life.

Objectionable as this approach is, it is - at least - understandable. The whole 360 issue is more puzzling. Microsoft are still a good few months off even announcing the next Xbox (720?)yet are suffering hardware failure on a grand scale. It is difficult to imagine even the most optimistic marketing manager would think that disappointed 360 owners, having suffered the RRoD, would go out and buy the latest premium model (in this case the Elite).

No, the natural expectation is for something akin to a NES, PS2, DVD player or TV. Something which lasts until a new, more advanced model comes out. It is then upt o the individual consumer whether he wants the upgrade. The other extreme to the Apple model of inbuilt obselescence is well represented by Sony. If you want a PS2 you can buy one (you could even buy a PS1 until comparatively recently). Alternatively you can shell out for a PS3 (whether you'd want to or not is another matter. In either case you're buying something that will - broadly speaking - continue to work.

That Xbox as a product is on a par with the Sony model but seems to embody the Apple model in practice is patently wrong, and probably due to defective manufacturing. Even in this case, however, it is baffling how such a hige problem could have been allowed to slip through the testing process.

I appreciate that this debate is at least a year old now, but the imminent death of my own 360 makes it something I can't help but think about. In any case it's amazing that - in such circumstances - Microsoft can sustain such an enthusiastic fanbase.

Bourne Again

2007-10-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

Cheap tabloid pun, but I really couldn't resist, given both the brilliance of the film, and the (tangential) link with a minor collapse of my blog's architecture which led to an enforced template reboot.

Bourne 3 is good not for any reason of variation but because it does the same as its predecessors, only more so. Ultimatum represents a point where a formula has been perfected (some deluded fools see the same thing with Goldfinger). Unlike Bond, this is a formula of style rather than content. There's a sense of variety across the three Bournes in terms of plot (as well as a continuity absent from Bond) but all of them dance to the same frantic beat of fast editing, shaky camera-work and washed out filmstock.

Bond never quite had this, indeed no Bond director ever had a 'style' unless one counts Lewis Gilbert's propensity to shoot the same film three times (You Only Live Twice, The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker - beautiful foreign spy, mankind directly threatened, climactic battle in enemies gargantuan lair).

It's also interesting as perhaps the most left-wing action series ever. Even Doug Liman (who went on to the profoundly thoughtless Mr and Mrs Smith) cast the CIA as bad guys in a way limited more to the paranoia thrillers of the seventies than contemporary cinema. When villains in mainstream film appear from within institution, usually the institution itself is sound with only a few bad apples blamed for any evil behaviour. By the final reel they've come to a sticky end and the institution is thus purged.

The common thread throughout Bourne has been a melancholy distrust for monolithic agencies, both that they trained Bourne originally and then that they try to rub him out by any means necessary. The second movie is perhaps the weakest in that respect as "bad apples" Brian Cox and Chris Cooper are purged from the institutional memory of the CIA by upstanding Pamela Landley. However Ultimatum is in open revolt against an entire philosophy of government - the "any means necessary" approach of the Bush administration - a philosophy which takes the most drastic action on a whim and without any degree of oversight.

The institution is the villain in Bourne, whether by its attempts to silence a rogue agent in Identity, by its capacity for corruption in Supremacy or by the combination of a broad and vague remit to fight terror with byzantine internal politics in Ultimatum. Some one-off paranoia thrillers have taken this as their central motif, some action films have touched on it in sub plots (Predator, Die Hard) but Bourne takes it as its whole purpose - what if an agent of a profoundly amoral institution suddenly woke up to his role?

Shocking. Positively shocking.

2007-09-20T08:19:00.000-07:00

I love Bioshock, even though it scares my face off. Why this is when I am physically incapable of playing Resident Evil is a mystery. Perhaps because the combination of big guns and eerie powers makes you a bit handier in a fight than the relatively normal firearms in RE. It's also a much more action oriented game, meaning you only rarely have time to be scared rather than be in a constant state of absolute terror. Or possibly it's just because a large part of Bioshock revolves around killing children.

Anyway, it's good. It also helps that it's not intimidatingly hard (at least not so far) and is incredibly gorgeous - all art deco and snazzy water effects. Still very claustrophobic (it'll be interesting to see how the more open Halo 3 plays out). Trying to find a cloud in this silver lining, it is true that the vast majority of Xbox titles I have any interest in are shooters. In fact, leaving out sports and driving titles, you are left with practically nothing but. Which makes the imminent arrival of Mass Effect all that more tantalizing.

One Month in the Blog-less Wilderness: Part II

2007-08-29T03:18:00.001-07:00

The accuracy of this round-up's title is questionable (must be closer to two months by now), but I'm steaming on with it anyway, largely because it seems wrong to miss out the thing I've spent most of the summer involved with - video games.

Picked up Dead Rising again and, armed with Gamefaqs, stormed through a huge chunk of it. It's a game that infuriatingly straddles the border between compelling and infuriating - the latter due to the game strongarming you into dashing from objective to objective without time to savour the zombie slaughter. I found what little respite there was between missions was spent dashing to and fro between gun shop (to rearm) and the security room. The ticking clock vibe adds tension but - along with the deliberately alienating save-game mechanic - goes a little way to stripping some of the fun from the experience. Anyway, maintenance tunnels beckon, though it's been a good month to six weeks since I touched it last.

Also on Xbox had an abortive stab at The Darkness, a game which initially sucked me in thanks to positive reviews and some superficially fun controls (as well as one really good twist) but quickly became dull and plodding especially with the addition of a power which amounted to a "win button".

Bit more potential in Saints Row, especially in light of the delay to GTA IV. Basically it's a game about character customisation, building on the clothes and appearence ethos of San Andreas. The car controls are slick and the running-and-shooting a huge improvement on Rockstar's mechanic. It's fun but without depth, which is probably why attention has wandered.

Bully was also a passing diversion. Essentially it's a competent batch of minigames tied together with a decent narrative. Fun enough, but a bit meh in the medium to long term.

Finally have been loving the pokemon and - more surprisingly - the PSP, largely due to the port of Sid Meier's Pirates. This was one of my earliest favourite games (way back on the Amiga) and the version for Xbox that came out a couple of years ago kept me busy for ages. The move to PSP was perfectly judged due to the small scale of the game itself, and its episodic nature - turns out the PSP can last for a good long while in standby mode.

Catching them all

2007-08-08T07:27:00.000-07:00

Off on holiday next week so have been fine-tuning my portable gaming set-up. Basically, this means ensuring my girlfriend has her own DS (so that she won't steal mine to play bust-a-move) and that Pokemon Pearl is in my possession.

I've not really been 'into' Pokemon since the first round of Gameboy titles Red and Blue. However, it seems that seven years have changed little in a world that still revolves around OCD levels of exploration and fighting to level up your stable of pocket monsters. It's not as crack-like in its addictive qualities as Puzzle Quest, but it still has the right mix of long-term appeal and compulsive gameplay on the sort of scale tailor-made for handheld gaming.

The only downside is the amount of grinding required to get through the levels. It's not for the impatient and can get monotonous, but I was still disgusted with my excitement on managing to net an Onix. It just serves to emphasise how portable gaming works on a different level to the console world. The PSP suffers not only due to the types of game that have been ported onto the system, but also its control system. The attempt to replicate analgoue control on a portable system is wrong-headed. The touch-control of the DS is vastly more successful as it gives a more tactile and direct link to what's going on on screen (conversely the Wii has yet to fully realise this sort of endeavour on TV screens).

Every one of the games I've bought from the DS have been instantly engaging and addictive experiences. By comparison the PSP has got depth in its games, but crucially fail to draw in players looking for the instant hit of gameplay designed to work on the level of a tube or bus journey. If you can sit down in a room lit for gameplay for a few hourswith an AC adapter to hand the PSP can be a great experience.

One Month in the Blog-less Wilderness: Part I

2007-08-02T00:57:00.000-07:00

Time flies when you're having fun, and despite the stress of an unsuccessful OLPAS application season (boo) it's been a fun month . I've even DONE some exciting STUFF. Which I intend to relate over a few parts - hopefully something which will also get some posts going in this barren desert.

Firstly Movies. It had been a pretty disappointing year for brainless pap (pretty much my staple cinematic diet at present) and Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix did not much help matters. Stodgy rather than stupid it swapped any sense of urgency or pizzaz for a dogged tread through the plot of the book. Though not as guilty in this regard as the first two, in comparison with the genuinely good third movie it's just not a film, coming across more as the middle installment of a (very well-funded) TV miniseries. Moreover I'm a 28 year old with reasonable tolerance for long films - I'd hate to take a child to see this.

However, salvation came in the form of an old bald man. Die Hard 4.0 was the first film of the year to deliver on the promise of its trailer. It went bang on a suitably regular basis and to a suitably extreme degree. Was far from perfect, and is cearly the least good of the series but was such a relief not to be landed with a film which was ambitious beyond its means or hampered by a leaden script and plot. More interestingly its emphasis on 'real' stunts amounts to a reasoned critique of CG effects - to the extent that the plot pits computer hackers against an unrepentently physical cop. This is partially spoiled by a massively incongruous climactic CG spectacle but generally it's an interesting approach - now to come up witha suitably pompous title for self-consciously physical blockbusters. Organic popcorn?

All that said, Transformers happily overturned any ideas that there should be a tilt towards the 'real'. It's a nauseatingly put-together film bith in terms of editing and sound, and there are some serious plot flaws but the saving grace is - oddly - the film' inconsitency of tone. It shfts from scene to scene between serious sci-fi melodrama (in the vein of Independence Day) and almost slapstick comedy (with a great performance by John Turturro). However, this makes for enjoyable action sequences with some palate-cleasning genuine laughs in-between. It's unlikely to stand a repeat viewing, and in any case would never work on the small screen but for a one-off piece of entertainment will do just fine.

Right, next time video games.

Aaargh!

2007-06-28T22:45:00.000-07:00

Exams followed by interviews! Will the agony never end. Hopefully some more exciting service will resume soon.

The light at the end of the tunnel

2007-06-25T15:49:00.000-07:00

It's just as well no-one else reads this, or there will have been some disappointed people on the internet over the last two months. Still, exams have been packed away (for a year at any rate) and once I get a couple of pesky interviews done and done, the way should be clear for a return to the vital trivialities.

And also, hopefully, some decent films. I did the hattrick of pisspoor trilogies on Thursday when Oceans 13 was the entertainment for the evening. This is just getting silly now, and does not bode at all well for Live Free or Die Hard, which I've been righteously preparing for with the Die Hard Box Set (£10 - CHEAP!!)

So much time-wasting, so little time

2007-05-17T02:07:00.000-07:00

Sadly my days are largely dominated by revision at present, so little enough time to spend on games, movies and the like - let alone blogging about them.

A brief synopsis, wasted well over two precious hours of life on the execrable Spiderman 3 - a real disappointment of expectations. Vastly more time has been jizzed away on Crackdown and Puzzlequest to much greater enjoyment. Have also - through the former - got access to the Halo 3 beta, though first impressions have been pretty luke-warm owing to being 'pwned' like the 'n00b' I am. There's something off-putting about a game that's SO hardcore as to be exclusive of anyone not to have clocked in a good few hours (by which I mean hundreds of hours) of play. It sounds like sour grapes and, to a large extent, it is but it's difficult to get enthused about a game when most of your time in it is spent watching the camera circle around your avatar's fresh corpse.

Quick DVD round-up: Thank you for Smoking = Yay (for first hour, then nay); Boiler Room = Yay (though not as much so as when I first saw it); French Connection (always Yay); Wall Street (ditto).

Oh, and some exclusive breaking news. Heroes is good.

A Day that Will Live in Infamy

2007-04-28T04:20:00.000-07:00

Thursday bought ultimate shame upon me, and not just because I dropped about 4 quid on hopeless 52 tie-in World War III. No. My ego boosted by Baron Z's casting aside of his former identity to walk the earth as 'Mark Clapham' I issued a foolish challenge to battle on Puzzle Quest.

My initial concern on the appearance of a level 38 warrior to battle my own level 17 champion were confirmed by two brusing encounters resulting in gem-switching related thrashings. Pitiful stuff.

Dignity was not mine that day but revenge was had when Clapham's decrepit DS classic suffered a wi-fi breakdown thus preventing him from swiping any of the precious peaches stored in the Animal Crossing town of Camden.

I'm claiming a draw.

Made it Ma! Top of the world!

2007-04-25T12:03:00.000-07:00

Loving Crackdown. Made it to the top of the Agency building- though that claim might have more credibility if it was backed up by a photo. It's an addictive little number for all its shallowness and the grind of getting all skills up to 4-star level is fun. At least it's fun the first time around. I imagine once I get to that level it'll lose most of its appeal. Still, good while it lasts.

In non-video game news I've been pushing up my last.fm rankings with some new music. Arcade Fire's Neon Bible is great, but Maximo Park's Our Earthly Pleasures is the real grower here all good stuff.

Fighting through the pain barrier

2007-04-23T12:56:00.000-07:00

A little rich of me using this title considering a friend ran the London marathon yesterday but it's been a bugger of a week and am starting to see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel (or at least this particular tunnel - another one starts shortly afterward).

Am please to report that the pain in question has NOTHING to do withh Puzzle Quest which I am ROCKING LIKE A MO-FO. Have also found time to put a bit of 'work' into Animal Crossing where I've almost scraped together enough bells to get that raccoon bastard Nook off my back. Finally (and foolishly) splashed out on Crackdown which has proved to be quite a laugh, though a bit too unstructured for long term interest. Reckon I'll hold onto it til the Halo beta at least.

Indeed, haven't really been hooked by any 360 title though I keep promising myself I'll go back to Dead Rising and Oblivion, and have the occasional pang for GRAW. Was disheartened by the news that Mass Effect's been delayed because I was counting on it to be the final bullet-to-the-head of my social life.

Puzzle-tastic

2007-04-10T01:52:00.000-07:00

Puzzle Quest is an evil beast that calls out to be slain. I picked this up on a friend's recommendation last Thursday, having tracked down what seemed to be the last copy on Oxford Street (what's more a bargain at £25). It's a fiendish concoction of swords 'n' sorcery and Bejewelled - itself one of the few puzzle games I have any time for. I can only imagine that the development team behind crack cocaine were involved in this project, so moreish is the experience. It's so easy to have that 'one more go' that makes hours simply dissolve.

It's certainly a cut above God of War which I borrowed off the same friend. I just have little time for button-mashing fests like this one, and well it still feels good to rip off a medusa's head, or plunge a sword into the eye of a cyclops, there is a distinctly adolescent feel to the whole experience (there's even a sex minigame - tacky beyond words) which reminded me of 300. Sure, it looks good but is just too shallow overall to recommend itself.

In other news a grinding play through of a test match on Brian Lara Cricket has cooled my ardour towards this game. Given that the whole point of such games in real life is strategy writ large, a test of stamina as much of skill, it is small wonder that the transition to Xbox loses something fundamental. As a video game, cricket is about tonking the ball all around the ground - a six or ten over match is perfect for this. Any longer (and the simulated test match is MUCH longer) and interest swfitly wanes. In the end I played out an embarrasing 8 wicket loss to New Zealand simply so I could record an achievement unlocked in my first innings.

Justice

2007-03-30T02:15:00.000-07:00

Second moot last night. We lost (as was the case on Tuesday) but it means that the week from hell is almost over. just my first draft dissertation to go, and that is pretty much done (or at least as done as I can be bothered to make it.

I celebrated by reading the latest 52 and Grant Morrison's Batman, while slouching in my pants on the sofa. I can really relate to Bruxe Wayne's playboy lifestyle. Am now currently occupied by how best to piss away my afternoon.

There are a number of options. Ireland and England will be on test match special, so I could complement the shamefull stomping that Ireland are going to dish out with a spot of Brian Lara Cricket. However, I've also come into possession of a copy of Zelda for the Wii and the first God of War... Decisions, decisions.

Bright spots on the horizon

2007-03-26T16:34:00.000-07:00

ITEM - The new Pirates of the Caribbean Trailer is out on Youtube

ITEM - Maximo Park and - unexpected - Money Mark albums out too.

What a time to be alive.

Oh dear...

2007-03-24T17:13:00.000-07:00

Well, that's one Saturday evening down the pan. Shelling out money for 300 seems insulting, even with a student discount. The whole film's a bit of a mess, and though I've never read the Frank Miller comic book it seems as though the sum total of work by Miller and the writers of the film is entirely negative, serving only to massively diminish a strong dramatic core - Battle of Thermopylae after all having a fair degree of resonance in its own right. Instead what's left is a shoddy mess with some barely relevant pootling around with the politics of Sparta and countless speechifying on freedom and servitude that comes completely devoid of substance. Even worse, it's not even possible to say that the results are terribly impressive. Well, in an abstract technical sense I suppose they must be, but I was entirely unmoved by the CG action sequences which came across as boring and repetitive, while the digital backdrops just robbed the film of any sense of place, leaving it generic ancient past / fantasy. Poor job all round I'm afraid.

Piece of Ps

2007-03-23T16:47:00.000-07:00

Don't want to weigh in too heavily in the fanboy wars (but given I own (or 'pwn') a 360 and Wii my loyalties should be pretty clear), however, couldn't help but feel slightly irritated when tracking down my release day copy of Brian Lara Cricket (40 nicker very well spent - having just taken Sri Lanka all out for 21) to see that in all the big Oxford Street stores the 360 demo consoles have been shut down, with only Sony (not just PS3 but PSP and Singstar) up and running. Call me cynical (or perhaps realistic in the wake of Sony's PR meltdown) but with all the buzz about retailers having massively over-ordered the PS3 it seemed a little desperate.

That said some impressive huddles around the cash desk, especially in Game, where I was witness to a touching vignette of a couple, the man (late thirties, going on twelve) scampering around choosing his new games, and the woman, packing a carrier bag loaded with a 360 and at least 6 games, haranguing a sales clerk who timidly said that they were no longer taking trade-ins. Happy ending I'm glad to say - they got their PS3 - and way short of the queues and shootings in America, but still a little crazy to experience firsthand.

Work/life balance

2007-03-13T02:39:00.000-07:00

Have tentatively reached some sort of balance of terror with law work at present, just doing enough to stave off the demons without doing so much as to run myself into the ground as has been the case.

This has also opened up a bit of time for Phoenix Wright, which I justify on the grounds that it's basically the same as studying for the law. It's still a fine game, but some of the puzzles are a little obtuse - not in the lucasarts sam and max / day of the tentacle sense, where totally random objects could hold the solutions to in-game puzzles - but in an equally frustrating way where the ends are clear but the means to get there are far from logical. In other words the player may basically be right about what to do, or how to pick apart a witness' testimony but just doesn't know which evidence to submit to do this. Hands-up, I confess that part of this is due to my own ineptitude, but there's also the slightly skewy legal world in which the game operates. I'm not expecting a hardcore advocacy simulator (from my own experience that would be suicidally boring) but perhaps a better explanation of the in-game rules re submissions and evidence.

Also enjoying The Trap. Nothing like a good pessimistic conspiracy theory.

Legal issues

2007-03-09T00:33:00.000-08:00

My lack of free time to piss away on videogames is primarily due to this dash tricky law type career path I'm embarked on. It's now reached the stage where (in addition to writing a dissertation, making my application to chambers for a pupillage, preparing for two moot mock trial thingys and trying not to go on a screaming kill rampage) I have to choose a place of study for the BVC.

I complain, but the fact I have a choice at all is A Good Thing, demand for places being what they are. I have offers from the College of Law (my current place of study) and the Inns of Court School of Law based at City University. It's a toss-up in many ways as just having done the BVC is really enough for most pupillage providers. However, as with anything to do with getting a foot on the ladder at the Bar, it's a case of trying to get an advantage no matter how marginal, so this is quite a big choice. Therefore my research has been of the most searching and in-depth kind.

This is the page that wikipedia threw up last time I checked (may well have been 'corrected' by now). I don't think people think too highly of the ICSL BVC.

Brief Respite

2007-03-07T14:43:00.000-08:00

Bit of a quiet period at the moment, before my mooting kicks off again and before dissertations are due in, so I'm taking advantage of this with some proper Battlefield 2 action. It's still a cracking game, and it takes a game like this to really make you appreciate the niceties of map design, and the importance of balance and layout.

In other news Dead Rising might be going co-op. Awesome!

Apologies

2007-03-05T14:32:00.000-08:00

Not posted in over four months! Get in there! Afraid this is largely - nay entirely - due to the hefty work schedule of the law student. This has sadly impinged on all aspects of my leisure time, not helped by aforced house move a few weeks ago. However, I'm settled in now, I've got wireless online (thanks to the great beauty and power of the Apple Airport base station) and so will endavour to get this site up and running again. It's all about getting into the habit so let's see how things go...

On the game training

2006-11-28T00:46:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-19T10:19:00.000-08:00

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...

2006-11-15T16:57:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-01T05:37:00.000-08:00

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.

London Film Festival

2006-10-30T00:08:00.000-08:00

It's been a hectic couple of weeks and all's been quiet on the Camden front. Well, that's not strictly true, as the BBC Electric Proms have turned the upper half of Chalf Farm Road into a star-strewn catwalk of celebrity glory. At least I assume it has - the closest I've been was trudging past the barriers for the live music awards, clutching my two Sainsburys' bags and muttering about people getting in my way. Still, have got tickets for Divine Comedy on Thursday, and believe that counts for something.

I have, however, made it to a few shows at the London Film Festival. Made it to Stranger than Fiction last week, which was basically a development of Adaptation, and possibly even the Last Action Hero, in terms of post-modern contrivances. Fun if a little forced and doesn't really make sense the more you think about it. Still, nice to see a quirky American indie film that doesn't feauture some Zach-Braff-alike looking winsome. Yesterday had a bit of a marathon with both Christopher Guest's For Your Consideration (good but way too short) and the Surprise Film, which turned out to be .... The Prestige. After last year's catastrophic Mrs Henderson Presents, this was a great relief (though there was some anticipatory buzz hoping for Casino Royale). It's a nice little turn, and reminded me of the supposed film adaptation of Carter Beats the Devil that was rumoured a few years ago. The trouble is that, like all such films from The Sting onwards, it's only half film, the other half being magic trick in its own right, keeping the audience misdirected and delivering the sort of pay-off which has at least a grain of genuine surprise. Trouble is, as time has gone on and writers such as David Mamet or Chris McQuarrie have chipped away at the number of genuinely good twists untried, what remains is either well-trodden and somewhat hackneyed or so fantastic that it challenges suspension of disbelief. The Prestige has both problems, though Christopher Nolan handles the whole thing stylishly as does a solid cast (though Scarlett Johansson's cockney accent is rather "Heather Graham in From Hell" - slightly too flat and forced to sit comfortably alongside Christian Bale's barrow-boyisms). Not quite Sideways or School of Rock but a darn sight better than Judi bloody Dench. Hollywoodland tonight.

Oh, and some rather head-in-hands news from the States.

Back from the Dead

2006-10-15T06:55:00.000-07:00

Guilt overcame me yesterday, and after a beer-fuelled demonstration of Dead Rising to a friend of mine on Friday I clocked in a few more hours. It's definitely a challenge, and I'm not sure how much longer it's going to be before a restart is needed but my enthusiasm has been rekindled - especially after another few swings with a chainsaw at the hordes of the undead. Graphics are growing on me too - have only just noticed how Frank becomes progressively more bloodied as the carnage goes on.

Oh, and just as a break from interminable droning on about the Xbox 360,Dean Learner is back on 20th October at 11.05.

Boom! 100 Posts!

2006-10-11T03:54:00.000-07:00

And each more pointless than the last.

Leisure time still fatally curtailed at the moment, though have delved far enough into Just Cause to experience the sheer underwhelmedness that most reviews have spoken of. It's not bad, just disappointing because there's so little substance given the potential of the game's mechanics and immense play area (indeed, in the latter respect it suffers from San Andreas syndrome whereby travelling from A to B - especially on mission business - can become an exercise in tedium). It's sandbox for the sake of sandbox, suggesting a laziness in game design when what is needed is a solid core storyline and enough purpose and motivation to the free-roaming element to make things interesting. Of course, this is still a holy grail that no game has quite reached (except perhaps Vice City, which had the network of businesses to tie the map together - something San Andreas foolishly did away with).

Phew. Have also managed to clock a surprising amount of TV. Enough, anyway, to conclude that Heroes is tiresome pomposity extreme, Entourage is more addictive than crack and that, given the cheeriness of the closing shots of Deadwood Season 2, Season 3 is going to be an apocalyptic bloodbath.

Xbox desert

2006-10-04T01:02:00.000-07:00

Am feeling the Xbox pangs at present - has been weeks since I played a couple of hours of Dead Rising, let alone logged into my much neglected Live account. This evening may be the time (especially as I picked up a second hand Just Cause on Monday).

In other news am still shooting through Entourage - which works surprisingly well with Law work - and eagerly awaiting the next Prison Break. Also gleeful to report that new Battlestar Galactica lands on Friday.

Bit of a meandering and pointless post but that's all there is at present - sorry!

Legal Difficulties

2006-09-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

Ten thousand apologies but I've just started at law school (selling out to the MAN - oh yeah!) and so have hardly any free time. That precious little I do have (bolstered illicitly with time I should be spending on the intricacies of constitutional law) has been gleefully spunked away on catching up with Prison Break and Entourage.

The former has once again captured my imagination, after a major league dip in interest towards the end of Season one - however convuluted the story, a prison can only be so interesting. Now the various fugitives are roaming America in some weird amalgam of The Fugitive and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World as they try and recover some - literally - buried treasure. It's great and totally bonkers.

Entourage is also worth a few hours (there are only eight thirty minute episodes in season one). It's not the scathing satire in the manner of The Player that I imagined, but manages to make interesting characters out of Hollywood bottom-feeders. Neither is it quite the male equivalent of Sex in the City, but it has some good jokes and a deceptively engrossing storyline (though the party scenes are a bit FHM 'glamorous').

Sadly have hardly touched my Xbox or DS in the last week. I can feel my Battlefield 2 skills weakening as I type.

Hiatus

2006-09-17T13:56:00.000-07:00

Currently deprived of Dead Rising (which is not necessarily a bad thing given its fear potential) but thought it worth noting in passing the audacity of the savegame mode. It's got a lot of bad press for limiting each user id to a single save but this acively contributes to the gameplay - after a fashion. It extends effective use of resources beyond the gameworld and adds to the tension already inherent in having to find certain locations to save. It's tricky to say how far this can logically be taken, but it adds something beyond the traditional debate over how far apart save points should be.

In related news Tom Nook's vile exploitation of the world of Animal Crossing continues - I'm currently in the hole to the tune of a cool 250,000 bells - that's a lot of sweetfish. The game's appeal is beginning to pall slightly, which is a bit of a shame, but it remains something that can be picked up and played for the odd 15 mins. Guess I just haven't had that many odd 15 mins recently.

Oh, and Xbox 360 Star Wars Lego is MINE ... once the price comes down in CEX that is.

Wii-k

2006-09-16T00:54:00.000-07:00

This looks rather exciting. Previously I'd been pretty lukewarm towards the Wii,but this attitude is - unsurprisingly - beginning to change.

In other news Dead Rising has almost justified itself. It's not an easy game, and the temptation is strong just to dick around. There's an emphasis on tricky escort missions that's rather off-putting but it's very well executed and my initial criticism of the graphics turns out to have been unfounded.

A trademark change of heart

2006-09-07T10:16:00.000-07:00

Saw Dead Rising on the shelves of Virgin today. Within two hours had placed an order with Play.

/Shame.

Dead reckoning

2006-09-05T05:18:00.000-07:00

Despite the genius of the trailer and the enthusiastic reviews its garnered I think I'm going to hold off buying Dead Rising, either til it drops in price a bit or til it turns up in CEX. Fact is that 50 quid for a game is a lot of money, even when the likelihood is that the game will be good. I don't think I've bought one at face value since getting my 360, and if I'm going to do so at all this year I think I'll hold fire until Just Cause, which is genuinely jaw-dropping in a way that Dead Rising... well, isn't. Not that the latter looks inferior - far from it, they're different animals entirelly one a claustrophobic slaughter-fest the other an explore-em-up with a GTA mission structure and some beautifully thought out free-roaming controls (parachute, grapple gun etc). Thing is Just Cause has the next-gen polish of Oblivion, GRAW, Battlefield 2 and Rockstar Table Tennis - i.e. the games for 360 I've enjoyed the most (contradictory to this, I believe The Outfit is still on my 'Most Played' list but that's only because - for reasons unknown - I chose to grind through the tedious single-player campaigns). Dead Rising, for all its high zombie count, does not, retaining a degree of clunkiness in both looks and control methods.

Superficiality is not normally my thing in video games but having finished off the boat-based section of the demo roaring into a dazzling sunset, I've pretty much been sold.

One week older

2006-08-27T04:40:00.000-07:00

Oops, another seven day gap in updates - and it's not as though I can use the excuse that nothing's happened. Thorpe Park last monday was more fun than seemed strictly necessary - I guess I have a thing for tat in all its forms. In this case the form taken was sub-Disneyisms, lots of grease and sugar and some rides that bordered on the actively unpleasant. I took some photos but they were all rubbish.

Other highlight of the week was the Just Cause demo cropping up on Xbox Live. Am very much looking forward to this - more so, truth be told, than Dead Rising.

Otherwise last couple of days were spent in the distant north. Will need some time recuperating within the M25 before my powers return fully.

Every Microsoft product - by law - has to have one evil feature

2006-08-21T00:21:00.000-07:00

Kotaku spits petrol on the glowing embers of Xbox micropayments. This is the nagging itch to owning an Xbox (and Live account), the knowlwedge that Microsoft are on a mission to gouge you when and where the opportunity arises. Perhaps this is a little unfair, after all Live offers invaluable demos and game trailers and their arcadde titles all come with trial downloads. Nevertheless, the brazenness of drip-dripping new content on users for a fee (even a small one) is pretty shocking. Even more so when applied to a game like Chromehounds which, from what I can gather, relies almost wholly on online play for its appeal. This is effectively corporate legitimation of the sort of mentality that trades MMORPG currency for real-world cash-money.

What's worse is the sigh-inducing inevitability of it all. The purpose of a corporation ios to make money, and they're not going to miss an opportunity to do so. The only option for consumers is to grit their teeth and boycott such products - and take note of those downloads which are (at present) free.

[BLANKS] On a Plane

2006-08-21T00:04:00.000-07:00

Weak! My posts have been poor. Here's an update to make up for it.

ITEM - Having been deprived of my DS for a week things are settling back to normal. Nintendog Bauer has been walked and washed and my Animal Crossing avatar has spent the last few days weeding and watering his town back to a degree of civic beauty. Still got to catch up with my brain training but otherwise things are ticking along nicely.

ITEM - In the wake of the Baron's conversion to Xbox picked up a copy of Far Cry Predator to get acquainted before the inevitable kill-fest, which took place last night. It's a nice little FPS, but I'm still too hooked on Battlefield 2 to really appreciate the single player narrative driven sort of shooter just yet. Mind you, haven't unlocked the 'feral powers' part of the game, though having experimented with it in multiplayer this might drastically change the feel of the game. Descending from the skies like an angel of doom and ripping out the Baron's spine certainly made for an enjoyable afternoon.

ITEM - Snakes on a Plane not terrible if you go in, as I did, with rock-bottom expectations. Not great either mind, but at least the producers/director have got the right balance of deadpan and tongue-in-cheek.

One thing I'd like to do is a DVD update of my last month or so on Lovefilm. It will bore the pants off anyone who may read it but for my reference would be very useful.

Teh Interweb

2006-08-11T10:55:00.000-07:00

It's procrastination frenzy time and I've attempted to pick up the joys of You Tube by sticking a video of my flatmate's cat attempting to smash its way through a window to get at some impudent moggy who dares to sit on the other side. Personally my sympathy's with the other cat as I live on the first floor.

UK Resistance "pwns" gaming industry

2006-08-09T04:57:00.000-07:00

Cause and Effect.

Priceless

Demo Rising

2006-08-08T23:56:00.000-07:00

The Dead Rising Demo has been Live since Friday, and first impressions are pretty positive - though with caveats. The zombie-killing-sandbox thing is fun, and it seems there are indeed a lot of weapons out there (as well as a number of other ways to humiliate and taunt the undead - sticking novelty masks on their heads for instance). However, as it's a Capcom game the controls are a bit shonky and there are perhaps some questions over longevity.

Furthermore the Gamespot review also throws up some danger signs. A dodgy save-game mechanic for instance, and a plethora of the ultimate fun-killer, the escort mission (I couldn't care less if some weedy local gets ripped apart by zombies... give me a chainsaw!).

Not suggesting this game will be any less than great fun, am just fully aware of the dangers of the anti-climax. My personal feelings remain... BRAINS!

New Toys, Old Toys

2006-08-08T01:39:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately Blogger picture upload is playing up so I can't show the photo of my lovely, shiny and, so far, uncracked DS Lite. The touch-screen and actively imaginitive game design (plus the unstoppable power of mario kart) places this leagues above the somewhat clonky PSP, even though Sony's portable beast has the edge in multimedia support. The DS concentrates on providing an enjoyable portable experience that, crucially, feels like a portable experience - the worry is that Sony falls into the same macho trap with PS3, in simply trying to stuff in features without much thought as to how they work together. Microsoft have integrated multimedia functionality into their console (as anyone whose witnessed my Battlefield 2 'War is Hell' playlist in operation will testify) - it feels natural and the interface design is pretty much flawless for gaming. With blu-ray, online stuff and motion-sensing controllers the impression is that Sony is simply trying to be a jack of all trades - with associated failings.

Continuing on a Nintendo tip, have salvaged my NES. Still seems to be working and the chunky 80s design really has got classic status written all over it. Remains to be seen if the games are still playable though - a trial run with Super Mario 3 was rather encouraging.

%$*@ing Battlefield 2! £%&@ing Xbox live!

2006-08-03T11:15:00.000-07:00

Beena bit of a write-off afternoon. Firstly a cancellation on the part of a friend of mine denied me an evening of beer. I set off for home early with the intent of making up for this with a session of gun-related violence on Battlefield 2. However, this was not to be either, as the sodding system continues to deny that the servers are available.

It's fairly pathetic I freely admit, but having relatively unfettered access to live network play for the last few months has shifted it from being a privelige to a right, and I now feel I am being denied a feature of my life every bit as fundamental as free speech or cable TV. Effectively I've become the screaming German kid of internet lore, chucking a right eppy of a tantrum because of a mild inconveniance to a non-essential luxury. Still, that's the way things go - I still shudder at the thought of losing internet access for a few days, or my mobile running out of battery over a weekend. Time to toughen up and get a bit more Ray Mears about life in general I think.

Anyway, have found the perfect calming influence in this charming tale of baby hippo and giant tortoise.

Droooolll

2006-08-01T01:02:00.000-07:00

New trailer for Dead Rising is out there.

Looks splattertastic.

Greetings from the Halls of Infinity

2006-07-26T09:11:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon. As some of you may know I am archmage of the past, keeper of the keys of time and author of 1776: America and Britain at War David McCullough. Though, once again, I have little in the way of immediate historical knowledge to pass on I do have snippet of imbecility culled from Google videos capacious archive. It's not very funny, but then history is a deadly serious business.

Zombo-porn

2006-07-26T07:29:00.000-07:00

Filing this one under 'sceptical' but it's being reported that character upgrades in the mighty Dead Rising will require some interesting in game activities - including the surreptitious snapping of ladies in mildly compromising poses. First read of the Kotaku post made me think that these ladies may well be members of the living dead. On reflection however, necrophilia seems a step too far - even for Capcom.

Busy, busy, busy

2006-07-22T05:15:00.000-07:00

Been a rather busy week so was nice to combine a bit of pointless splurge shopping with a trip to see Superman last night. As well as the latest Smoke and the new album from The Grates I succumbed to the temptation of a second hand copy of Pursuit Force. First impressions are largely positive but the game seems to suffer from the PSP disease - it's a console game, not a pick-up-and-go game. Just booting it up and getting a new game started took the lions share of a Euston to Chalk Farm tube journey, including a two-minute wait on the platform. This is pretty useless in terms of portable gaming and - with the collapse of UMD movies - can't bode too well for Sony's long term portable aspirations.

In fact I've got a nasty seed of an idea in my head - am beginning to convince myself that I *need* a DS lite...

Somewhat optimistic tourist advertising...

2006-07-17T10:23:00.000-07:00

Dancing to the Music of Time

2006-07-13T01:22:00.000-07:00

A very quick update as I've been skulking in the shadows for a while.

Last week saw the powerful one-two punch of Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 20-20 cricket at the Oval. Two great days, though I have to say that Pirates had the definite edge on account of its unmitigated genius. Surrey vs Middlesex, sadly, was not as earth-shaking but still fun mainly thanks to the fools who dashed on the pitch towards the end of the game in a vain attempt to make off with the stumps. Had I been more on the ball (and less drunk) I could have secured pictures. Meh.

The weekend saw viewings of Flightplan (rubbish) and XXX2: State of the Union (rubbisher). However, also began plans to resurrect my NES (which I have, amazingly, in one piece and with all original games). In addition integration of the worlds of Mac and Xbox continues apace with this rather fine xbox 360 controller driver.

Finally have become unreasonably excited at this. It's an MMORPG admittedly, but its got pirates in! Remains to be seen whether it'll be ready for Mac - Xbox is probably a bit much to hope for.

I'm like a chocaholic but with booze

2006-07-06T02:08:00.000-07:00

Speaking of remakes I finally got round to watching the Tim Burton Charlie and the Chocoalte Factory last night. Now I haven't seen the, apparently terrifying, 1971 Gene Wilder version but I have a self-awarded diploma in Roald Dahl studies and so feel fully qualified to declare this movie somewhat of a mixed bag.

On the one hand it rips a lot of the dialogue and set-pieces straight from the book, especially with regard to Charlie's family and - joy of joys - the brilliant squirrel nut-sorting scene. It even makes improvements. For instance Charlie's father is fired from the toothpaste factory because the hunt for the golden tickets has caused an upsurge in cavities leading to increased sales of toothpaste and therefore providing the company with enough funds to mechanise thus leaving Charlie's dad obselete - an important lesson in capitalism for you there, and something I'm pretty sure isn't in the book.

However, the film also bears the stamp of Hollywood, and despite all the weird grotesqueries of the factory and of Wonka himself, the makers couldn't help but tag on a retch-inducing message about 'family', including a whole new, and utterly superfluous, backstory for Willie Wonka. A lot of the film is good, but as with so many of the recent American mainstream (for instance every Spielberg film since A.I.) it totally fluffs the ending.

Oh, and re John Carpenter and rermakes, I should have pointed out that the original Assault on Precinct 13 is also a re-make - of a sort. Carpenter idolised Howard Hawks, and took Rio Bravo as inspiration for his cops and gangsters siege-fest. However, as anyone who has sat through Rio Bravo will know, it'sstodgy and overlong with only Dean Martin to recommend it. Carpenter took the idea and realised its full potential - as he did with The Thing.

Reasons to be cheerful

2006-07-04T00:40:00.000-07:00

The line-up of xbox 360 titles has hardly been stellar, and it's quite frankly difficult to think of anything I'd want to pick up on the second-hand market now that Oblivion, Battlefield 2, GRAW and Rockstar Table Tennis are in my collection. That said there are a few promising titles coming up in the near future.

Top of the list is Just Cause a close an attempt at Flames of Freedom as I'm likely to ever see. Not sure how hot it'll be on the strategy, but in terms of free-roaming madness it looks pretty promising.

Next up, somewhat unsurprisingly, is Gears of War. What can I say? It has lots of guns. Not too sure about Lost Planet after the xbox live demo, but it's definitely worth a look. Finally there's *drool, drool* Dead Rising. A total departure for Capcom dealing as it does with hardcore zombie action. Read an interesting preview on this the other day, and it seems that gameplay will revolve as much around photojournalism as bloody carnage. A bit of a twist there at least.

All these summarised in a handy guide to ten titles to look out for between now and early 2007 in the British Gaming Blog.

The John Carpenter Memorial Show

2006-07-03T10:30:00.000-07:00

Despite the raging heat and blazing sun that has engulfed London I found time over the weekend to watch the remake of Assault on Precinct 13. Now I used to be a bit of a John Carpenter obsessive. Not a completist (though I have seen Ghosts of Mars, which must count for something), but a fan of the classics - The Thing, Escape from New York, Halloween and, yes, the original Assault. The 2005 version is perfectly adequate but I still found myself asking the same question that must have occurred to any fan of Japanese horror on entering a multiplex in the last few years - why remake these films?

Now I know there's a bit of pot and kettle going on here. The Thing is, technically, a remake of Howard Hawks' Thing From Another World. However, what Carpenter did was rework a classic story (indeed, return to the original source material - John Campbell's short storyWho Goes There?) in the cinema style of the time, the body horror video nasty. By contrast what has Jean-Francois Richet done for one of the minimalist classics of modern cinema? The faceless horrors of the street gang become a bunch of identikit corrupt cops, the influential electronica soundtrack disappears and the brilliantly tense climax, with the few survivors forced into the last corner of the station becomes a dreary gun-fight in a snowy forest.

It's not that this is a terrible film, more a pointless one. The only points of interest come with those few shred of the original not to be hacked out - for instance when two survivors look to have escaped only for one of the bad guys to pop his head out from the back seat of their car. Otherwise it's easily lost in the pile of comparablew police thrillers - The Negotiator springs instantly to mind as, for some reason, does Narc. If you're going to remake a film, do something new with it.

It's all over

2006-07-02T05:52:00.000-07:00

Oh no we're out of the world cup. As a football agnostic I can't say I'm too bothered but have reined in my usual level of anti-kickball vitriol as I'm sure there are some people to whom this really matters. In any case, I've finally found a way of watching this game that suits me: with an improvised jazz accompaniment.

The Vortex Club are screening the matches and hosting two groups of jazz musicians - one for each side - who play along to the action, the music reflecting what's going on on the pitch. Yesterday was perhaps not the best first experience of this, with the game juddering to the usual penalty shoot-out misery but it added a new dimension to the game beyond the usual commentary. It would be easy to go overboard on how this is jazz how it should be, fluid unpredictable and so on but mainly it was just a tremendously fun experience, the final score notwithstanding.

Yum, yum

2006-06-29T04:58:00.000-07:00

A slightly misleading title perhaps as I don't intend to discuss the merits of various in-flight foods. In fact the picture's prettty duff too. Oh never mind...

Basically the search is on to find a match to the in-flight entertainment system provided by Virgin on their UK-Australia flights, this being - from what I can tell - the pinnacle of the artform. Choice of 8 movies plus TV and radio and - their key distinguishing feature - a radiant selection of the Super NES' finest, including F-Zero, Super Tennis and, if memory serves correctly, Super Mario World.

By contrast the beigely communist Cubana and the Quebecois airline that took me to Vancouver last year (and whose name has irritatingly dropped out of my head) vie for bottom place, with the dirty Canucks coming in last on account of charging for alcoholic drinks from the bar (and not allowing me to crack open my litre of duty free rum).

Virgin Atlantic came close to matching the efforts of their antipodean cousins on the Barbados route. Indeed I enjoyed considerably more leg-room on account of a largely empty flight, while the movies were a decent enough selection, hindered only by the stagnant pool of contemporary releases from which they drew - if there are no good movies out, you can't blame the airlines for having a dodgy selection. Refreshingly a large spread of these movies were 18 or 15 releases and, from what I could tell, had not been edited for content. Though I failed to capitalise on the opportunity to watch the remake of The Hills Have Eyes on my return flight, the option was there for me to take. This all said, no Super NES games. Black mark there I'm afraid.

There also seems a growing trend - on trains as well as planes - to allow for in-travel charging of laptops. Presents the intriguing possibility of mid-air wi-fi, in which case the PSP might come into its own again.

Farewell Blazing Angels...

2006-06-28T04:40:00.000-07:00

Bit the bullet last week and got shot of Blazing Angels, the pisspoor WWII shooter that I foolishly bundled in with my initial Xbox purchase. What a total waste of time, a particular slap in the face given the vast superiority of similarly themed Secret Weapons Over Normandy - something I've harped on about in the past.

What made it so bad was its sheer shallow mediocrity - it was just dull. The graphics were pretty but nothing special, and the one gimmick of notional control over a squadron of differently skilled wingmen was poorly implemented and utterly superfluous. This all came to a head in one of the last missions I played where you are set the task of flying through a zero visibility sandstorm following radio signals for directions. Cue half an hour of random zooming around a uniformly beige environment with only poorly acted and scripted radio transmissions as a (mostly useless) guide. What pap.

Have to say the replacement isn't going to blow anyone's mind, though decent xbox titles are still pretty thin on the ground. I bought The Outfit mainly for its multiplayer component, which I played via the Xbox Live demo (so far two of my five games were bought off the back of downloaded demos - canny Microsoft, very canny). The single-player bit is rather limp, and the game suffers from the common syndrome of an interesting idea, sketchily implemented. In this case the idea of matching a RTS building and troop deployment element with an FPS environment has its moments (nothing like slapping a 50 cal machine gun nest right in the path of a Nazi stormtrooper charge) but falls a bit flat as the overall design doesn't match the initial inspiration. There is little potential for any real strategy - for instance one mission requires the capture of a tank, but the map doesn't allow for any flanking movement, requiring a head-on charge and hoping for some luck. Similarly squad command is painfully limited and AI of your support troops is variable in the extreme.

As I said, multiplayer was the key motivating factor in this purchase but I've yet to give the full version a road test. Could be we have a candidate for early return to the mighty CEX.

Ghost Recon Expensive Warfighter

2006-06-27T01:39:00.000-07:00

As reported by Penny Arcade the GRAW expansion pack has been released on Xbox live. Yes! An expanded multiplayer co-op mission, what a boon to those, like myself, who enjoyed the rather scanty four-level effort included in the original. Oops, only if you're ready to pay 15 USD however, that's a quarter of the cover price of a game you've already purchased! Not sure what that comes out as in UK money, but I wouldn't be holding your breath for a fair conversion on the basis of exchange rates.

What's more it appears that - at least in the US - you can only buy the mickey mouse dollars of Microsoft points (needed to buy any Xbox Live product) in increments of 10 or 20 USD. Once again I haven't checked the UK equivalent (what? You think I research stuff?) but if the equivalent is true here you'll end up with a hefty chunk of unwanted points, though - as Tycho points on on Penny Arcade - probably not enough on their own to buy anything, meaning that if you wanted to use them, more points would have to be purchased.

Now I can understand 5 GBP per month for Live access. I can just about take the idea of paying for downloadable content (though can't see myself doing it just yet) but this is some nasty cynical shit. I'm no idealist but if you're going to ask for money then at least be straight about how much you're charging.

Greetings

2006-06-22T06:45:00.000-07:00

Hello there. I'm a poorly photoshopped rendition of David McCullough, reknowned historian and author of a widely respected biography of Harry Truman. I shall be making occasional visits to this interweb netblog to provide expert insight into matters of historical interest.

For the moment my history meter is at threat level green, meaning that there is currently nothing of importance in the world of history. For the time being, therefore, all those of a historical disposition may rest easy knowing that I, a poorly photoshopped rendition of David McCullough, will constantly be standing guard, ready to pounce on any historical field-mouse that chances into my vision like some sort of owl. Of history.

Farewell for now, gentle reader.

Ping Pong's in the house

2006-06-22T03:02:00.000-07:00

Rockstar Table Tennis has been the gift of choice this year's birthday. The character modelling is amazing, the music and sfx impeccable but most of all it's addictive and FUN. Just goes to show what a spared down gaming experience can be like - the details are polished, menus accessible, there are no long waiting times and it's got that easy-to-pick-up-tricky-to-master thing going on. Haven't ventured on to the online circuit just yet but I reckon my 'skills' are still in need of a honing before that happens.

Lost weekend

2006-06-16T02:56:00.000-07:00

Finished off the last two parts of Season 2 Lost last night, and after some shaky middle episodes this mass televised confidence trick is still just about holding together. Good to see that the trickle of exposition hasn't made the show any less mad - if anything the Dickensian level of unlikely coincidences (referenced, perhaps, in the prominence of a copy of Our Mutual Friend towards the end of the season) has made me all the more interested to see how the writers intend to get out of it. And still no anti-climax even though we've seen what's in the hatch, what the mysterious monster is and (sort of) how Locke recovered the use of his legs.

TV-wise also became a huge fan of The Wire after powering through Season 1 (currently have 2 and 3 on standby). Series arc takes total priority in this show, with no "previously on..." and very little slack given to the viewer. I had trouble keeping track of the story and I watched it all over two days. Can't imagine following it weekl. However, that just makes the story all the more satisfying as does the Traffic-esque multi-layered structure following a criminal investigation into Baltimore's drug gangs on the level of both the police and of the dealers. American TV rules.

My home video

2006-06-16T01:09:00.000-07:00

Someone's staged a live-action version of Goldeneye. Scary stuff

My bloody birthday

2006-06-15T11:05:00.000-07:00

Further delay to my intended onslaught of razor-sharp pop culture commentary on account of my birthday yesterday - look, I got a cake!

I also got some ice lolly molds (essential for the summer), a Japanese zombie movie Junk, the soundtrack to the Dylan documentary No Direction Home and a collected edition of Commando war comics. Good haul and jam-packed with dignity - which is more than can be said about my trip to Gosh! today which included the purchase of Ultimate Extinction's last issue. Will I ever learn.

Nothing Important Happened Today

2006-06-12T08:54:00.000-07:00

Been a dry period for posts these last few weeks, primarily because I've been on holiday (indeed, technically still am on holiday, as am typing this rather than doing my packing). Overjoyed to report that I haven't wasted all my time lounging on sun-drenched beaches or diving in the crystal clear Caribbean but managed to catch up on a hefty wad of TV shows (The Wire, Lost season 2 and Battlestar Galactica season 2), as well as a few new movies on the flight out (Cock and Bull Story, The Matador though not - sadly - Aeon Flux).

My aim is to get some thoughts on these typed up and posted here (possibly also on Shinyshelf). Sadly have been out of the loop on game news as gaming sites are buggers to load on a dial-up connection - o the hardships I bear. But am planning to 'invest' a chunk of time in Battlefield 2 and GRAW when I return. Blazing Angels is prob due a trip to Computer Exchange too.

Stay tuned...

"I need to get to a library"

2006-05-22T03:52:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the hiatus. It's been a week of sickness and busy-ness. Came down with a rotten cold on Friday, which found me on Saturday hunched in my dressing gown pounding away at Elder Scrolls Oblivion. Have reached a rather nasty difficulty ramp which left my Breton mage Cinnadar splattered all over the various castle and dungeon walls of Tamriel with a depressing regularity. Despite the frustrating have an itch to get back playing the thing as am convinced that with just a little more tweaking and the right spells I'll be able to "bring the noise" especially when it comes to those sodding trolls.

In other news have experienced the cinematic - erm - 'experience' of the Da Vinci Code. Have the immense scepticism towards this of the Foucault's Pendulum fan and am sad to say that nothing I saw in the film changed this. Indeed - though I haven't read the thing all the way through - the movie just seemed to emphasise its clunky and narratively limited nature. It is amazingly poorly constructed, pisses away its best assets (Paul Bettany's mad albino monk and Ian McKellan's eccentric recluse) and is, fundamentally, impossibly to engage with: the lead characters are unsympathetic, their quest nonsensical and their adventures drably unexciting. Will crash and burn.

There's a storm coming...

2006-05-13T08:14:00.000-07:00

Took less time than expected, but my xbox360 has achieved sentience.

Where's John Connor when you need him?

camden leisure pirate

Shame-porium

Quiet time

Wallop!

DLC-ya

Abandon all hope you who play this game

Great Lies of Our Time, No. 1

Left 4 Dead 2: The Most Important Subject in the News Today

Lack of Swastika Update

Storytelling

More European Election Excitement

A Message from David Cameron

Last Writes

Hiatus

Love films, hate pretension

Can't we all just get along?

Humiliation

Important thoughts

Cockney Vader

One thing that's exciting, one thing that's terrifying

Oops

Prime Evil

Wire-d

Whore

Left 4 Dead 4 Ever

World of Potential

Revival attempt number 2

Back from the dead

Bloated and nauseous

Shameful waste of resources

Sweet Justice

Joyous News X 20!

Use-ability

Silver linings

Thrilling up-to-the-minute Xbox repair news

Consider it done

Inevitablility

Making FrienDS

Last legs

Bourne Again

Shocking. Positively shocking.

One Month in the Blog-less Wilderness: Part II

Catching them all

One Month in the Blog-less Wilderness: Part I

Aaargh!

The light at the end of the tunnel

So much time-wasting, so little time

A Day that Will Live in Infamy

Made it Ma! Top of the world!

Fighting through the pain barrier

Puzzle-tastic

Justice

Bright spots on the horizon

Oh dear...

Piece of Ps

Work/life balance

Legal issues

Brief Respite

Apologies

On the game training

Smert Spionem

Two... Weeks...

Wi-fine

London Film Festival

Back from the Dead

Boom! 100 Posts!

Xbox desert

Legal Difficulties

Hiatus

Wii-k

A trademark change of heart

Dead reckoning

One week older

Every Microsoft product - by law - has to have one *evil* feature

[BLANKS] On a Plane

Teh Interweb

UK Resistance "pwns" gaming industry

Demo Rising

New Toys, Old Toys

%$*@ing Battlefield 2! £%&@ing Xbox live!

Every Microsoft product - by law - has to have one evil feature