At 11:15 a.m. this morning the nice man from Citylink dropped off my special edition of GTA IV.
Opening the box and gazing in wonderment at the contents (A black metal safe deposit box containing a Duffelbag, soundtrack CD, art book and the game itself) I realised I hadn't been as excited by a game release in a long time. Halo 3 was probably the last one, and that didn't even compare to this.
The excitement and anticipation had not been in vain. It's been years since I've played a game that has been so entertaining, so well put together, so funny - just so damn complete. It's still the same old Grand Theft Auto - the same perfect blend of sandbox and satire, just better.
It would appear that the stupidly high review scores found on metacritic are quite justified - I can see this game occupying me for months.
See you in Liberty City.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Saturday, April 26, 2008
The greatest video game in the world
Couple of things; Look up there. No, not that high. A little bit lower. Lower still. Thats it.. look! A funky new Myxomatoasties logo. Thats brightened up both your page and your life a little, hasn't it?
Some new blogs linked over to the right that are a cracking read. My good friend Paul (Many of you may know him as rhcpaul on the website b3ta and lament the passing of his famed 'link of the day') is writing the blog 'Plinx' which I strongly recommend. The gentleman of the worldly wide web Robin Johnson also has a blog that is a fine read, and finally Sexy Videogame Land is a cracking videogame journalism blog. It of courses goes without saying that every blog linked to on this page is both entertaining and life-enriching. If you go without clicking on any of them, you're a poorer man/woman for it.
Right, the point of the day. Videogames. I LOVE videogames and am actually giddy with excitement over the impending release of Grand Theft Auto IV. I'm a little annoyed that I didn't pre-book it in time so have had to order the special edition of it to be able to play it on release date, but that's purely down to my own lack of pre-planning. I'm sure a GTA bag and safety deposit box (!) will bome in handy somewhere down the line. It had BETTER arrive on release date, at any rate. I have to get my daily kill of running over hookers, drive-bys and drug deals and if I can't do it in GTA IV I'll end up doing it for real and Amazon will be to blame - (Or at least that is what the Daily Mail Editorial will say).
To celebrate the bleep bloop bing majesty that is the world of videogaming, I'm going to force my opinion on you on what I judge to be the greatest games of all time over the next week. Just imagine that its like one of those channel 4 talking head "best of" shows albeit with considerably less Stuart Maconie and Rick "Get an adult haircut" sky.
I'll set the ball rolling with the best of them all. "The best videogame of all time?", I hear you cry in your masses (or, judging by the dearth of commentds that this blog ever seems to get, your ones and twos at any rate), "That is certainly a bold claim to make and a very audacious statement. I'm astonished that you can state such a thing."
The best videogame of all time took place on one low resolution screen, had crudely animated single colour characters (the animation consisted of two frames at most, I seem to recall) and is the single most fun game I've ever had the joy of planning.
I speak of the Spectrum classic "Chaos: Battle of Wizards". As a teen there was a neat gap on a Tuesday afternoon between sixth form and attending a local college to do RSA typing classes - This time saw me and my friend Jon going to my house and playing Chaos for hours. This happened every single Tuesday. For a year.
I had a PDA a few years back, and the first thing I did was seek out a decent spectrum emulator so I could play it again. It was also the first thing I did with my current mobile phone.
For those of you who don't know about it (of which I suspect that there are many - it wasn't a great seller and I haven't met any people who've played it), it is a simple turn based strategy game. Between 2 and 8 wizards (which can be any combination of human or computer players) battle for supremacy over a single screen. A random selection of spells are dished out at the start of the game ranging from fireballs to the ability to conjure up creatures to assist your wizard. Players take it in turns to use their spells in either an offensive or a defensive capacity until only one wizard remains. The state of play can change in an instant; an unlucky player can find himself taken out on the first turn, and even a dismal initial draw of spells can be used to turn the game around.
There are plenty of decent emulators out there and even some decent online java versions to play - The game seems to have a decent underground following on the web, and it's good to see many loved the game as much as I did.
If you decide to play it, have fun. The web has all manner of instructions and strategy guides for it. If you like it, remember the halcyon days of gaming when we didn't need huge cinematic cut-scenes and film budgets to make playable computer games. If you don't like it, you're wrong.
..and finally, using the wikipedia reference above I've just found an excellent remake of Chaos for the PC - completely authentic but a lot easier to understand and play - It's called ChaosFunk.
Some new blogs linked over to the right that are a cracking read. My good friend Paul (Many of you may know him as rhcpaul on the website b3ta and lament the passing of his famed 'link of the day') is writing the blog 'Plinx' which I strongly recommend. The gentleman of the worldly wide web Robin Johnson also has a blog that is a fine read, and finally Sexy Videogame Land is a cracking videogame journalism blog. It of courses goes without saying that every blog linked to on this page is both entertaining and life-enriching. If you go without clicking on any of them, you're a poorer man/woman for it.
Right, the point of the day. Videogames. I LOVE videogames and am actually giddy with excitement over the impending release of Grand Theft Auto IV. I'm a little annoyed that I didn't pre-book it in time so have had to order the special edition of it to be able to play it on release date, but that's purely down to my own lack of pre-planning. I'm sure a GTA bag and safety deposit box (!) will bome in handy somewhere down the line. It had BETTER arrive on release date, at any rate. I have to get my daily kill of running over hookers, drive-bys and drug deals and if I can't do it in GTA IV I'll end up doing it for real and Amazon will be to blame - (Or at least that is what the Daily Mail Editorial will say).
To celebrate the bleep bloop bing majesty that is the world of videogaming, I'm going to force my opinion on you on what I judge to be the greatest games of all time over the next week. Just imagine that its like one of those channel 4 talking head "best of" shows albeit with considerably less Stuart Maconie and Rick "Get an adult haircut" sky.
I'll set the ball rolling with the best of them all. "The best videogame of all time?", I hear you cry in your masses (or, judging by the dearth of commentds that this blog ever seems to get, your ones and twos at any rate), "That is certainly a bold claim to make and a very audacious statement. I'm astonished that you can state such a thing."
The best videogame of all time took place on one low resolution screen, had crudely animated single colour characters (the animation consisted of two frames at most, I seem to recall) and is the single most fun game I've ever had the joy of planning.
I speak of the Spectrum classic "Chaos: Battle of Wizards". As a teen there was a neat gap on a Tuesday afternoon between sixth form and attending a local college to do RSA typing classes - This time saw me and my friend Jon going to my house and playing Chaos for hours. This happened every single Tuesday. For a year.
I had a PDA a few years back, and the first thing I did was seek out a decent spectrum emulator so I could play it again. It was also the first thing I did with my current mobile phone.
For those of you who don't know about it (of which I suspect that there are many - it wasn't a great seller and I haven't met any people who've played it), it is a simple turn based strategy game. Between 2 and 8 wizards (which can be any combination of human or computer players) battle for supremacy over a single screen. A random selection of spells are dished out at the start of the game ranging from fireballs to the ability to conjure up creatures to assist your wizard. Players take it in turns to use their spells in either an offensive or a defensive capacity until only one wizard remains. The state of play can change in an instant; an unlucky player can find himself taken out on the first turn, and even a dismal initial draw of spells can be used to turn the game around.
There are plenty of decent emulators out there and even some decent online java versions to play - The game seems to have a decent underground following on the web, and it's good to see many loved the game as much as I did.
If you decide to play it, have fun. The web has all manner of instructions and strategy guides for it. If you like it, remember the halcyon days of gaming when we didn't need huge cinematic cut-scenes and film budgets to make playable computer games. If you don't like it, you're wrong.
..and finally, using the wikipedia reference above I've just found an excellent remake of Chaos for the PC - completely authentic but a lot easier to understand and play - It's called ChaosFunk.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Dogs can't look up
Ah, the joys of working from home and daytime television (although I see that Billy Murray ad is still running). Carcraft have had a current advertising campaign that opens with a shot of a duck with the voiceover, "Did you know a ducks quack doesn't echo?".
It's just been on television but they've redubbed that bit with "Did you know a duck can't walk without bobbing its head?"
I'd like to think that Carcraft were forced to change this advert after being inundated with letters of complaint along the lines of "Of course a ducks quack has an echo. You fucking duck idiots."
It's just been on television but they've redubbed that bit with "Did you know a duck can't walk without bobbing its head?"
I'd like to think that Carcraft were forced to change this advert after being inundated with letters of complaint along the lines of "Of course a ducks quack has an echo. You fucking duck idiots."
Bigotry, chips and peas
A combination of starvation and hangover last Saturday saw us heading into the fine greasy spoon/chip shop "Buttons" for a grease and cholestrol injection, stat.
We were queueing when an individual in a baseball cap, overweight and late thirties, barged in front of us, thrust a tenner into the managers hand and said "Get me some food to eat and a diet coke. I'm diabetic" and then proceeded to go and sit himself down.
Upon ordering our food (pie, chips and mushy peas - I'm not proud) we went to sit down to find ourselves in the same room as Mister Baseball cap. Upon receiving his meal and diet coke (thats DIET coke, you understand, he was quite vocal about this to the whole room) he announced to the table next to him that he was diabetic. Not the traditional opening gambit used as a greeting, but different strokes for different folks.
The couple on the table next to him consisted of an old dear and her quiet husband, both munching away on fish and chips.
The three of them then spent the next twenty minutes putting the world to rights. We tried to have our own conversation, we really did, but the urge to listen in was too strong.
Drug use amongst teens was first on the political agenda (the overall opinion was that they weren't keen). Social behavioural issues were briefly touched upon in that store detectives must be reluctant to chase after shoplifters because you never know who is carrying a knife. The chairmans diabetes were briefly touched upon again, almost as an aside. Immigration issues were tackled forcefully (too many Eastern Europeans, and they all look swarthy). The thorny issue of global warming was hit head on ("I don't recycle. That Global warming is a con"). Policing issues were briefly touched upon from Mister Diabetic. His black friend (yes, BLACK friend - repeated out loud for those in the room who hadn't heard) had stolen 30 grand from him some years back.
Two highlights stood out for me.
The old lady in the group bemoaned the fact that Prime Minister George (Oh yes, "George") Brown was taking so much money off her she couldn't even afford to eat. The irony was that this sentence was punctuated by at least three gaps so she could continue to shovel fish and chips down her throat.
The second highlight was when they briefly touched upon charity. The diabetics mother had died some time back, and one of her final instructions was to "throw away everything she owned. She didn't want charity getting hold of any of it. All the people who run charities, they're all skimming off the top".
Incredible. It was like a Daily Mail editorial had magically come to live. Perhaps it was an avant-garde performance art piece with the unlikely venue of a Chip Shop in Coventry.
I wish I was braver. I wish I could summon up the courage to lean over and say, "Actually, you're talking bollocks". I wish Tara had done what she wanted to and poured sugar into the diabetics throat. One overwhelming thing, however, stopped me. One thing stopped me standing up and making myself heard and damn it, making a stand.
Those diabetics sometimes carry knives.
Oh, and my television highlight of the week.
We were queueing when an individual in a baseball cap, overweight and late thirties, barged in front of us, thrust a tenner into the managers hand and said "Get me some food to eat and a diet coke. I'm diabetic" and then proceeded to go and sit himself down.
Upon ordering our food (pie, chips and mushy peas - I'm not proud) we went to sit down to find ourselves in the same room as Mister Baseball cap. Upon receiving his meal and diet coke (thats DIET coke, you understand, he was quite vocal about this to the whole room) he announced to the table next to him that he was diabetic. Not the traditional opening gambit used as a greeting, but different strokes for different folks.
The couple on the table next to him consisted of an old dear and her quiet husband, both munching away on fish and chips.
The three of them then spent the next twenty minutes putting the world to rights. We tried to have our own conversation, we really did, but the urge to listen in was too strong.
Drug use amongst teens was first on the political agenda (the overall opinion was that they weren't keen). Social behavioural issues were briefly touched upon in that store detectives must be reluctant to chase after shoplifters because you never know who is carrying a knife. The chairmans diabetes were briefly touched upon again, almost as an aside. Immigration issues were tackled forcefully (too many Eastern Europeans, and they all look swarthy). The thorny issue of global warming was hit head on ("I don't recycle. That Global warming is a con"). Policing issues were briefly touched upon from Mister Diabetic. His black friend (yes, BLACK friend - repeated out loud for those in the room who hadn't heard) had stolen 30 grand from him some years back.
Two highlights stood out for me.
The old lady in the group bemoaned the fact that Prime Minister George (Oh yes, "George") Brown was taking so much money off her she couldn't even afford to eat. The irony was that this sentence was punctuated by at least three gaps so she could continue to shovel fish and chips down her throat.
The second highlight was when they briefly touched upon charity. The diabetics mother had died some time back, and one of her final instructions was to "throw away everything she owned. She didn't want charity getting hold of any of it. All the people who run charities, they're all skimming off the top".
Incredible. It was like a Daily Mail editorial had magically come to live. Perhaps it was an avant-garde performance art piece with the unlikely venue of a Chip Shop in Coventry.
I wish I was braver. I wish I could summon up the courage to lean over and say, "Actually, you're talking bollocks". I wish Tara had done what she wanted to and poured sugar into the diabetics throat. One overwhelming thing, however, stopped me. One thing stopped me standing up and making myself heard and damn it, making a stand.
Those diabetics sometimes carry knives.
Oh, and my television highlight of the week.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
We'll drink and drink at these gigs
Courtesy of Tara and her place of work, we were lucky enough to get VIP tickets to see The Enemy perform at the Ricoh Arena last Saturday. I must admit I'm not a fan, having only heard a few of their songs on the radio, but we had no other plans for the evening and an evening of corporate hospitality sounded entertaining enough.
There was a little confusion when we turned up whether we were actually allowed in the VIP section or not, but shortly afterwards the organiser turned up - and armed with our "Corporate Hospitality Guest" lanyards we found ourselves entering the hallowed sanctum of ridiculously excessive corporate budgets..
The hospitality was taking place in a very nice area of the Ricoh called The Jaguar Rooms. A bottle of Red and chilled white already sitting on the table, complete with a buffet and a free bar all evening. After a few hours of chatting with Tara and her work friends, having doors opened for us and basically being treated like, well, VIPs all evening, I'd almost forgotten there was a band playing. We briefly checked out on the two support bands (going in via the exclusive VIP area and not queueing up, obviously) but the free drinks in the Jaguar Rooms (and the mystery of why Jon Gaunt was in the VIP rooms) were way more appealing.
I am usually uncomfortable with being waited on. It often makes me feel guilty when people do things for me that I'm perfectly capable of doing for myself, and I felt like a fraud. I half expected security to come wandering in at any second, point at me yelling "He's the one!" and dragging me out of the room by my lanyard and depositing me with all of the other concert-goers - I'm ashamed to say though after a few hours of this I realised I could become quite accustomed to nights like this..!
And The Enemy themselves? They sounded like a Sixth form Jam tribute act put together for a second rate Battle of the Bands competition. Either the accoustics in the venue were terrible or the Lead singer genuinely does mumble like he has a mouthful of cotton wool -
"Mmmfff bmmmmf mmmmf Coventry!"
*cue huge cheers*
"Mmmff bmmmf good to be back mmmmf mmmmf bmmmmf Ricoh!"
*More huge cheers*
"Mmmmmf bmmmf mmmmmf we wish we were The Jam! mmmmf bmmmmmf"
Actually, I may have made that last line up.
Credit to them, it must have been great playing for a home crowd like that, but I still prefer The Specials.
There was a little confusion when we turned up whether we were actually allowed in the VIP section or not, but shortly afterwards the organiser turned up - and armed with our "Corporate Hospitality Guest" lanyards we found ourselves entering the hallowed sanctum of ridiculously excessive corporate budgets..
The hospitality was taking place in a very nice area of the Ricoh called The Jaguar Rooms. A bottle of Red and chilled white already sitting on the table, complete with a buffet and a free bar all evening. After a few hours of chatting with Tara and her work friends, having doors opened for us and basically being treated like, well, VIPs all evening, I'd almost forgotten there was a band playing. We briefly checked out on the two support bands (going in via the exclusive VIP area and not queueing up, obviously) but the free drinks in the Jaguar Rooms (and the mystery of why Jon Gaunt was in the VIP rooms) were way more appealing.
I am usually uncomfortable with being waited on. It often makes me feel guilty when people do things for me that I'm perfectly capable of doing for myself, and I felt like a fraud. I half expected security to come wandering in at any second, point at me yelling "He's the one!" and dragging me out of the room by my lanyard and depositing me with all of the other concert-goers - I'm ashamed to say though after a few hours of this I realised I could become quite accustomed to nights like this..!
And The Enemy themselves? They sounded like a Sixth form Jam tribute act put together for a second rate Battle of the Bands competition. Either the accoustics in the venue were terrible or the Lead singer genuinely does mumble like he has a mouthful of cotton wool -
"Mmmfff bmmmmf mmmmf Coventry!"
*cue huge cheers*
"Mmmff bmmmf good to be back mmmmf mmmmf bmmmmf Ricoh!"
*More huge cheers*
"Mmmmmf bmmmf mmmmmf we wish we were The Jam! mmmmf bmmmmmf"
Actually, I may have made that last line up.
Credit to them, it must have been great playing for a home crowd like that, but I still prefer The Specials.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
You'll have no objection if I pry this gun from your cold, dead fingers now then?
Charlton Heston has died. Good.
Any credibility the man had as an actor was destroyed by his advocacy and links with those pseudo-survivalist psychopaths in the National Rifle Assocation.
The planet is now a fractionally safer and saner place.
Any credibility the man had as an actor was destroyed by his advocacy and links with those pseudo-survivalist psychopaths in the National Rifle Assocation.
The planet is now a fractionally safer and saner place.
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