Normal Service Will Return

Due to some real world awesomeness I have not had time to update recently, but I will soon.

Off Topic – Essential Christmas Viewing

This is utterly off topic but it’s my site and I don’t care if it does annoy any of my 10 readers.

Today I spent a great deal of time sorting through Christmas videos pulling together all the stuff for me and the kids to watch this Christmas. Now the problem is I usually leave it until early December and discover technical issues galore. So I’m getting done early this year. This led to me chatting to people asking them to guess my favourite Christmas movie. I said I should write a list of essential Christmas viewing, and someone said it’d be a good idea, so I am. It contains movies and TV. The TV is almost exclusively UK based. I grew up in the UK and the fact is UK TV still does an epic job with regards to Christmas stuff compared to the US’ pitiful excuse. When I moved to Canada I was horrified how un-Christmas-like TV was around the actual day. Oprah friggin’ Winfrey was on! So over the years I have amassed a collection of Christmas content that I dig out every year and give me the Christmas experience of when I was a kid that US TV utterly fails too.

My Christmas memories, particularly as I got older, were utterly miserable and involved me sitting alone in my bedroom contemplating suicide. It had nothing to do with not having anyone or anything like that. Just… It was like a part of me had died. I adore Christmas. Most kids do, but as I got older it seemed nobody else around me gave a damn anymore. Nobody made an effort. Given how much I love Christmas now it upsets me to think I had 15 years of crap Christmases. What a waste. Life offers us precious few good times, and I always liked Christmas to be special. I’d dress up for work, decorate my room etc… But that was it. Family didn’t bother. Friends didn’t bother. Christmas Day would be sitting around miserable, then in the evening going to a friends house and getting drunk on homemade wine, then stumbling home. Utter garbage. It was just miserable. I didn’t even care about the presents. (Of which there were none anyway.) I’d rather have a ton of decorations and festive cheer along with good festive themed TV to watch than any amount of presents. Even when it was absolute garbage, TV and film were at least there to provide an escape into the Christmas I wanted. Sadly some people don’t understand this and belittle my excitement about Christmas. Perhaps if they’d had the many garbage Christmases I’d had instead of spending them with families who actually gave a shit, they’d understand how important it is to me.

Now I have way more content than I can possibly list here, so this will just be my Essential Collection. Stuff I love to watch EVERY Christmas. (Some stuff I rotate in and out.) Some of it’s kids stuff, some isn’t. I have tried to include YouTube links. While stuff is on there now, it will be deleted at a later time probably. I have absolutely no intention of fixing this post when they do disappear, so if you’re reading this any time after mid November 2009, who knows what below will work and what won’t. It’s a magical mystery tour!

Which leads us onto the first thing. My favourite Christmas movie of all.

Elf: “You sit on a throne of lies!”

Actually hated this movie when I first saw it. It didn’t do anything for me and I found it tedious. I am not a fan of Will Ferrell and for everything he’s done that I’ve liked, I can pick two things I hated. However, this movie has a huge heart and is just such a wonderful, enjoyable movie and it won me over the following year on DVD. I now adore it. Such a wonderful story. Sure it’s cliched, but who cares? It’s got the beautiful Zooey Deschanel in it. (Who also has an incredible singing voice. Her cover of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” with Leon Redbone over the closing titles is permanently on my iPod.) Some great comedy bits. James Caan… and a comedy idol of mine BOB FREAKIN’ NEWHART! (I had an old single of “The Driving Instructor” as a kid which I played about a million times.) Plus Ed Asner is Santa.  The cast is made of win from top to bottom. I also loved how it had a happy ending. Without going into spoiler territory, all I’ll say is when we last see Buddy after everyone is singing, I assumed that was it.

Men Behaving Badly – Jingle Balls: One thing I missed when I moved to Canada was Men Behaving Badly. NBC had started their own version of the show, but due to the network’s being cowards and having to not upset the FCC, a lot of what made the show hilarious had to be removed. (Not to mention that douche Rob Schneider was in it.) Apparently masturbation jokes won’t fly on network TV in the US. Shame given the utter wank a lot of them air… HA! Anyhoo, a few years ago I was flipping through the channels here and found this Christmas special airing. I’d never seen it before so I was delighted! I then got a proper copy of the show. Fantastic. Has one of the funniest scenes in history involving a blender. I still love the line “I got a jacky from Dorothet”. I love the story. I love the segues of the ideal, dream Christmas. (See YouTube clip below.) I always watch this at least twice each holiday season. I like to try and get a viewing in late Christmas Eve if I can as well. It helps if you know the characters on the show, but comedy is comedy. The network that aired the special here never aired the rest of the show. Adult humour abounds, and it’s well worth checking out.

Nick and Noel: I discovered this on a tape my mother-in-law bought for my son in 2002, possibly 2003. It was the only thing on it and my son played it to death. It was put on loop for him and he loved it. Even long after Christmas was finished. So much so the tape wore out. The first tape I’ve ever seen that happen too. I wanted a digital copy of it after this. First I tried capturing the tape and making my own, but the tape was too far gone at that point and the audio was horrendously out of a sync. After several years I FINALLY FOUND IT! Bundled with a couple of other Christmas cartoons. Nobody cared for them, but Nick and Noel was a Christmas favourite again. The story is very sweet, about a little girl who has lost her mommy, and a dog and cat go off to find her a new mommy. Trite, stupid, and quite possibly one of the sweetest, most enjoyable Christmas cartoons ever made. And thanks to the wonders of flagrant copyright abuse here’s part 1 for you, and the rest is on YouTube as well. (Four parts in total.) I just have to hear the opening bars of the theme and I start feeling Christmassy. Enjoy!

A Garfield Christmas Special: Once I hit about 16 my parents stopped giving a damn about Christmas as I mentioned above. My parents would never decorate before the 20th even when I was a kid. Once I hit 16 decorations pretty much stopped entirely unless I did them. There were no presents. A tedious meal. In short, Christmas was an utterly miserable experience. So the opening of this was perfect for me and even when I was down on Christmas I liked the opening few minutes. Garfield utterly cynical about Christmas etc… Of course I have kids now and have rediscovered a love for Christmas. Heck, maybe Garfield is one of the reasons I came to love Christmas again. It’s overly sentimental in spots, like a lot of Christmas stuff, but it’s good old fashioned Christmas entertainment and, like Nick and Noel above, it gets played a LOT here during the run up to Christmas, and that’s alright with me. And, once again, thanks to flagrant copyright violation, it’s on YouTube in it’s entirety. (Three parts.)

Bad Santa: The first really adult fare on the list. There was Bad Santa, then there was Badder Santa which had more rude stuff in it. Then there was a directors cut which takes the movie back to how the director wanted it. Not seen that version but from what I’ve read it totally changes the tone of the film, and I’m quite happy with the tone of it as it is, so Badder Santa is the one in rotation. Billy Bob Thornton is a guy who every year with his partner is a mall Santa, and on Christmas Eve they rob the mall. Billy Bob is a drunken bum and absolutely hilarious. I won’t spoil any of the plot but it has everything. Dark humour, sex, Christmassy… Stuff. Mainly I like this movie as its Christmas themed, but without going a familiar route. Adult Christmas movies are very rare, and this one is fun viewing. Okay, so the tale of redemption is a Christmas cliche of the highest order, but hey, the movie would be a lot crappier and cynical if it didn’t have that. It’s also notable for the work of two now sadly departed comic geniuses. Bernie Mac and John Ritter.

Christmas in Wonderland: This movie has NO RIGHT WHATSOEVER to be on this list! It’s stupid, bad etc… However, it has two things that make me love it. First of all it was shot at West Edmonton Mall where I live. Okay, so I don’t live in the mall, but I live a few miles away and have spent a great deal of time there. My wife and I laughed uproariously at the first outside shot of WEM as it’s had a CG makeover to look magical. Whereas if you know the place it just looks ridiculous. The reasons it’s here, and the second and best thing about it is PATRICK SWAYZE IS IN IT! Swayze plays the Dad of the piece, and while watching the movie last year I said to my wife “You know, I’d quite happily watch a 90 minute film of Swayze Christmas shopping.” There’s a plot of stolen money. Blah blah blah… And the always lovely Tim Curry plays an idiotic Scottish RCMP officer. (The mind boggles!) The movie is bloody stupid, but if you know WEM at all it’s quite fun, and The Swayze shopping is fun to watch. It’s typical idiotic Christmas fare, very kid friendly and has a nice ending. The now sadly departed Swayze saves it from being utter garbage. Turn your brain off and it’s good clean fun, even if Leonard and Sheldon (I am amused that the bad guys share the names of the Big Bang Theory characters) are the least likable comedic criminal pairing ever.

Christmassy Ted: I was never a big fan of Father Ted. Oh sure, it’s funny, but I would never rave over it. Unlike other UK comedy stuff which I do rave over, like Spaced, Black Books, Snuff Box, Father Ted was just sort of there. The Christmas special however is a favourite of mine. It starts out with a nice Ballykissangel parody that will be utterly baffling to anyone who has never seen that show. The scene with the Catholic priests lost in “Ireland’s biggest lingerie section” is a comedy classic. Then it devolves into typical Father Ted silliness with Mrs Doyle falling down lots, and the what was a seemingly mandatory Mission Impossible reference for all shows made around this time. Not very Christmassy all things considered, but still fun. An edited version appears on TV here sometimes. Canadian TV runs more commercials than the UK, so edits had to be made to fit the show into the time slot. CBC edited the opening Ballykissangel part, which makes the later appearance of apparitions of Stephen Tompkinson and Dervla Kirwan laughing even more surreal and baffling. Once again, the whole thing appears to be on YouTube.

2 point 4 Children – Relax-ay-vous: Bitching about UK comedy seems to be a national sport in some quarters. Especially one website I used to hang out on that I realised was full of pretentious dickheads who frown upon people finding certain shows funny. Well 2 point 4 was a great show and anyone who disagrees can sod off. This Christmas special may be the high point of the show. Starts out with a great montage to Nat King Cole’s “I’m The Happiest Christmas Tree”. Then becomes one of the first mainstream shows to have a story about the Internet. It’s not entirely horrible from a technological standpoint. Then the show ends with a musical number which is also bloody funny. They did at least one other special involving a cruise ship, but it was nowhere near as good. Gary Olsen, who plays the father, sadly passed away shortly after they made a Millenium special, and the show died. He was such a loss to the comedy world. This is usually the first thing I watch at Christmas, right after I’ve put the decorations up. Probably due to the Christmas tree sequence. Once again, here it is on YouTube. At least worth it for the opening sequence after the credits. All the shows Christmas specials seem to be on YouTube as well, so that’s something I must check out!

Knowing Me, Knowing Yule: Aha… Alan Partridge with his Christmas chat show. Coogan at his finest. Just… Classic. An absolutely fine Christmas comedy tradition. Set in the style of a post Christmas party show it’s typical Partridge fare where it starts out all nice and then everything starts to go horribly wrong, including ultimately punching out the new chief commissioning editor of BBC television. Here’s a clip from the end. (I have no idea why the person who upped that then decided to do the whole thing in slow motion… Bizarre!)

National Lampoons Christmas Vacation: I saw this movie on the big screen! To show the intelligence of the big movie studios, this movie received it’s theatrical debut in the UK in the middle of July. It lasted one week. And I was one of the three people who saw it. Only added this to my Christmas rotation in the last couple of years. Damn funny film. Gets bogged down in sentimentality in spots but represents the horrors of a family Christmas quite nicely, and has some great comedic set pieces. The arrival of Randy Quaid ruins it a bit, as he does in everything, and he was always the weak link in the Vacation films, but even he can’t derail the festive feel of this film. Also includes what I think is probably Chevy Chase’s finest ever moment, linked below.

A Christmas Story: For the longest time I dismissed this film. The little clips I saw looked idiotic and I went out of my way to avoid it. I WAS A FOOL! This is a great family movie. Captures some of the excitement and expectation you experienced as a kid. (Before your friends and family ultimately ruined Christmas by not giving a shit.) Plus it’s damn funny. Amusing trivia: The kid who played Ralphie is the head elf in Elf! I don’t know why I dismissed it for so long. Probably because A) it was airing on TV, B) it had commercials in it, and C) it wasn’t shown in widescreen. I am an absolute snob when it comes to film and it has honestly been years since I watched a movie on TV as television has no respect for movies and they are routinely butchered. Glad I finally saw the light with this movie and picked it up.

Scrooged: Amusingly both Chevy Chase and Bill Murray are on my list, despite both, from what I’ve read and heard, being assholes in every day life. Whatever, they’re bloody funny assholes! If you’ve somehow never heard of or seen this film, you’re missing out on possibly the best updating of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” ever made. My favourite part involves the lovely Carol Kane as the Ghost of Christmas Present, and a toaster. It is, of course, the usual Christmas Carol story, but given a nice twist, and Murray is always comedy gold. Or at least was back then. Also Bobcat Goldthwait turns in a great performance. However it is the aforementioned lovely, beautiful Carol Kane who I love in this as the sadistic ghost. God she’s awesome! I usually watch this nearer Christmas Eve for obvious reasons.

So there you go. Some essential Christmas viewing for you. There is a TON of other stuff I routinely watch. Lots of stuff isn’t commercially available and comes from bootlegs. Old UK Christmas stuff etc… Plus there’s stuff that I like that ONLY I like really due to sentimental reasons etc… Then there’s stuff like Die Hard which is set at Christmas but isn’t really Christmassy as such.

And finally, there’s this. My wife described it best when she said I like to shock people. I posted that link before on a message board, and despite warning it was disturbing, people actually got angry with me for posting it and yelled at me, despite the fact that was ALL I did. I mean it’s not like I made it! I love how most people believe they can’t be offended, are easy going etc… And all it takes is one video for them to get abusive and angry. I was expecting the shock. I wasn’t expecting the anger. “I’m angry because I clicked a link you warned me was disturbing.” So click on that link at your peril, and don’t yell at me. Share the love and spread it elsewhere so you can have people shocked and disturbed and yell at you.

This is regular Christmas viewing for me at least a few times. There is so much going on. Is it a comment on the commercialisation of Christmas? The abusive relationship of mythical Christmas creatures? Hell, is it even pro breast feeding? I just don’t know. But I find it darkly fascinating and I hope one day to discover what it’s trying to say, like some sort of cryptogram, assuming it IS making a statement and not just trying to shock.

But then I always was a fan of stuff that makes me go “What the HELL?!”

Merry Christmas.

Modern Warfare 2 (Updated)

I am SO BLOODY SICK of the endless hyperbole and hype about this bloody game. Activision can suck it. They jacked the price up for this for no discernible reason. They’re greedy, and creatively bankrupt.

I’m sick of the media hype about the violence and the terrorist level.

I’m sick of fanboys.

I’m sick of the world acting like this is the only game made in the last year.

So outside of this post I will not be mentioning Modern Warfare 2 ever again, because I hate hype and greed.

I’ve seen video of the terrorist level. You can see it here.

This is what I just said about it on Rock Paper Shotgun.

Activision need to be shot for “that level”. And no, not for why you think.

This industry has struggled for respectability for years. Every time some idiot shoots up a school it turns out he’s played video games and they get tarnished. As gamers we’ve struggled so long to be accepted as legitimate entertainment.

So in one fell swoop, Activision have set the game industry back ten bloody years, just because some idiot suit at Activision thinks controversy makes for good publicity. (Saw the video on Destructoid.) For the sake of a quick buck, Activision have sacrificed the industry, and you can bet that if somebody who can be shown to have played this shoots up a public place, goodbye ESRB, as Activision just did your legs and now the government WILL be involved in ratings.

Well thanks a lot, jackasses. Perhaps you should have stopped to think “Okay, how can we tell this story without feeding the fire that condemns the industry? How can we benefit the industry here and not create problems down the line?” But no, they took the greedy way out and went for cheap controversy and have done immense damage to the industry. The effects won’t be felt now, but you can be damn sure down the road, they will be.

As for the game, fuck Activision. They can keep this overly hyped cumshot of a game.

When an enemy is shooting at you, you don’t hand them ammunition.

Floor 13 AAR – The Final Attempt – Part 1

So here we are again, on Floor 13. This time I’m using the PC version. The Amiga version was slow due to the floppy disk emulation and all versions you can find online are broken. The PC version will hopefully be more reliable.

I am going to write this up in multiple parts as I’m hoping this will continue for a while and I will not wind up being hurled out the window.

My first proper day in the office I learn that a known European terrorist named Mr Ludo Weiss has been seen crossing into the mainland from Ireland. He hasn’t been active in over a year but has been linked to many groups. Given the debacle with Bill in the previous aborted game I decide this time I will put him under surveillance, have him followed, and discretely search his residence.

I admit I did toy the with the idea of just having him killed right away. Perhaps in a future AAR I will go nuts and just have everyone killed.  See how long I can last. This time, however, it’s a proper play through.

There is a news story related to the murder of a woman found near the home of The Duke of Avon. I decide to take the same course of action and have him watched, followed and discretely searched.

I also order the Old Docks where the body was found ransacked and searched.

I sign off on the days orders and go home, putting my faith in the PC version of my “job” to not go wrong and the only “crash” being me going through the glass of my office windows as I’m “retired” eventually.

The next days news brings a police inspector denying rumours that he’s concerned about the President’s son attending Cambridge. Said inspector also denies drafting a letter of resignation. This seems simple enough. Which of course means I’ll ignore him and he’ll probably turn out to be a serial murderer with a penchant for one legged Belgian prostitutes. As a precaution I order him watched and followed.

Aha! Our first surveillance report on The Duke of Avon. At 11:48pm he entered the Old Docks and left at 12:34am. Covering his tracks perhaps? Or perhaps out for an innocent stroll in the night air.

January 5th. Telephone message. “The PM will see you tomorrow morning.” EEP!

First report has the surveillance of Ludo Weiss. His home is searched during the surveillance. Did we find anything?

Nope. Not a bean. No C4 or Semtex either. Annoying.

Next up is an MI5 intercept. Mr Jim Mullins is under surveillance and forces will be ready to catch him “red handed” when he makes his drug delivery for the INLA drug ring. (In this game the INLA are akin to the IRA.) My report indicates he’s insignificant. I decide to let him slide as my operatives are in action elsewhere, and barring a major turnaround, he’s a small fish in a very big pond. I do, however, send 10 operatives to infiltrate the INLA.

The search report of the Old Docks turns up. They found a champagne cork. Great work there lads!

I turn the page… OH CRAP! I have a serial killer on my hands. Another body has been found at the Old Docks! There’s a dead body. All my guys found was a cork. We’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and believe they searched before the body was dumped.

Now I’m fairly certain I ordered The Duke of Avon pursued. Yet I have received no reports of his actions. He went to the Old Docks. Now a corpse has turned up there. Hmm…

Political damage is “CONSIDERABLE”. Oh bugger. PM will be pleased I’m sure. Is it too much to jump to the conclusion that the “Docks Ripper” as The Star are calling him is the Duke? I stare at my options for dealing with the Duke. Is he the killer? If I make a mistake here, another woman could die. If I act rashly, an innocent man may lose his life. I decide to order his home ransacked in a search for clues. I’m told it will take 3 days to plan due to the possibility of good security.

Three days. Three nights on which the “Docks Ripper” could kill again.

I sign the order and leave, wondering if I have done the right thing…

To Be Continued…

Floor 13 AAR – Take Two (Which ended with another crash)

A new copy has been found. As I write this, I have no idea if it’s going to work correctly, but here we go anyway.

Addendum: Sadly this version was bugged as well and crashed. I will try this a third time soon as I have the PC version to run in DosBOX which will hopefully be more successful. If you read the AAR you can see why I’m especially frustrated by this one.

Incidentally, I found the game actually has a fan site! Nice to know I’m not alone in remembering the game fondly. It’s one of those games that it seems almost nobody has heard of, which given it’s unique style and content (shady government agencies from a time BEFORE The X Files) is a surprise.

Of course maybe it isn’t, as unimaginative titles that pander to the masses always last while the truly unique leave almost no trace, which is the real tragedy.

So, I put on my suit and tie, and hope to avoid defenestration (and game ending errors) as I approach my new job (for the second time) at the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.

It’s New Years Day. I arrive at my office. The only report is that the Prime Minister will see me tomorrow. Then we’re shown the current polls. If we wish to avoid being put through a window in our tall office building, we must make sure the public are not displeased. For a displeased public means a displeased PM, and a displeased PM means flying lessons for yours truly.

I have 3 weeks until the PM next wants to see me. Of course if I do something very good or very bad before then, he’ll haul me in.

Let’s find out who the first bane of my existence will be.

First report is of a pitbull ripping a pensioner to pieces. A “devil dog” attack as the media would most likely brand it. Whatever.

Ah, the good stuff. An intercepted Soviet spy satellite tranmission has the Soviet’s watching a Carribean (sic) bank and unable to trace the funds of one Bill F. MWAHAA! Let’s have a little surveillance on Bill F shall we. Reports indicate he’s associated with the mafia. Well well well…

I sign the order for surveillance and leave my office. Yes, it’s a busy life here at the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.

January 4th, and I’ve still not screwed up enough to be defenestrated. Hurray!

Today’s carnival of darkness has Lee H threatening to start vigilante action against dog owners. Amusingly his official file has “Synopsis: Dog Hater” written on it. HAHA! Now what to do? I think a little smear will do, so I contact my operatives and order some dis-information be put out about him. That should shut him up. I debate having him killed, but that seems a little hardcore. Perhaps if the smear campaign fails to shut him up.

January 7th rolls around.

Interesting. Bill F’s company has suffered a stock market slump due to a US investigation into his affairs. As he’s a government supporter this is mildly damaging, but I think we’ll just leave the surveillance for now.

Today’s busy day involved reading a one page report on Bill F’s stock and that was it. I like this job.

Next day Vigilante Inc., the dog haters, attack some dogs and their owners.  The political damage is, apparently, “negligible”. HAHA!

To be safe though, I send 10 agents to infiltrate the group.

The following day all mention of Lee H and Vigilante Inc. are removed from my files. Quite where this leaves my ten agents I’m not sure.

Unlike the previous aborted game, there is no big political threat looming yet, meaning I can probably avoid taking a swift trip through the window for at least another week.

Ten days in. Not dead yet.

My enthusiasm is tempered somewhat by a note informing me the PM will see me tomorrow and is in a fit and I should prepare to be “roasted”. Hoping this is a metaphor.

I cautiously open the days reports and see what the problem is. Bill F, that noted government supporter has had his accounts and assets frozen. Political damage is “mounting”. Now we have a dilemma.

If I have him killed and make him go away, that will look very suspicious. I could make him merely disappear and take him into custody myself. The problem there is he still doesn’t go away. I can’t discredit him as that will damage the government. Watching him is clearly pointless.

I decide to haul Bill F in for a little light “questioning”. Unfortunately they tell me it will take 4 days to pull this off. Who knows WHAT chaos the man could cause by then. I reluctantly decide to order Bill “removed”, well aware of the suspicion that will surround such an act. I should have acted earlier and had him dealt with more severely after the Soviet communication we intercepted. I played it softly when I should have played it hard.

I sign the order requesting Bill F’s termination.

After the heavy nature of that, the next report is about some whining lefty named Daniel who wants London a nuclear free zone. As I have the forms in front of me I debate setting up a two for one deal. Instead I opt to let the story slide. The damage is minor and requires a train being diverted. Nothing bad could possibly happen from leaving this alone… Given the Bill F matter and how it got out of a hand I decide to order a discrete search of Daniel’s home in the hope of finding some corpses or some farm animals in his wardrobe.

I go home to a stiff drink.

I say hello to the stiff drink.

I awake prepared to have myself torn a new one by the PM.

My job is to keep the great unwashed from learning of government mistakes. GET THIS SORTED NOW!

I arrive at my office to discover the window open. Disconcerting.

The days newspapers are alight with speculation of Bill’s relationship with the government. The political damage is considerable.

I count the days left until his “removal”.

And that’s when the game crashed. Tried reloading but the same error every time.

Third time lucky with the PC version I hope.

Revisiting the Classics: Floor 13 – An After Action Report

Floor 13 was a game created in the early 90’s where you are the minister in charge of a shady government agency and “retirement” means being defenestrated.

After reading this thread I was reminded of Floor 13 and hunted it down for the Amiga emulator and fired it up. Sadly while I COULD provide screen shots, there is very little point given the game is almost entirely text based. What follows is a detailed account of my time at the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.

There is a random element to the game so no two games are alike, and this run apparently was the turn of Albanian’s to get angry with me. First a notable Albanian condemned our capitalist society, so the Home Office asked him to leave. I discredited him by having the papers report that he had been involved with an armed robbery.

The Prime Minister liked that.

Then an Albanian extremist organization condemned me again. So I smeared them by having the papers say they’d dumped toxic waste on a beach. (I just told my guys to discredit them. I had no say in how.)

The Prime Minister liked that as well as it killed the story. A happy Prime Minister means no trip out of a window for me any time soon. Well, for today anyway.

Then the animal liberation people started a campaign against a professor experimenting on animals. Political damage was minor, but every few days the organization would make more allegations against the professor and the damage started to mount. I debated how best to handle the situation and made a decision.

I ordered the professor killed.

It didn’t work however. Just can’t get the staff these days it would seem. All my operatives succeeded in doing was putting the good Professor into a coma. I’d call that a moderate win however. The following day I arrive to find an intercepted communication on my desk. Three special branch officers had been killed at a Chinese restaurant. I ordered discrete searching.

The following day, January 20th, I’m told all mentions of the animal liberation group and the professor have been removed from the archives. So clearly I must have dealt with the situation. It’s a shame I had to try and kill him, but if you try and insert obscene things into ferrets, well then you made your lifestyle choice a long time ago and must face the consequences.

Then, unfortunately, the game must have been badly cracked or something as the game died with an error about missing files. *sob*

So we will return to Floor 13 another time, once I find a decent working copy. Very disappointed, but my brief time was enjoyable and I will seek out a properly working copy as I had far too much fun.

Gaming in anger

Had a migraine floating around for 2-3 days now which has limited my gaming, though do plan to start a regular series talking about what I’ve been playing.

Just wanted to update and say perhaps it’s the migraine, but the gaming industry is pissing me off. Yeah, nothing new. Dragon Age has released. Yet another game with DLC the day it was released. What makes this all the more galling is Bioware are a source of pride where I live as they’re a local company, and it’s irritating to see them pulling this stunt. I mean at least with Neverwinter Nights they put out proper expansions. Now it’s the old “Oh, you’ve just paid full price. Here’s some stuff we pulled off the disk so we could gouge you even more.”

Add Bioware to the list of companies I’ll no longer financially support.

I also read over at the mighty Rock, Paper, Shotgun that Sony are working on a Magic: The Gathering MMO. Yes, not content with grinding out cards at ludicrous prices, Wizards are now whoring their second biggest IP into the MMO clicheverse. The question I have to ask is… Why? (Obvious greed not withstanding.)

The entire joy of Magic is hurling cards around and making flying Mountain Goats to send to their doom. Not sure quite how well that would work in the MMO format.

Anyway, I’ll be back later in the week probably. Now I have to go back to Liberty City and wreak some havoc.

Censorship and idiot design decisions

So to follow up on my earlier article about Left 4 Dead 2 being censored, we have this video, comparing the Australian version vs the uncut version.

Now while the censored version is idiotic, the uncut is equally so.

The blood splattering the screen is completely ridiculous. It’s like in race sims where you crest a hill and see a lens flare. THE HUMAN EYE does not cause lens flares. It’s a stupid graphical trick that looks cool but is utterly unrealistic and gives the impression you’re watching through a camera rather than an active participant in the world.

The blood splattering the screen is ridiculous for that very reason. Do me a favour. Go into your kitchen or bathroom, fill your hands with water and throw it in your face. What happens? Your vision is obscured, you have to blink lots. THAT is what happens when invasive fluid hits the human eye.

It’s an increasing trend in violent movies to splatter the camera with blood. The criminally underrated Shoot ‘Em Up being an immediate example. (I watched it again the other day so it’s fresh in my mind.) It’s a cheesy gimmick, but when you’re obviously only passively involved in events, it’s forgivable.

Which brings us back to L4D2. The blood splatters are illogical and make no sense. That amount of blood, if they really insist on doing it, should obscure your vision. All that blood flying around like some sort of crimson shower would get in your eyes. However it seemingly does not have that effect. It just splatters the “camera” through which you are participating, thus removing you from the reality, which is an odd choice as unlike movies you are directly controlling a character and participating in the universe. Which leads us to the other idiocy of this design decision.

You’re killing humans who have been infected by an unknown contagion. (We’ll save the discussion on whether they can actually be classified as zombies for another time.) So of course the one thing you want to do with an infected individual is COVER YOURSELVES IN THEIR INFECTED BODILY FLUIDS BY HACKING AT THEM WITH A SWORD!

Melee in the first L4D made sense. You hit them with your gun. This was realistic. If you’re being charged by a horde of slavering infected beasts and can’t fire, once they’re on top of you it stands to reason that you have very little to lose by smashing them in the face with your gun to try and get them away from you. Fair enough.

This latest one though, actively choosing weapons that will cause infected material to splatter god knows where is ridiculous from a realism perspective. Yes, I realise arguing on the realism of a zombie game seems somewhat far fetched, but the fact is if they want to be that graphic and make the game immersive, which they surely do, then they should consider the logic and intelligence of the situation.

Just like in movies, you need a certain suspension of disbelief, and it’s jarring when characters do something utterly stupid or something else pulls you out of the reality crafted on screen. In the case of this game, even if I did plan to buy it, seeing that ridiculous effect would kill any interest in the game.

In the universe of Left 4 Dead 2, an infection has contaminated a large portion of the population. To see survivors hacking and slashing and spraying themselves with infected material with scant regard for the consequences?

Let’s face it. They deserve to be left 4 dead.

Goodness comes cheap!

Courtesy of the fine folks at the second best named game blog, that being Rock Paper Shotgun, I discovered that this week, on Steam, the lovely STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl is a mere $5! Until November 2nd. Then it’s $20 again.

The game is not without it’s flaws, but that is a tremendous price for such an ambitious and atmospheric game. Go and buy it, right now.

Well it’s about time!

Just received the email telling me my Super Duper All Singing All Dancing Collectors Edition of Forza Motorsport 3 has shipped.

I am excited, and due to express shipping it should be here on release day.

That being the US release day, the 27th of October. Inexplicably the rest of the world got it on the 23rd. I bothered Turn 10 on their Twitter feed, but received no reply as to why their home market had to wait longer than the rest of the planet.

Still, very excited. Getting an Xbox this year was a great idea. Will write more on my precious at a later date, but so far this year the only games I’ve been excited for have been Xbox 360 titles. Biggest was probably Halo ODST (again, more on that a later date, and I have lots to say), though I expect Forza to wind up being my game of the year.

If you’re new to reading the blog, it’s still pretty new, so please stick around. I am occasionally interesting.