Excitement At Lofty Heights

Finally finished clearing and insulating the loft, and with only minor fatigue around the thighs this time. The force 10 gale that blows up the hall whenever a neighbour sneezes or closes their door hard, or a car drives up the road (it’s drafty, and I’m again too tired to try and be clever so shoe horning remains the order of the day) will soon be sorted and my home will finally be a warm and snug place. Actually, it won’t. That’s a big fat lie. When I’ve decorated, got new carpets, re-sealed the windows, re-decorated, got newer carpets, replaced the central heating; replaced the insulation and the 1,001 other things that as home owners we have to do and re-do to keep the never ending upkeep going so that one day, maybe, we can lie down and die, then it will be warm and snug. Ah, life! Forever a work in progress.

So, in good news I’ve ordered my new gaming PC. Got a bit of a bargain so am kind of expecting one of those “we made a mistake” e-mails and “if you want to hand over another bundle of cash we’ll think about it!” offers. Assuming that doesn’t happen, I’m excited at the prospect of playing Bioshock (PC) as it was meant to be seen. Of getting decent frame rates in Crysis (PC) even if the game is just a better looking Far Cry (PC) but with all the fun removed. I might even have yet another run through S.T.A.L.K.E.R (PC). Then maybe get my hands on Call Of Duty 4 (PC) and Gears Of War (PC). I might go crazy and book some time off work so I can have another crack at Oblivion (PC). On top of all that PC goodness, I’m ridiculously excited at the prospect of finally getting my hands on Super Mario Galaxy (Wii). News that Deus Ex 3 is in the works and the Ghostbusters trailer for the game that is in development are too exciting for words, see

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'Generic Shooter 3' Made Me Do It.

Everybody’s 9^th favourite Scotsman and current political laughing stock Gordon Brown wants to understand games and the gaming culture. Well, firstly, way up high on any gamer’s priority list, is not to lose your CDs / DVDs.

The Byron Review will hopefully advise the government that contrary to most mainstream media reports we’re not all slavering miscreants using violent videogames to finely tune our murdering skills before popping out to butcher old Mrs Tilly from No. 48. However, I can’t help but feel that we’re more likely to see greater controls and censorship heading our way. The current BBFC banning of Manhunt 2 is an example of reactionary censorship brought about by the systematic failure in the control and supply of videogames by those who demand the tighter controls. Parents.

With a title as suggestive as Assassin’s Creed (XB360/PS3) and a BBFC certificate 15 on the box, you don’t need to be a genius to work out that the game may feature the odd death, most likely committed by the player. So when I see a parent gladly hand the game to their 10 year old outside HMV in Birkenhead, my heart just sinks. I know it’s not an isolated case, and I’ve no doubt children throughout the country will be maiming and destroying with great abandon come December 25^th. I’m just waiting for the “Game Made Jonny Stab Mommy” headlines.

Time Waits For No Gamer.

Something happens as you get older, time speeds up. Add a family and time not only speeds up but starts playing tricks on you too. It knocks on your door and runs away and hides so that by the time you find it in order to have that bit of time to yourself, it’s already time for time to move on. Take this blog entry for example, I’ve been writing it for weeks. Not literally of course, I don’t type that slowly, but the original idea manifested some weeks back as I desperately tried to find time to play through the Orange Box (PC). Excusing TF2’s online shenanigans, Valve’s 2 little nuggets of newness are not particularly expansive. HL2:Episode 2 can be run through in about 6 hours. Portal in 4. There was a time when I could do both of them in one sitting and still get a few levels of whichever console game was flavour of the month. No chance of that now though. I’m lucky if I can even get close to 10 hours game time in a week.

There are numerous factors involved in this, but the primary one is simply that while gaming is far and away my favourite leisure activity, what should be my leisure time is no longer mine. In the evening’s it’s either my wife’s or works, and at the weekend it’s my daughters. Whereas weekends could be spent watching complete series of favourite TV shows or Star Wars movie marathons, now if we’re not out on some form of activity, my TV is owned by Dora The Explorer, Scooby Doo & Wonder Pets.

This leads me to thinking that the games industry is in danger of losing a significant proportion of its user base. I’m one of those people who was pretty much around at the start. I played on Intellivision, Atari 2600, ZX81, Spectrum, Amiga, SNES, PlayStation, N64 etc. I’ve aged with the industry and helped nurture it to its current maturity, yet I feel it's stopped making games for me. Developers seem intent on making games longer, seemingly to justify the price. They boast about 30+ hours of gameplay. At moments like this I like to get out a big pointy stick and point it’s pointyness towards Max Payne 2. Max Payne 2 could be completed comfortably in 8 hours, and yet on completion I’ve yet to hear of anyone complaining it was too short. On the contrary, I get the impression that the community seem to agree with my sentiment that The Fall of Max Payne was a beautifully crafted and executed interactive experience. The value came from the joy of (repeatedly) playing it. Movies aren’t judged on their running time so if gaming wants to move closer to being as respected then developers need to get over their hang up on length (I know there's an innuendo in there but I'm trying to be serious and avoid flaccid dick jokes and accusations of inadequacy). I’m now put off buying games such as Metroid Prime 3 Corruption (Wii) due to tales of fetch quests and save locations that mean there is no way to jump in and out of the game. Oblivion (PC) sits on the shelf, 30 hours of questing in and I fear I’ll probably never continue. I simply can’t commit to a multi-hour gaming session these days.

On the flip side we have the multi-mini-game simplicity of many a Wii title. While these are fun and easily accommodated in to what little time I have, they lack the compelling story or drama I want from a modern, mature, gaming experience. This is where I feel we risk losing the middle ground. People who have grown up with gaming and want to keep gaming. The hardcore gamer with casual sensibilities. I want mature themes. I want action. I want tension. I want drama.

I need it in a concise package.

England 0 - Rest of the World 3

Well, that all went to crap! I seem to recall that coming into this week it was going to be a slendiferous cavalcade of success. Then Wednesday came and the prima donnas’ of our consistently average national football side bricked it. Let’s not mince words here, they were shit. As bland and uninventive as the none entity who manages them. They went to Russia and got cold feet (yes I know it’s lazy but I’m tired and angry, deal with it!)
Then Saturday came and some over performing public school boys were typically English and did the whole gallant loser thing.
Sunday, our last hope, and the wee nipper rolled his pram off the kerb.
Yay to be English.

Actually, through all this there was the great comedy moment of the Scottish Prime Minister supporting England at the Stade de France. What, no English people in the cabinet?

Mixing Bowl

Mixed week. On the one hand I’ve had the absolute pleasure of Portal (PC). Talk about sliding in under the radar. Anyone who says they knew this was going to be the purest slice of gaming cake in the history of gaming is a liar. No-one could have expected this. It’s a pleasure to have handed over hard earned cash for. Log in to your steam account now and get it. Sod reading this rubbish anymore, go now.

Also in the Orange Box, which when purchased through Steam comes sans box of course, is Half-Life 2: Episode 2 (PC) and Team Fortress 2 (PC) along with Half Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode 1. As someone who already owned HL2 & Ep1 it’s a touch galling having to buy them again for Ep2, TF2 and Portal, but with the current exchange rate being what it is it wasn’t galling enough to stop me. TF2 I’ve played a few times as with getting it through Steam I could play the Beta, and as nice an online shooter as it is, at the moment I much prefer Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (PC). That’s not to say TF2 isn’t great, it is, it’s just not as great. I’ve also finally started playing Fahrenheit (PC) which has sat on the ‘to play’ shelf for far too long. All in all, a week of gaming happiness.

On the other hand, I took some time off work to finally clear my loft and get it lagged. I figured it would take Thursday and most of Friday to clear and Saturday morning to lag. That would then leave me clear to watch the football and rugby, waving my flag of St George in true armchair fashion. Thursday went well, got a lot of rubble and plaster cleared. One thing I hadn’t considered though was that being an overweight, unfit, desk jockey, come Thursday night my thighs would turn to lead. Friday morning I could barely walk, and when I did get motive I looked like I’d done the mother of all shits in my pants. A haemorrhoidal, saddle sore, John Wayne, who’d just walked 10 miles through blazing desert sands, barefoot, would have looked better in control of his limbs than me. So that was Friday scuppered. Saturday and I’m a little more mobile. The Deep Heat I put on clearly doesn’t like me, having left my inner thighs bright red, and in the case of the left thigh, surprisingly blistered. Today I’m almost walking normally. This is a good thing because I’m off to Manchester tomorrow to watch The Police. Or at least I was until I got an e-mail from the MEN Arena at 17:00 to advise that Sting has a sore throat. Most of the evening has been spent trying desperately to find something else going on in Manchester, because I’m not wasting the days booked off work and the hotel room paid for!

So, mixed week.

Willfull Neglect

It has been pointed out that since selling my soul to Facebook I’ve somewhat neglected my blog. While true, it’s unfair to blame my new mistress for this neglect and rather the banality of my recent existence. Work is as unfulfilling as I have come to expect and I can see history repeating itself as the ‘path of least resistance’ is currently being weeded and a nice fence erected along it’s edging. The end result being of course that those that do will now do more and those that don’t will continue to feed their fat faces and knock off early to play golf.

White & Nerdy

Having taken to this blog thing like a crispy duck to pancakes, Mr Phil has now set me on the path to Facebook. How do I repay him? By getting all Brokeback on his (pardon the pun) ass and telling all his e-friends that we’ve had bum love. We haven’t, and save some catastrophic lifestyle changes on both our parts it’s pretty unlikely we ever will. Sure we may be missing out, but it’s something I think we’ll both have to learn to live with.

What’s really upset me though is that in the past 24 hours Mr Phil has subliminally forced me into taking a Star Wars Quiz and a Movie Quotes Quiz. To my shame I’ve scored 100% in each. So while my puerile nonsense is transparently for comedic effect, Mr Phil is clearly an evil genius.