Ian

THEPLAYER's Podcast

Piracy

For 2007's final blast, Dean, H and Mike attempt keen, planet-shattering insight, tackling LucasArts' Monkey Island adventures, in what's feared to be the first in a series of examinations of memorable or even Important videogames.

In practice, this seems to involve firing off "like" and "y'know", like, a lot. Y'know.

All aboard for boyish enthusiasm, nostalgia, and the usual levels of swearing, teasing and reckless superlatives we hope audiences have come to expect, and perhaps even enjoy.

A merry festival-of-choice to all.

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Tracklist:

Pixies - Isla De Encanta
Tom Tom Club - Wordy Rappinghood

BGM:

Frank Zappa - The Gumbo Variations
Santana - Incident At Neshabur
LTJ Bukem - Unconditional Love

Katie

Screenwipe

If I were to be supremely condemnatory, I’d go so far as to describe the screenshot as almost entirely irrelevant. Next to a newly-released "artist’s rendition" of the new Nintendo console and Take 2’s expertly crafted fiascos, there’s nothing quite so effective in throwing our video gaming selves into a flurry of judgemental internet-based frothing. Be it in support or, more often, anger, saliva and screenshots play a crucial part in our very initial commentary on the latest news. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable when I ask "why?"

You could argue that they present expecting excitables with a more definitive definition of the game, a form in which they could take the hyperbole and sometimes excessive floral detailing of previews and press releases into a single designation – pictures say a thousand words or something. They allow you to forge a more concise interpretation of the game’s atmosphere that could never really be justified in literary terms. Just one of the many inadequacies of the lineal medium, author Harlan Ellison would oft-complain and I agree. Just how many words would it take to literate a thousand pictures?

But that’s what the promotional art is for. Often more impressive, elaborate, more revealing of the tone and palette, more demonstrative of the characters without the restrictions of polygons and in-game angles which are never viewed when you’re actually playing the game, more creative with the gimmicks and features of the title than a checklist and a montage of the same sprite in different colours, just this pure distilled expression of what the game is about. You only need to look at Akihiko Yoshida’s awe-inspiring cover art for Vagrant Story or the elegant melodrama of the Castlevania artwork. Screenshots will never be able to compete.

If you want straight information on the game, if you want to know how it will play, how you’ll feel when you’re gripping the joypad between your digits with eyes focused solely on the screen in front then what better source than interviews with the creators? To be able to gather the information straight from the horse’s mouth without the unavoidable and sometimes unnoticeable alterations your verbose publications will employ. If Yoshinori Ono says Street Fighter 4 will be more orientated towards attacking then defence then chances are it will be. You’ll learn more through the man’s horse-mouth words than the in-game facial expressions between Ryu and Ken. Screenshots will never be able to compete.

Or so they shouldn’t but they do. We lust after them like hungry pack wolves, huddled together in the bleakest and brightest corridors of the internet, waiting impatiently at every announcement or arranged event, journalists live-blogging with hunched obsessives bathed in the flickering glow of their monitors clicking the ‘refresh’ button every half-second for that first stealing glimpse. And we’re always playing Goldilocks, that glimpse is always too hot or too cold, there’s always an issue with the detailing of the laser beam (Halo 3) or the re-use of GBA sprites (Final Fantasy Tactics A2) or complaining about the complete change in art direction (Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker). And we’re near always wrong – Halo 3 was in beta at the time and now looks incredible, Tactics A2 does not re-use GBA sprites and looks incredible and Wind Waker is now remembered as one of the most visually charming titles in the series and looks incredible.

A screenshot is not news, there is very little to feast on after the dust has settled and flamboyant raging arguments have subsided until you realise, dust down, you’ve been mauling each other over very little meat indeed while the cunning bugger in the corner’s merrily chomping on Kojima’s announcement that Metal Gear Solid 4 has dirty magazines in it. No one looks back and says "oh, didn’t that screenshot look just dreamy?" No, we look back and furiously masturbate over Yoshida’s perfectly pornographic paintwork or raise a glass to celebrate that Phantom Hourglass looks just like Wind Waker. That’s how it should be from the start. That is what we should be able to recognise and appreciate, to discuss and debate without tripping into pitfalls left for us in the form of mildly pretty (or not) stills, without the need or desire to desperately detail every ridiculous aspect of a product which will look entirely different when in motion.

Katie

Acute Issue
I’ll start and end on personal notes. I’m going to be presumptuous and state that unlike the other more-talented The Player folk, I like video games innocence. Which is nothing like reality innocence, which might see Little Timmy feel comfortable happy-slapping his grampappy ‘til he turned more blind if it meant getting a guest spot on Little Big Brother or something, I don’t know.

No, video games innocence, to me, is something mysterious and heartening and, perhaps most of all, overpowering. It’s that literally magical (it could only be magical, there’s no other explanation I’m willing to accept) quality often attached to thin-faced, big eyed leads in [mostly Nip] games that seems to make them oh so amiable. That quality which sees the special fourteen-year-old salvation inevitably carve a monster count in the hundreds whilst minding his P’s and Q’s and generally being awful trusting of everyone. Especially his silver haired older best friend who shows up halfway through dressed entirely in black who is later revealed in the guide book to wield a sword titled "The Traitor" or so.

Why, when Sora is whisked away from his luxury tropical island home, given a giant key and told he must save several universes and remains chirpy throughout, I’m astonished I’m not violently sick. When Marche wakes in the middle of the street to find his town has changed into the kingdom of Ivalice before being challenged to a punch-up by bipedal lizards with only "a stuffed toy?" for help, I’m not switching off, refusing to accept the notion that children could do anything besides swear profusely before flipping fingers and fucking off for a shoplift.

I’m not convinced it’s necessary. Kingdom Hearts is often criticised for being inherently Disney in tone, with fans eager to celebrate the loss of primary colours with each new secret ending and trailer released and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, despite the Japanese version handling issues such as alcoholism that Westerners don’t or shouldn’t know about, is occasionally dismissed by fanatics politely requesting the same degree of discreet storytelling PS1 Tactics produced.

They certainly aren’t aspiration, they haven’t promoted a generation of ever-hugging lovey pillocks floating through their lives with a smile and generosity poring out of every slimy orifice they possess, because (and I’ll continue to be presumptuous, hopefully with your blessing) most people who find themselves attached to these kind of leads are whining teenage pillocks moping through their lives with headphones in, frowns out and a thin slathering of oil poring out of every slimy orifice.

This in an entertainment format which eagerly produces pop icons out of spikey-haired grumpy sods with oversized weaponry in secret military groups made up of the emotionally unstable, gun-wielding big titted posh totty and butch, faceless ugly-shade-of-green space marines who clearly has a black man’s voice because they sound the coolest (this is a lie, by the way, the voice actor’s white). I’d hesitate to compare the excesses of fanart dedicated to each in some gruesome competition to demonstrate their popularity, if only due to my pronounced dislike of fanart and this isn’t GameFAQs, for God’s sake.

If we wanted to place a single word description, I would happily nominate ‘infectious.' Irrationally and unfairly unexpectedly so. Like a plague or an irritatingly catchy pop song that makes you consider murder/ suicide pacts to end the pain. But like Take That and the bubonic, you’re not sightless to the simpering stupidity, the excessive and unimaginably moronic dialogue, the unappealing stereotypes and often-accompanying Massive Damage (sorry) barrage of fantasy terminology, followed by more unimaginably moronic explanations again-oft surrounding a ridiculous recipe of amnesia, trust to the point of ignorance and the inevitable betrayal you saw just by their dress sense on the back of the box.

It doesn’t matter though. I forgive it. Stupid, moronic, unappealing, stereotypical and unexplainable but I, for one, am damn grateful for it. Because when you’ve got the Player furiously jacking off to Angelina Jolie’s digital rendition and Steve Downes’ sultry tones bringing the most ridiculously uncharismatic video game lead in decades to slighting popularity, I’ll happily entertain the notion that somewhere, imaginary sweetheart teenagers can save the world with insipid ear-reaching smiles, and me along with them. The happy little fucks.

Gonzo

Spike TV Awards, Get the Fuck Out.


It's not that Spike TV made Bioshock their Game of the Year- that accolade was entirely justified, if you ask me- it's the sheer embarassment of the categories that gets me.

I mean, what must Samuel L Jackson have thought, privately, at the following list?

Best shooter; Best action game (which was won by, er, Mario Galaxy...); Best rhythm game; Best RPG; Best driving game; Best military game; Best graphics; Breakthrough technology; Best PS3 game (easiest...category... everrr); Best Wii game; Best Xbox 360 game; Best PC game; Best individual sports game Best team sports game(Oh for FUCK's Sake); Best handheld game; Best game based on a movie or TV show; Best soundtrack; Best original score; Best multiplayer game;

and... wait for it: "Most addictive game": Halo 3.

This is so grating for anyone who takes games semi-seriously, like yours truly (yeah, I know I shouldn't, but I do). The smartest game in a long time (that's bioshock BTW okay no STFU you know nothing) gets recognition from... yet another dumb "awards show".

I'm not even railing at the PR-coloured tint of these awards shows- after all, most movie, TV, and music industry awards perform much the same function. It's just that only in videogames will you find quite so shameless a saturation of categories Just To Please Everybody. Action, Shooter, and Military game make three categories out of what should only be one. Best Score and Best Soundtrack, Individual sports and team sports. Seriously, now, what?

I'm not even that bothered by the patent nonsense thrown up by the results. Bioshock , out on 360 and PC, is GOTY without being the best shooter or the best action game. It's not the most addictive game either. While it is the best game on 360, you'll notice that The Orange Box is the better PC game - though somehow not quite Game of the Year for it.

The real issue is why each genre must have an award. What's wrong with games getting recognised for Script, Score, Art Direction(photography), Original Game Design, Technological Achievement (Special Effects) and, I don't know, Sound Effects. All the important constituant parts of a good game. Pick out one shorty and an independent out of the bunch, and turn the travesty that is "Game of the Year" into a recognisable achievement for any Project Lead for how his game fared against criteria like polish, production values, voice acting, completeness of experience and the like.

Then we could stop arguing about the categories so much, and start railing against the divvies who have Bioshock picked for most of these new & improved award categories. I'd definitely be one of them. In fact, maybe I should start the "Gonzo" awards. Yes, as a matter of fact I will.

THE GONZO FATWA AWARDS 2007, Coming Soon, with Special Guests Salman Rushdie, Suzi Quatro and my Mom.

Chris W

Final Fantasy III
Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix / Matrix Software
Platform: DS
Available: Now

A question for you, Players: what is a remake? It seems obvious enough, but I bet you can’t pin it down in a few words. Let’s work it out together.

Clearly, a mere port of a title to a new platform won’t cut it. Adding new characters or dungeons, tweaking item drops or stats is closer, but we’re still talking ‘enhanced’ rather than a remake. No, something needs to be reworked substantially to earn the title; a redesign for a new generation. So let’s rephrase the question: which aspects do we have to redesign? Is a graphical overhaul enough, or should something more fundamental be addressed? Does it depend on the innards of the target machine? Or on those of the game?

There are two core elements that comprise each Final Fantasy title: the story (or characters), and the battle system. And here, by so sumptuously, so lavishly overhauling the presentation, that first aspect has without doubt been addressed and remade gloriously. It’s sometimes said there are only seven stories in the world, and to retell this one in such opulent fashion is surely as good as you can get without rewriting the narrative afresh - which would essentially create a new FF game, not a remake.

All of which makes it so stupefying that the combat system remains a relic of the past. Hear this: your team’s actions must be decided upon before each round begins, but then play order - both yours and the enemy’s - is completely random. Consequently, if one character takes heavy damage you have the choice of a) assigning one person to do the healing and hoping he or she gets in there before the victim is killed, or b) assigning everyone to healing and squandering three turns (and hoping the enemy doesn’t get the first move, killing the casualty anyway). Forget all you’ve learned about Final Fantasy in the last decade and a half, because any strategy you can come up with here is necessarily and critically compromised by a reliance on dumb luck. Taking the active battle system from any subsequent game, hell, just giving everyone a Speed stat would have made a world of difference. But no.

When I buy a remake, I’m not interested in the ‘charm’ of the old-school experience. There are updates and ports which manage that without pretense, and enhancements that get a dab of polish and minor tweaking with no duplicity as to their lack of modern credentials underneath. But crucially, this isn’t a simple lick of paint, and the sheer magnitude of effort that’s gone into making this look and sound so wonderful, without ever addressing what makes the game tick, creates grave doubts over who Square Enix are trying to fool: us or themselves. Final Fantasy has long been their flagship audiographical series - compare the beautiful but less mainstream splendour of Dragon Quest VIII’s cartoon appeal - but this reliance on sensory updates above all else must be a cause for concern, and when the series is now consuming its past just as visibly as its present, it can only bode ill for the future.

Summary:

The most technologically impressive show yet seen from the DS, coupled to the most decrepit gameplay mechanic. Fans of the series will adore it, but Pokémon’s battle system craps all over this, for Christ’s sake.

Ian

Blazing Angels 2: Secret Missions Of WWII

War is hell, obviously and the Second World War was more hellish than most. If the endless procession of WWII shooters have taught us nothing (and they haven't) it's that watching your best friend being torn apart by machinegun fire on the beaches of Normandy is a real bitch. But seen from the skies WWII actually becomes quite a jolly experience. That's certainly the picture Ubisoft paint in this rather excellent WWII fighter-pilot game. You'll often find your wingmen having a spot of friendly banter on the radio as you team up with them to bring down a squadron of Heinkel's. You can almost imagine them supping a nice cup of Earl Gray in the cockpit as they zoom down upon the unsuspecting Jerries, guns blazing.

Re-living the aerial battles of WWII virtually is something I'm rather pathetically interested in, purely because my Grandad was in the RAF and used to keep me amused as a young child with stories of the dare-devil adventures of various squadrons. These stories fired my imagination and like many young boys before me I felt impelled to take to the skies over Europe and wage a bitter and bloody air-war against the Germans. The beaurocrats of the private-pilot's licence board stopped me from putting my plan into action in real life so now console based aviation-apocalypse is all that's left to me. Of course, as I got a bit older I began to realise that most of my Grandad's stories had been made up purely to see the shock and enjoyment in my cherubic little face.

Blazing Angels 2 takes a similar over-the-top view of the WWII air-campaign to my Grandad, it's the videogame equivalent of swooping your hand around infront of you like a small plane and making machine gun noises. Realism is thankfully thrown out the window fairly early on, one mission sees you attacking a giant Zeppelin which is also being used as a floating aircraft hanger. Which is completely not made up and utterly plausible. It looks ace as well. Slowly the game introduces those favourites of the History channel, the secret Luftwaffe weapons "that would have swung the war Adolf's way if only the Nazi's could manufacture enough of them". They all look suitably cool and exciting and a hell of a lot better than the History Channel's own pathetic computer mock-up's of them (tune in any night of the week to see a huge selection of Secret Nazi War Weapon-type programs)

The gameplay is equally satisfying, although obviously leaning towards to more arcade side of the gaming spectrum. Thankfully. Controls are easy to get to grips with and provide plenty of opportunities for mad loop-the-loops and other crazy flying fun. The levels feature some nice 'stunt' bonus areas to show your skills off too, places such as underneath the arches of a river-bridge or between the legs of the Eiffel Tower. Like I said, realism is kept at a distance. The combat is also more 'hands on' and visceral than most other flight-sim cum shooters, there's always a huge numbers of targets and bonus targets around you which makes the levels feel more like a random war zone than an on-rails borefest. Let's face it, shooting down an enemy bomber with a machine gun is always more enjoyable than just spotting him on your radar and locking on from ten miles away with your missiles. You also get a bit of radio-banter from the cheeky Nazi's telling you how they're gonna shoot you down, and how the Nazi's are bound to win the war - it's like a 1940's version of the pre-match wrestling interviews. More german wrestlers is a must, if you ask me.

The very best thing about this game is the fact that I picked it up for next to nothing. Going cheap it was, probably to make way for the stream of big-hitting Christmas blockbusters. Cheers industry. It's also fairly short and sweet meaning that I can complete it whilst waiting for those afore-mentioned blockbusters to be reduced and flogged off cheap themselves. Which should be any time around early January.

mike

The Player Podcast: November 07 #1

THEPLAYER's Podcast

Disgrace

Prised at last from the the fuzzy arms of limbo, Mike, H and the ever-decadent Gonzo return to your Internet, pondering cheating in videogames, the sheer evils of feminism, and revealing an ugly truth or two about the Gamesmaster Channel 4 TV show.

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Tracklist:

Martha and the Muffins - What People Do For Fun
Aretha Franklin - Respect

BGM:

Royal Nightclub - Welcome Back, Robin
Ride - OX4
Eddie Hazel - What It About

For the socially inclined, the following Player groups exist for your entertainment:

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Visit The Player at: http://www.the-playermagazine.com

mike

Scout Niblett feat. Bonnie Prince Billy

What a song, peeps. Digest, consume, enjoy. If you can say you've heard a better song than this over the last year you are either (a) lying (b) not lying and, as a result, are, in fact, telling the truth.

If (a), lol pwned.

If (b), gimme, yo!

Ian

Everybody's Tennis

Developer: Clap Hanz
Publisher: Sony
Release Date: Before The Great War
Format: PS2


Charm. It's probably the first thing you think of when musing on Clap Hanz Everybody's series of Golf, and now Tennis games. It's more of a bumbling amateur's charm rather than a slick Tom Cruise on Oprah kind of charm. Cute little fellows engaging in the popular sport of ruining a good walk. Golf is a game I have little time for in real life, yet in videogame terms it's something of a favourite genre. Ditto tennis, the prospect of sitting down and watching a real-life tennis match fills me with displeasure (although that could be due to the constant threat of Sir Cliff breaking into an impromptu medley) yet throughout gaming history there's always been a tennis game that captured my attention. I just love wacking those balls around.
Now that Wimbledon is upon us, [when the fuck was this review written? -Ed] it's the perfect time for staying indoors playing tennis games and not actually watching any of it at all. Everybody's Tennis does the job with few real fuckups. It's not new, fresh or particularly beautiful but it plays a good game. Timing is the key here, unlike Virtua Tennis where you can press a button early to gain more power, in ET you have to time your shots just right - hit it too early or too late and accuracy and power suffer, but time it perfectly and a simple defensive slice can be powered across court for a winner.
Presentation is up to scratch and typically cute and loveable. Jaunty theme music tootles about in the background as you play and the characters are lovingly modelled into just the right type of big-headed anime sweetness. The voice acting is rather duff but other than that everything looks and sounds as it should. In terms of the competition, it's far more Super Tennis than Top Spin.
The only real flaw is the fact that Challenge Mode (the main single player mode) is less than challenging, it's a piece of piss infact. I completed it within a week, and I'm rubbish at games. But it was a very enjoyable week. A solid first serve for Clap Hanz

Obligitory Summing-Up Box

Compared to the next-gen might of Virtua Tennis 3 it all looks rather pathetic, but does Virtua Tennis allow you to throw down a 500mph serve with a T. Hawk inspired Mexican in a poncho? Think about it.

Gonzo

The Player Fatwas Vol.1: Franchise.


It's nearly 4PM and I am swamped by work; important things at stake like some dude's life if he gets deported, but everybody needs a break, and I need more than most. Perusing gameindustry.biz mindlessly, as i do, I come across Sierra's Martin Tremblay pontificating about how his company's got the oevas to be different and publish more than its fair share of original IPs. I also notice that Take 2 has started to "float" the prospect of a Bioshock sequel.

What's an original IP to you? The chance for something new, original? A fresh experience which might floor you with its brilliance, rather than that same-but-better affair you tend to buy on a regular basis from GAME, right? Because while we indulge in samey sequels, because while familiarity breeds contempt, it's also, like, familiar. Less effort. Sometimes you need a quickie with your girlfriend who loves you and lovingly pretends to orgasm after just two minutes. That's what girlfriends are for. But you also need excitement every now and then, so you go and cheat on them. That's original IP for me: for when you can be fucked to make an effort.

Erm, anyways. The point, I think, is this: This Tremblay character basically says- "we're the shit at lots of genres". He then goes on, to quote him in full:

On top of these four pillars of genres we're going to create original IP, and I would say we're pretty solid in that direction compared to any other publisher. We're going to be up there with the big guys with regard to creating new franchises.

To people in the games industry, originality means "new franchises". The question for someone doing something new is not "let's make something radical, fresh". No, it's, "okay, we think we've milked Halo Prime Zone Solid for all its worth. We need to come up with some new shit, yo". Other media industries invest in new IP for the specific IP's intrinsic merit. The question might eventually be, "can we franchise this? Can this have a sequel?", but at the outset, they invest in the product. In books, a publisher might invest in the name of a rookie novelist. They won't say, at the outset- okay, we'll roll with it, but only if you can turn this shit into an 18-volume series.

Anyways, I've come to dislike the term. I hereby issue a Player Fatwa, on this word: Franchise. Allah damn us to our very soul if you use it in any context other than scorn. Admittedly, I have consulted no one in "The Team" about this. But if they disagree I'll fatwa their ass too.

PS- the piccie is of me as I read the piece about "new franchises". It makes me mad. Anyhoo, better return to this dude who says he'll die if we kick him out of our country...

Not Ian

Crazy Cash-In

You've probably guessed exactly what this game is like. And you'd be right. (Assuming you guessed that it was a compilation of the first two DC Crazy Taxi games ported over to UMD with some half-hearted extras thrown in. And you hadn't mistakenly thought it was an exciting new game about cool-looking space pirates sailing the Galaxy in search of intergalactic bounty or something). Driving round virtual New York and San Francisco like a loon is still fun. But looking back you can't help but feel Sega missed a trick. The laid-back sunshiner disposition of the drivers is disappointing in retrospect. Especially when there was so much promise that the second New York-set game would feature a bug-eyed paranoic De Niro style figure.

"You wanna go to the baseball stadium, huh? Yeah, I know your type. You just want me to take you to that disgusting semen-smeared Porno Theatre again dont'cha? Well no way buster, I'm not going back to that. Get outta my fucking cab you scumbag, don't let me see round here again. One day a real rain's gonna fall pal!" ...etc.

It's also similarly surprising to see a lack of migrant workers in the New York cabbie ranks, after all most New York drivers are illegal aliens. Illegal aliens in New York. As tantric-shagger extrodinaire Sting would say. Despite both of these missed opportunities the game is still a hoot. Except for the fucking Offspring of course, their tuneless gibbering cod-punk is still shite. But thanks to this new PSP version you can stream your own choons off a memory stick. Who said Sega had no good ideas left in them? Unfortunately the game doesn't prolong the enjoyment as long as the fuckmeister Sting can prolong his orgasms. Sting 1 Sega 0.

Mr. Toups

I (don't) heart Metroid
With the looming release of Metroid Prime 3, can we admit that Prime 2 sucks already? I mean, yeah, Prime was a great game, but it was also a great Metroid game, and it was also in 3D, which was a singular achievement for the time. The second game, though... Man. What went wrong? It ditched the open exploration of the first game in favour of mostly linear threads which were unlocked using items and abilities which were little more than glorified keys. What were they called? Translation modules? Give me a break. On top of this, confusing level design and poor enemies served only to highlight the weaknesses of the Prime series' unique first person control scheme.

And now we have a new trailer for Prime 3, featuring a narrator who seems to have lost her way from a Pantene Pro V commercial, uttering the glib catchphrase "she likes it" in reference to Samus' new (and likely tacked-on, poorly thought out) Phazon abilities. Am I the only one who liked Samus more before she was some sort of BDSM freak who got off on radioactive chemical infusions? I would like to find whatever marketing stooge decided this would be the best way to sell the game. Really, why go there? There's no going back now, however. Back in more innocent times, when we knew nothing about Samus, we were free to imagine anything we wanted about her. I always saw her as a stoic, thoughtful adventurer, hardened by years of bounty hunting in extremely unfriendly environments. Those three words thoughtlessly characterise Samus (I admit it's not the first time, but her monologues in Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion were neutral enough and subtly crafted so as to leave most of the important things up to the imagination), and it makes me feel like a part of my childhood is dying. That I rarely utter that internet-cliched expression speaks either to the lengths of which Retro is sullying the Metroid name, or my own attachment to the series. Probably the latter.

Other things bother me about the new footage. The game seems more and more like an FPS, and it has retained some of Prime 2’s obnoxious habits: NPCs who speak and give you orders, bottomless pits which respawn Samus at their precipice, long stretches of padding while in spiderball mode - and Prime 3 seems to focus and exacerbate these problems. Prime 2 was a critical success, perhaps, but the fact that most game critics are so gullible/ignorant doesn't forgive its many design errors. With its new, more traditional control scheme, Metroid Prime 3 could, at least, be a fun FPS. But, I’ve given up expecting a Metroid game from it. That being said, it still bears the Metroid name, characters, settings etc, so it will be difficult for me to forgive the way it's degrading what is, in my opinion, one of console gaming's oldest and most important franchises. Watching Metroid turn into a Halo wannabe is not only backwards, but humiliating. It's like seeing that one cute nerdy girl in the art club being forcefully seduced against her will by the head quarterback. The last thing I come to Metroid for is to remind me of my own heart being broken in high school.

dean

Review: Rugby 08 - PS2
Rugby is impressive. I am, of course, biased, having partaken in the lifestyle for sixteen years (I'm in my early twenties), I'm able to put my hand on my heart and tell you that it’s one of the most demanding sports out there. Sure, the general perception is that it’s a game for fat boys, full of swearing, drinking and homosexual tendencies. This might even be true, but fuck guys, this isn’t 1984!

Rugby has changed. England are good, the game has fewer fat skinheads than ever, and Johnny Wilkinson is featured on more teenage walls than David Beckham. Still, does anyone outside of our fair community care?

Nope. But that doesn’t matter to EA, who have release another iteration of their Rugby series. Seeing as no one else is bothering, it’s very difficult to judge the merits of their games. We have nothing to compare it to, and nothing really to get angry about.

If you like the sport of Rugby, the chances are you’ll find something to like about this game. If you couldn’t give a fuck about Rugby, you probably aren’t going to give a fuck about Rugby 08. So it really makes this a doozy of a review. Do I bitch that defending is simply a case of running in the general direction of the guy with the ball, or do I applaud the fact that breaking the Australian back line with a well placed cross field kick feels like sex?

As I’ve mentioned before, if a game ticks a few boxes, I will enjoy it. Even if the game is fundamentally broken, I am still able to get masses of gratification from it. Rugby 08 ticks those boxes. While there are many things wrong with it, none of them hurt too badly. Whilst I find myself throwing the Six-Axis at my TV, I'm always picking it up five seconds later ready to start running through my set plays.

Where the game excels is in its ability to make the player feel wonderful. Even if you’re losing 43-0 to Samoa, you’re always one step away from making that perfect play, and scoring a try in the corner. When this happens, you’ll smile, put the controller down, and enjoy the replay.

You’ll then get up, turn the TV off, and scream at your wife because the kicking system is fucking terrible.

dean

Beautiful Bombshell
Hype is a beautiful thing. It allows us, as retards, to know exactly what we want, without even thinking about it. Case in point: Mass Effect.

I remember back at TGS in ’05, when Mass Effect was showing. “Winter 06” it proclaimed and we were fed with art, screenshots, information and videos. Fast forward a couple of years, it remains on the cusp of release, and we’re still being spoon fed information. It’s now reached the point where I couldn’t give a fuck. Go back to March ’06, and I couldn’t have been more excited for the game. It was KOTOR without the bullshit, what’s not to like? But slowly, and gently, my enthusiasm waned, and I started to become jaded from the hype.

I mean, did I really care about KOTOR 3?

Here we are, a month after E3, and two games are in total domination of me.

RockBand and Persona 3.

RockBand excites me, because I totally wasn’t aware of it until recently. I mean, I knew it existed, but I had no idea that it would be young man’s Guitar Hero. Honestly, I can't stand Metallica, and 80s rock music makes me gag, so being able to come home after a miserable day at The Player offices, and bang on a Lego drum set to the sounds of the Hives sounds perfect!

Persona 3 on the other hand, comes at the perfect time. I'm in desperate need of an RPG that I can actually enjoy. An RPG that features kids shooting themselves in the head is one that I'm down with.

So now what? Do I ignore all future news reports on RockBand? Do I stop reading all of the Persona threads at GAF? Is it me who needs to change, or is it an issue with the industry? Why do we need to be given screenshot after screenshot of the same generic FPS we see every year? Why can we just get unbiased reviews of games that we all want to play?

I’m right… right?

Gonzo

Bioshock musings- part one: Spray that fucking Splicer, whiteboy!


Remember E3 2006? Well screw Miyamoto and his comical attempts at conducting. In Bioshock, 360 and potent PC-owners get their chance to orchestrate some seriously fucked up shit- and I think that's the best way to summarise my experience of what's shaping up to be one of the finest adventures a videogame'll take you on. Yes, adventure. Yes, it is technically a shooter. And sure, it all goes down in first-person- but to describe it as an "fps" risks a misunderstanding with those who've excluded the likes of Deus Ex from the ambit of that genre. It's not an RPG either, like the aforementioned nerdfodder (or System Shock, for that matter).

I was told by the PR dude that the atmosphere was a lot like System Shock. I wouldn't know, as I never played it. But if that's the case, I must have missed out- sound and visuals mix to make a game as frightfully ambient as anything that came before. The game did seem to take some of the best features from some of my great gaming experiences. The excellently timed and plotted spawning of scenarios from Half-Life 2, as well as the bypassing-your-environment school of thought when it comes to progression through the levels. The vicious, brutal melee combat of Condemned (I refer to the Splicers here -the hitherto regular, but now utterly batshit inhabitants of Rapture- forget the Big Daddies. Nothing in a videogame has ever hit as hard as they do). It has the character customisation and skill progression of just about every western RPG in the planet- but has the sense to limit it to designated vending machines, rather than a clunky, constantly tempting, menu. But above all the way that it put me in control of more than a mere hand-holding-a-gun cypher instantly reminded me of Deus Ex.

Perhaps I should have suspected as much, from the moment I saw the banner which introduced me to Rapture, the idyllic-yet-surreal, retro-yet-advanced, setting for Irrational's superb title. "No Gods or Kings- Only Man"- the theme of men and women forsaking received theocracy and established power structures to focus on unfettered individual liberty -and ending up bettering themselves at any cost to their humanity- certainly rang a few bells. But it was mostly the way it put me, the player, in control of combat situations through means not limited to pointing a gun and firing. The interaction between plasmids and weapons is one way: starting off with Electrobolt-then-melee, and progressing to all kinds of cool shit; Telekinesis and enflame producing the Molotov teddy-bear being an example. Enflame and Electrobolt being another- set fire to a splicer and she'll run screaming to the nearest pool of water. Ambush her there, zap the water, and she's done.

That's only one facet of the conducting, however. At all times, the player's awareness of his environment- of enemies (and class of enemies), of pools of water or oil, of turrets and cameras and drones- and what he does with it, makes the difference between a desperate, downbeat gun fight, where survival barely feels like an achievement on account of the scarce ammo spent, and supreme empowerment, a kind of "Shaft has hit Rapture- get outta the way, dorks" moment. It's a superb feeling when that comes together. And it's not something Deus Ex ever did achieve.

What a brilliant way to synthesize a number of the best features from modern games, and still end up showing the way forward. The future of shooters, as technology evolves, is likely to end up in that very word- shooter- being questioned as a functioning title for a genre. Bioshock is no more about shooting than an orchestra is about the violin. The contrast between the chaos of charging in, and composed, deliberate, directing of the action, is set to be one of the best feelings in any videogames ever.

I've only played a level and a bit of this. So it may yet go wrong- but I'd be surprised. More later. August 24 people. Shame the Limited Edition don't come with a Big Daddy Helmet.

PS- The opening intro has the loveliest water EVAR. My notes say there was a dedicated member of staff working on just that. Nice to see someone in videogames taking introductory impact seriously. One to note, and learn from, for the makers of Resistance 2, should that title ever come to pass.

Dean

$396.40
My wife calls me up and explains that she's, "sick and tired of all those fucking games". I'm sure you know the story. You're out shopping, for whatever the fuck it is this week, and you walk past EB Games. You stumble in, wrinkle your nose at the smell, and proceed to walk to the pre-owned area. You enjoy videogames, and your collection can never be too big, eh?

Fifteen minutes later, you walk out clutching three incredibly average XBOX titles that some kid on a forum was wanking off about last week. You couldn't help yourself, you just had to see for yourself, and it's not like that $46 bucks could be spent anywhere else, right?

You get them home, you find half an hour to test drive 'em, and what do you know, that kid was fucking insane.

So the games get relegated to shelf, and you continue playing Winning Eleven or Football Manager or whatever the fuck it is you default to.

I'm sure this is a situation many of you can sympathise with, and you can understand the cause for my wife's anguish.

So yesterday, while partaking in a spot of tidying up, I decide to comply with my wife's wishes, and box up my games, and put them into a corner somewhere.

I probably should have done this years ago, as it really isn't fun having to explain to dinner guests why I own three copies of Prince of Persia (the XBOX version is superior!).

While rummaging through, I decide, "Fuck! Rock Band is going to cost me $200+. Is there any real way I can justify to myself how that money will be well spent when I have umpteen other bills to be paying (especially around Christmas)? Why don't I just trade in all the shit I've collected over the years, and get prepare for the onrush of Christmas?
" So there I was, deciding what I should keep, and what I shouldn't keep.

Forza - Throw
NBA 2K5 - Throw
NHL 07 - Throw
Shenmue 2 - Keep
Virtua Fighter 4 - Keep
Virtua Fighter 5 - Throw

I finally reached the grand tally of 28 games, two memory cards, and my PS3 memory card adapter.

Sunday rolls around, and the wife and I travel over to the Strip Mall in New Westminster and visit the tiny little EB Games store. I compose myself, strap my backpack on, carry my Guitar Hero box under one arm, and walk into that boutique with the confidence of an 34 year old at a Green Day concert.

"Hey guys, I've got a silly amount of shit I want to trade in...A silly amount"

"Let's see it then."

"Seriously, it's fucking stupid, sorry to do this to you"

I hand over the goods, stand around for 20 minutes, my wife looking increasingly bored, until finally...

"So, the grand total today will be...$396.40"

Good God.

I thank them, I walk out of the store, and being to feel a little sorry for myself.

"They looked so nice on my shelf... Fuck the dinner guests, they wont even know how awesome Prince of Persia is!"

Oh well, Rock Band beckons...

"You are not having a drum set in our living room!"

Fuck.

Not Ian

Top 5:
TV shows that should've been made into games

1. Grange Hill

Throwing sausages around in the canteen, letting off fire extinguishers in the halls, innercity tension, massive fuck-off rucks with rival schools, growing pains, period pains, teenage suicide, shagging, drinking, piss-taking and pregnancy. All things that should be seen in games more often, Grange Hill is/was perfect for a nice bit of videogame tomfoolery. Even though it's a kid's show, the main characters portayed in it have usually been a hundred times more well-rounded and believeable than the standard gaming protagonists. Add in the fact that games have never ever told an adult story half as well as Grange Hill told Zammo's descent into heroin addiction. A loveable lead-character who ends up smacked out in a youth-club toilet has also been a surprisingly underused theme in gaming. Sort it out, industry.

2. Red Dwarf

"Kryten, go to red alert"
"Are you sure sir? It does mean changing the bulb"

With games going ever further down that moronic 'square-jawed space-marine lights a fag and saves the universe' route it would be a perfect time to send-up all that tedious bollocks, and a Red Dwarf game could be the answer we've all been looking for. The future according to Red Dwarf doesn't consist of hollywood style men-of-action saving the universe from alien peril, but a scouse slob floating aimlessly through the outer reaches of space whilst slacking his way through his role as sole surviving member of humanity. Instead of being backed up by a tactical nuke and a uneasy alliance with an alien race, Lister is joined in time & space by the hologram of a former chicken-soup repairman, a total idiot who descended from the common house cat and an android with a malfunctioning housework chip. A game featuring these elements would obviously be about a million times more entertaining than Halo & Gears Of War combined.

3. The Magic Roundabout

Surrealism is another thing that has been criminally underused in games for a good while now, and drug inspired family entertainment even more so. What better way to combine these two elements than a Magic Roundabout game. Favourite of seventies children and drop-outs alike, the Magic Roundabout is the kind of game I'd actually look foward to playing. Naturally I have no idea how it would work, but controlling a character who bounced around like Zebadee is a sure-fire gameplay winner. I rest my case for the defence right there. Zebadee.

4. Ripping Yarns

Michael Palin and Terry Jones' post-Python show features stuff you'd think would be present in more games - adventure, high-jinks, boys own escapism, and good old fashioned british stiff upper lip-edness. Ripping Yarns was based around the comics of the 20's and 30's where young scallywags would learn the basics of being a good egg and furthering the Empire. 'Roger Of The Raj', 'Across The Andes By Frog' - even the titles get you fired up for a bit of old-school adventuring. Save the country in time for afternoon tea, and do try to keep a bit of British dignity about the whole thing, Jenkins.

Actually, a gaming version of this would no-doubt be horrible, with those stupid mid-atlantic voices and all hints of subtlety and wit systematically ironed out so as to become understandable to idiotic american teens. But I still wish they would give the idea a thought.

5. The Sweeney

"Hello son, we're the sweeney"

I'm too young to have watched it at the time but the idea of The Sweeney has always appealed to me, drive around seventies London in a cortina using massively over-the-top violence to arrest platform shoed no-gooders. Games like The Getaway were obviously going for this angle (with a modern day twist) but unfortunately never pulled it off, mainly because they were so fucking stupid and 'Guy Richie' about the whole thing. This idea may be hampered somewhat by the fact that John Thaw is dead and therefore unavailable for voice-over duties. Still, that's no reason for the gaming industry not to cash in on an iconic series is it?

Well, it never has been before.

Honourable mentions:

Mr Benn, The Rise And Fall Of Reginald Perrin, Quantum Leap, Bullseye, The Prisoner, Doctor Who, The Wire, Rentaghost, Pat Sharp's Funhouse, Noel's Houseparty, Knightmare (DS, obviously)

dean

Sony Fanboy
I purchased Rugby 2008 last night. Its quite good, a little bit fiddly, but you know, I love them there sports games. But yeah...I played it for about an hour. However, before I started, the PS triple informed me that there was an update required. So off I went, and updated her.

Now I can use wallpapers - awesome!

I then wandered over to the PSN store, and guess what? I'm still able to download 10 year old games for $10!

"Fuck that" I said to my Cat, and we hovered over the demo's.

"hmmm, Heavenly Sword" my Cat mused: I agreed and we clicked, and downloaded the 1GB demo.

First impressions? It looks quite good - lots of detail on the mixed race main character with the quintessential British accent. Shame about her cohort, who sounds like a fucking pixie (FYI: My wife thinks David Beckham sounds like a pixie...work that one out, Brits).

The game itself? Not impressed.

It plays like a borked version of God of War, who happens to have fucked the original (and very underrated) Genji. There were times when you're simply getting pummled, and you have no idea what to do, except roll away. Also, the game just throws enemies at you. Example; you're stuck on this random pillar, about 400 feet in the air, and the only way up or down, is the jump. You start out with around ten enemies to kill, and after ten minutes of killing, you find out there are now twelve enemies on the pillar.

Thats great design guys.

"Here's what we do...to increase the game length, while keeping the locations short and sweet, we'll just add an increasing number of enemies to keep the player hammering square and triangle for fifteen minutes before they can move on."

Yeah, colour me very unimpressed. I'm not sure that I'll pick it up: Don't get me wrong, it looks lovely, but really, surely it should? Its been in development for about four years...

So, fuck that. That Kojima MGS4 playthrough loomed.

Looks good, eh? I very much doubt you and I will be able to play like they did though...Did you see how smooth they were.

"See that guy there? You see him, he's about 2 miles away...BANG! See, he's dead"

"Oh, yeah, see, I'm now camouflaged, I'm going to sneak up to these seven guys, dressed as a barrel, and slit their throats. See? BANG!"

But seriously, if the game throughout has that level of detail I'm sold. I'm mildly looking forward to it.

Another thing though: While the game looks good, it doesn't actually look all that different to any other MGS game. Sure, higher textures, smoother framerate, etc. But nothing has really changed in 9 years.

Is this a good, or a bad thing?

dean

Upscale that shit
The 360 upscales?

Fuck.

I purchased the Jet Set Radio/Sega GT ‘promo’ disc from EBGames a few months back, for the princely sum of $1.99. I wasn’t convinced either would work, and I didn’t really care. For the price of a Gatorade, you can’t really go wrong.

They didn’t work.

They do now.

Fuck.

Jet Set Radio is quite possibly, the best looking game on the XBOX 360. No, im not being nostalgic nor am I trying to be edgy; I'm simply being honest.

Jet Set Radio has a lot of things going on at the same time. You’ve got an excellent soundtrack, mixed with beautiful visuals, and gameplay that allows you fuck about on rails in Tokyo. If this was 2001, this game would have cleaned up!

Oh, wait a second…

The thing that impressed me last night was just the sheer detail. Having owned this game at least four times in the past, I’ve only ever played it on shitty, SD TVs, no bigger than 28’’. Having the colours displayed on a 42’’ HDTV in my living room (with my wife bopping along to the music) made me literally explode. Being able to see the faces of the characters, and the detail in the streets is one thing, but being able to read the billboards, and clearly identify which Japanese schoolgirl you’d like to fuck is a completely new experience to this twat.

What a shame it is, that I could only play it for half an hour, because any longer bores me to fucking tears!

But what a half hour!

mike

Activists are the fuck

I received hate mail today, for the first time ever. I'm not talking "lol, u guys suck" internet hate, or even the type of hate I get from wearing a Le Tissier shirt around Fratton. No, I'm talking real "I am going to fucking kill you" hate mail.

At lunch time I received a phone call from the security guard at my work, asking me to come in to collect a letter. I walked there, picked up the letter and noticed the address - the intended was a Mr. "Zoo Manager"

Yes, that's right. Zoo Manager. Evidently someone had been reading this and got a tad angry. They saw fit to cut it out the of the newspaper, right threats around the margin and send it to China.

For those who are curious, the following is the full address:

Zoo Manager
Xi'an Zoo
China

On the envelope was a UK stamp and Royal Mail Air Fare sticker. Inside was the article in question. And here's the thing: Hate mail fucks you up, it really does. It was one of the single most horrid experiences of my life, knowing that someone harbored this much hate, and I do mean HATE. Good job I'm not the Zoo manager.

To clarify, the letter was given to me. I said it wasn't addressed to me but, being the only whitey in the park (the address haven been written in English), it must have been for me - it was the Zoo park after all. It was only after I opened it that I realised who it was for; the Zoo manager for the Wildlife Park over a hundred miles away.

This is what happens when you don't use the internet, people. The place I lived stopped being a Zoo about 6 years ago. To add comic insult to injury, the guard, who is learning English, started reading the bile in the margin one. word. at. a. time.

"The"

"Chinese"

"Are"

"The"

"Most"

"Cruel"

And so on. Animal Cruelty is bad, it seems, but racism is the MO of the fucking unstable. On the off chance that one of the people reading this is the fuck that sent me that - be a doll and add your address next time. Quite seriously, you fucked up my day good and proper, and it wasn't great to start with. Animal Activists are the fucking scourge of the earth - Activists, not campaigners - people with a skewed sense of reality and a complete disregard for human life.

Do I think the story in question was a good one? No. Do I like Chinese Zoos? No, they're shitholes. Is China the most cruel and barbaric country on the face of the earth? No, it ain't. It's nowhere near.

Below is the address of the Zoo proper, next time you feel the need to get all worked up by an article in a hate rag:

Zoo Manager!!!!!!
Qinling Zoo
Quinling Mountains
Xi'an
Shaanxi Province
China

That'll do, the letter will get there. They also have a monkey that is addicted to smoking, parrots that ride unicycles and delirious apes. Bet you're real pissed now, fuckers.

dean

Kieron Gillen is the new Michael Palin
As you know, I'm a big fan of Gillen. For the most part, I really have no interest in the content of his articles. I'm more enamoured with the way he writes, and entertains me. It’s the same with Tim Rogers. For the most part, I couldn’t care less what he's banging on about, but nearly always, he entertains me in one way or another.

So when Russ Pitts (editor for the Escapist) e-mailed me with a link to a nice round table article featuring Gillen (along with N'Gai of Newsweek, Julian Dibbell of The New York Times and Evan Van Zeldfen) I had to have a peek.

What a fantastic little article.

The boys liken games journalism to that of travel writing - which is a very apt comparison. Instead of concentrating on how many levels a game has or which weapons a specific character can wield (ala - Travel guides) the writer is able to focus on telling the reader his own impressions, stories and opinions of a specific title.

"I partially think travel is a lot easier now anyway. ... Now there's a degree of travel that people can do even on not particularly incredibly economically advantaged backgrounds. Travel journalism has changed in that way. But games ... I've never played EVE, I'll never play EVE, but I like reading what Jim has to say about it. I'm more likely to go to Madagascar than play it. ... It's not analogous in many ways, but in that particular way I think it is. There's something to reading about games you won't play, and if it makes you want to go there, that's great." - Kieron Gillen

Check it out - www.escapistmagazine.com

dean

Get your coat love, you've pulled!
Project Slypheed turned up today from the wonderful ladies at Microsoft. I've been told by a few kids that I should be expecting an east meets west battle.

Final Fantasy vs Wing Commander.

I've yet to actually ever play a Wing Commander game, but on this evidence, Wing Commander must have been fucking terrible.

From my brief play this evening, Slypheed seems to be a competent take on the arcade flight sim, made famous by the brilliant X-Wing and Tie Fighter games in the early 90’s. The thing is, what Square should have done, is simple re-release X-Wing vs Tie Fighter on LIVE Arcade, and let us shoot the fuck out of each other.

Don’t get me wrong, the game may turn out to be more than competent, but from this initial first play, I don’t have my hopes up. It seems to be the same old Japanese tosh, thrown out of a 3^rd rate development studio, and given a fuck load of makeup to make itself look presentable.

You’d fuck it, but you wouldn’t tell anyone.

Editorial Musings
As I sit in my warm office, watching the rain pelt down outside (in July, readers), I think back to December, and my first days as a writer on Play.d magazine.

At the time, Play.d was little more than a small magazine run by a couple of guys who had a passion. It was gorgeous, but read like your mother-in-law.

Skip forward eight months, and what we have is a veritable contender. We’ve found that space that I was so interested in when I first joined, and kept pressuring the team to push for. We’ve added staff that fit the ideal, and fucked around with aesthetics until they work.

Welcome to The Player: Issue 8.

We welcome reviews and articles that describe the players’ opinion of the game, and not the actual game itself. We no longer need to know how many particular tracks a racing game has, or the number of characters an RPG wants to bug you with. These are merely facts of a game. We want to give you an open opinion about games that we give a shit about.

We’ve done it…at last.

Being able to tackle my Forza and Odin Sphere reviews in such a way has made me immensely proud of where we are right now.

I cant wait to hear you guys tell me how much you love it!

Not Ian

Strange Idols - Felt

Felt were an eighties indie band who very few people I know have actually heard of. Usually I'd be quite happy with that, being cooler than them and all that bollocks, but in this case it makes me rather sad, because Felt deserve better. Conceived by singer/songwriter Lawrence (second name unused), as the self-proclaimed 'perfect package for an angst-riden generation' they lasted ten years, released ten albums and ten singles. They made numerous fuck-ups and bizarre choices over those ten years but trudged on, even when the pop superstardom they naively chased sailed off into the distance with their girlfriends and dreams in tow. Spectacular failures you might say, and what music fan doesn't love one of those?

Felt's history of falling at the final hurdle was as brilliant as it was hilarious. They messed up an industry showcase that may have nabbed them a major-label record deal after Lawrence decide he needed to 'relax more' and dropped a tab of acid half-an-hour before due onstage. After several songs he asked for the house lights to be turned down and started to admonish the audience for 'looking at me', the band left the stage shortly afterwards, but not before a seven or eight minute unintentional instrumental in which Lawrence found himself unable to accurately judge when he should start singing the first verse.

1986 saw the band on a moderate high, having signed to up-and-coming indie label Creation Records (later home to Oasis and other more talented groups). Naturally Lawrence decided the first record released on Creation would be an album of short organ-led instrumentals entitled 'Let The Snakes Crinkle Their Heads To Death'. Many said that album killed their career but Felt refused to give in and picked themselves up again for a fabulous record entitled 'Forever Breathes The Lonely Word' just a few months later. It flopped, naturally.

Lawrence retreated into his flat in Birmingham where he cultivated a reputation as 'the cleanest man in rock', the titles of ' 'craziest man in rock', 'most moderate man in rock' and all other 'man of rock' type-awards having been presumably taken years ago. Interviews consisted of weird musings such as 'I'd like a girlfirend, not to talk to, just to walk around the flat naked' and a few questions about the singer's anti-septic lifestyle. The band were duly written off as oddballs.

But still, Felt got back in the saddle and raised themselves for one final attempt at the bigtime at 1987's Glastonbury, where they managed to blag themselves a high-profile spot on the bill after claiming to have the use of Pink Floyd's lighting rig. In truth they had one bulb that may, once have belonged to the Floyd, in amongst many others that almost certainly hadn't, but even this inspired chicanery backfired. Things went wrong for them again when they found themselves virtually inaudible for the first half of their set, due to shoddy roadie-ing. The cleanest man in rock shrugged his shoulders, waded his way through the muddy fields of Glastonbury in his shiny new shoes, and headed back to obscurity. Of his time as the mainman of Felt he said, "Being the leader of Felt was like carrying a sack of coal on my back".

If this whole thing sounds like I'm taking the piss then you're wrong. I'm just trying to get people interested in this great band. If you have your ears correctly attached you'll almost certainly appreciate the quality of music they produced. But I have to go through all this legend making bullshit just to get anyone to listen.

I could go into the details of what the band sound like and who they influenced or were influenced by, but that would have been boring. And a bastard to write, no doubt.

Not Ian Recommends:

Albums:

The Splendor Of Fear (1984)
The Strange Idol Pattern And Other Short Stories (1984)
Ignite The Seven Candles (1985)
Forever Breathes The Lonely Word (1986) - seriously, this is fantastic
Poem Of The River (1987)
The Pictorial Jackson Review (1988)
Stains On A Decade (Compilation, 1992)
Bubblegum Perfume (Compilation, 1990)

Choons (if you just want to download a track to see what Felt are like):

Spanish House
Down But Not Yet Out
Primitive Painters
Ballad Of The Band
Penelope Tree
I Will Die With My Head In Flames
Space Blues
Crystal Ball
The Day The Rain Came Down
Textile Ranch
Evergreen Dazed
All The People I Like Are Those That Are Dead
The World Is As Soft As Lace


As a sidenote - Lawrence actually wrote the songs for 90's gobby girl-power heroes/fuckwits Shampoo under the pseudonym 'A. Con'. His assualt on pop music finally staged, he retreated back into the sidelines with Go-Kart Mozart his main focus these days.

dean

We'll miss you...

Not Ian

Not Ian Gets A Haircut

Yes, it's that time of the year again, when I trudge off to my local barbers to have my once-beautiful hair mangled whilst I sit there in those uncomfortable chairs, in stony silence, flicking through a two-year old copy of Top Gear magazine. Waiting, just waiting my day away. We're living in the worst time in history for being a young male, going down the barbers. The rise of the metrosexual and the influence of celebrities (and their lovely hair) have made it impossible to have a shoddy attitude towards your bonce. Hair products must be applied often and the days of just waking up, looking in the mirror and declaring "yeah, that'll fucking do" are over. Fahion, style, image, bollocks.

It wasn't always this way, in the time of my father and grandfather a haircut was a minor irrelevence. Looking through photos of my Dad it seems that in those days, you picked a haircut (sometime around the age of twelve) and stuck with it doggedly throughout the coming decades. The length of your sideboards may increase or decrease as fashion dictated but basically you were in it for life. My Dad followed his Dad in picking the classic 'side-parting' - which in time turned into the combover, it was a simple business allowing you to focus on the more important matters of life. And if you did have a crap haircut, so what? Just stick a bowler hat over it.
Then the sixties arrived and barbers across the land started dropping like fly's as the new 'let it all hang out' credos swept through the nation. Where The Beatles & The Stones led, the population followed and save for the odd bit of backcombing maintaining your hair was a simple process of looking in the mirror every now and then and checking you still had some. The widespend use of LSD made looking at another man and judging his haircut a pointless exercise anyway, who cares about his shoddy sideburn maintainence when his face has turned into that of a Lion?

The seventies were more of the same, only better. Most men didn't see the inside of a barbers all decade and even if they went down there, the barber was probably on strike. Throw in the widespead wearing of donkey-jackets, denim flares, and the smoking of a fag at all times and you have the true golden-age of not-giving-a-fuck. The Likely Lads had won out and the fashion elite had no answer to the tide of hair sweeping the nation. Punk rock arrived and haircuts got even more careless. Buy a electric-shaver, shave head, spike what's left up in the air. Simple. Classic.

The eighties saw a different attitude emerge, hair reflected your status, how much money and power you had. Gordon Gekko rose at five in the morning and had completed ten takeover deals before the barbers even opened. A sad time for many males as the Yuppies made grooming important again, hair was big and ego's were even bigger. The Me (and my hair) decade was in full flow, but in the indie-ghetto a young whippersnapper called Morrissey found a easier way. The Quiff. Just let your hairgrow as normal, keep the back 'n' sides quite tidy and sweep the rest up above your forehead. The students had spoken, and the bog-brush was king.

After the miseries of the eighties, the nineties arrived in style. Well, actually they arrived without any style at all - Kurt Cobain and Grunge must have put a million barbers out of business. 'The Age Of Grease' they called it, halcyon days for sure. In Britain, Britpop rose and fell and the Gallagher brothers made hair just a minor issue compared to lager, birds, footie and being mad for it. But while the county came down from this mass-party the sneaky metrosexuals moved in on our turf. Image had become all.

Which is where we find ourselves today. So-called men, not even able to play the most manly game of all - not giving a fuck. Meh.

Dean

Microsoft bukkake

Microsoft E3 Conference
2007-07-10

6.49: I sit here, on a tiny balcony overlooking the water, waiting with baited breath for Microsoft’s 2007 E3 conference. For once, I really couldn't give a shit. There really is nothing they could announce that will excite me. Honestly, what are they going to come out with? Halo 3? Fuck that! So at the moment, I'm sitting, Spaghetti Carbonara having been ordered, Diet 7UP being sipped, watching the world go by around me.

6.52: Just a quick one. If they were to announce Monkey Island, in any format, for 360 or PC, I’d be all over it.

7.52: My meal was just a little too spicy, but whatever, it was good for me. I injured myself yesterday at the gym, so I'm into a lot of Vitamin C and D right now. The conference is 40 minutes away now, and again…I'm still not excited. I'm not even too sure what they are hoping to show. I’ve not followed any of the hype, and the only E3 buzz I’ve heard so far is that Activision have managed to send enough Coke over to Slash’s house to convince him that being the face of Guitar Hero 3 is actually a good thing for his career. Hopefully Microsoft have some good friends down in Columbia…or even East L.A.

8.13: I just watched that-there Haze demo. Looks alright, eh? Shout out to Free Radical; friends of the show!

8.17: I am all over this funky house!

8.20: Alright, it’s fucking annoying now.

8.21: Yeah! New song! But seriously, guys, Sony did an awesome job last year with the music – If I remember correctly, they had the Beastie Boys spinning for a good hour.

8.25: I’ve always enjoyed Microsoft’s tag, “Jump in”.

8.30: Who the fuck has a pager anymore? Exactly…stop telling me to turn it off. Also, why is every single fat geek, with a goatee, using an iPhone? Who the fuck spends $500 on a phone, and doesn’t expense that shit?

8.32: So apparently I'm watching five Halo fans from Illinois play some pretty shocking Halo music. Why start out with this, Microsoft? No one gives a shit about Halo anymore? Seriously, get some b-boys from the Orient to lay down some Jet Set Radio beats! Fuck, there’s a girl playing Violin. The auditorium just exploded. Ha-ha, the Bassist is wearing a leather jacket. He thinks he’s Ryu.

8.36: Thank fuck that’s over…No, wait…they’re back.

8.37: Peter Fucking Moore.

8.37: 11 weeks until Halo 3 apparently. Who gives a shit?

8.38: So Microsoft are only showing us games that are going to be shipping this year. Please bookmark this blog and come back on January the 1st and see if he was lying.

8.39: Oooh, Rock Band. I'm excited. Peter is strapped in and he’s ready to go! Which song are they playing? Awesome, it’s the Hives! THAT’S THE BEST FUCKING SONG IN THE WORLD!!!!!! Well played. Fuck…the ugly girl is singing. Shut up, I want to here Wheelin’ Pete (who’s actually chiming in at the chorus). This is pretty fucking awesome. I want Peter Moore to come to my house and play. Oh, he’s pulled the cable out…

8.42: Alright, just stop please.

8.43: So yeah…the Hives – Microsoft just won! Fuck, you can play this game online? Seriously, if they make this game work properly over LIVE and get a good track listing, and allow me to play Bass, while Mike in China is on Drums, I am fucking there!

8.43: Viva Piñata is back. I'm a fan. The cartoon is great also. Oh. It’s fucking Mario Party. Eugh.

8.45: Mass Effect; Big ships; Big Aliens; Looks pretty. English voice acting; Bad lip synching; Looks like GR:AW; Looks like Halo fucking Star Wars; Star Wars-esque Soundtrack. I was quite looking forward to this. Now it’s just fucking Star Wars fan fiction.

8.46: Mass Effect for November.

8.47: More money is being spent on Games this year than on Music, apparently. This is fairly obvious to me, seeing that Games cost $70 and consoles cost $500, when compared to a CD which costs $10. Also, don’t all the kids download their music for free?

8.49: Standard MS bullshit. Don’t get me wrong, I'm getting hard, but still…we know all this Pete – 360 is the bestest.

8.50: Top games are Halo and Grand Theft Auto. Awesome.

8.51: Microsoft are going to make 11million sales this Christmas. Fact. Madden, Halo and GTA. Fact.

8.52: Pete’s voice is breaking.

8.53: collage of games. Great. Nothing new. I wonder who paid the most money for this little ad. FYI the Simpson’s game looks vile. Is it me, or have the Crash Bandicoot games actually changed in the past 11 years?

8.55: Jeff Bell’s up and he’s announcing a new title. It’s a very popular board game; Scene It! Fucking hell – What a waste of time, “Loaded with trivia and movie clips in HD”. “A new controller. A controller for everyone.: It has 5 buttons, 1 big, 4 little. Apparently, four of these controllers will cost the same as one single game. Next.

8.57: Naruto is coming. What the fuck is Naruto? 8-14 year old boys are apparently into it. Mike, you listening? He’s a ninja…that’s cool. Awesome, Rock Music…yeah, Jap’s singing! Awesome, Cell Shading! I'm bouncing…This looks awesome…it’s a 12 year old kid with spiky hair, in cel-shaded glory, jumping around to a Japanese rock soundtrack! PREMIERING ON THE 360!!!! WOW!!!!!! I am actually on the EB Games website right now, pre-ordering! Nah, I kid…I bet some of you geeks are into Naruto right? Even though Jeff just told us it’s the biggest cartoon for the 8-14 year old demographic? LOL.

8.59: EA Sports’ 2008 line up will all be twice as fast as last year…I have no idea what this means. NFL STAR RUNNING BACK, REGGIE BUSH IS ON STAGE!!!! AWESOME!!!!! He’s really excited apparently. They are demo-ing Madden. Eugh. It looks like Madden. Why do they show this shit? Everyone in the US will buy Madden – why are they spending time on this? Retards. Yay, someone scored. Apparently they live together, as Jeff is sleeping on the Sofa tonight. Well played Reggie, you earned you six figure appearance fee.

9.02: XBOX LIVE has 7 million members subscribed. 95% of them are retards.

9.03: XBOX LIVE Arcade time. 45 million downloads apparently. Think about that for a second. Microsoft has made over $200 million in old games.

9.04: Bomberman is up, Hexic 2! Sonic, again…Something cool called War World. Every Extend Extra Yo! Chess. Golden Axe – eugh. Space Giraffe, at fucking last! Super Puzzle Fight. WORD PUZZLE!!! Some random marble games. Tetris of some sort. Sudoku, eugh….Uninspiring, but you’re all going to buy them anyway!

9.06: it seems that Sonic and Golden Axe are available to download tonight. Off you go then Sega freaks.

9.07: Apparently Microsoft offer movies over Live. I’ve never watched one. $125 million has been spent on DLC entertainment. Oooh, Disney is coming to 360. Aladdin in HD – Thank you! WINNIE THE FUCKING POOH – YES! ARMAGEDDON!!!!! Waterboy, yes! A load of Wank as well.

9.09: Every movie is apparently available to download tonight. Ha-ha – Fuck you Non-America!

9.10: Oh, Canada and Europe set to follow by the end of the year. Good. Thanks. 12 months late!

9.10: XBOX Elite to be launched in Europe at the end of the year.

9.11: SHANE KIM!!!! WOOOOOOO

9.12: Talking about boring figures again.

9.13: PGR4, Yo! Bikes and shiznit. Bizarre are on stage taking us through the game. Crazy English people. He’s nervous. Awww, bless.

9.14: So yeah, bikes look a bit shit. They’re showing a nice demo of what seems to be Shanghai, in the rain, at night, on a bike. Doing wheelies and giving the finger. Looks pretty fun. Shame the bike looks like complete wank to play. I hope they go back to MSR, and do the awesome Radio/Weather effects depending on what time of day you play the game at. New Trailer. Pretty FMV. Or is it…yes it is. Or is it… I can’t tell anymore. Racing trailers bore me…How anyone is able to sit through replays is beyond me. I tried in Gran Turismo, but I couldn’t get passed a few minutes of it.

9.17: PGR released in Sept.

9.18: Alan Wake, Banjo, Fable 2, Too Human, Halo Wars all coming this year.

9.18: New Halo story coming from Peter Jackson. Ooooooo, new title to be shown. Oh…now, its Lost Odyssey. Sakaguchi is cool, but seriously…we’ve seen it all. OOOOOO, English voice acting…its come a long way. Lots of FMV. He doesn’t know how he survived…no! He killed a girl. No! He died from a Dragon. No! Kids are fighting. Fuck this looks like Final Fantasy…I'm not actually kidding…it looks exactly like Final Fantasy X…which is no bad thing, but seriously, that game is six years old.

9.20: Shane is throwing his RPG card into the ring.

9.21: Windows is up now. Viva Piñata for windows. Sounds interesting. Gears of War, which we all knew about – he admits it! Who gives a fuck? Oooh, it comes with an editor – Gonzo will cum.

9.21: Fucking Cliffy B. Does anyone else dislike this guy? Don’t get me wrong, if I were to meet him in the pub, I'm sure I’d call him a cunt, and we’d have a great old time. But whenever I see him, he sounds like the biggest geek, living out his dream.

9.22: Where’s your girlfriend Cliff?

9.22: He’s going to show us Gears on the PC – I bet it looks just like Gears on the 360. So apparently it comes with five new chapters…Isn’t that like double the game of the original GoW? So yeah, there’s shooting…big things…like Dragons. More Shooting. More running…utterly predictable, but no doubt the gears geeks are having a wank as we type.

9.23: Move on please, Cliff.

9.24: Thanks Cliff. That was shit.

9.25: Peter is back!!!

9.25: Boring software stuff about Unreal Engine 3.

9.26: Let’s talk about Vista! Marketing, marketing, marketing.

9.27: Games for Windows…games. Some shit about planes, rollercoaster’s and Bee’s. Oooh, Hellgate London. Diablo 3 ‘aint it? Wasn’t Crysis release like last year? It’s been around for ages.

9.29: I'm bored.

9.30: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Do you kids still play these games? Since when was the Ukraine a DMZ? Lots of guns, explosions, Russian accents, and heartbeats. BORING! Where the fuck is this innovation you promised, Pete? It’s innovative because it’s set in the 00’s? Really? Christ.

9.32: Why are you clapping that?

9.32: Infinity Ward are on stage right now. Awesome, we get a walkthrough! They are doing that X-Files text thing. Apparently the Ukraine is full of Radiation. If you absorb too much radiation, you die. FACT. Sniper shooting. Its 1997 all over again! I remember when they just made games around the Sniper rifle. They were shit, eh? Helicopters and shit! AWESOME! If you lie down, no one can see you. Remember that when you’re next in the Ukraine.

9.37: Yay, the end. An announcement. They are brining out a BETA. Go to COD.com for some details, geeks.

9.38: Let’s talk about more boring shit. Splinter Cell: Conviction. It’s an exclusive.

9.38: Yeah, GTA:4. It appears that all the trailers are in real time, via an XBOX 360. That’s quite impressive, Pete. GTA: 4 is currently my most anticipated title this year. October the 19th is the release. Two new episodes to be released by the spring of 2008.

9.40: Tokyo time. Pete says the 360 has good Japanese software support. All publishers have announced support for Microsoft. Talking about Virtua Fighter 5 being online – well played Microsoft. How much did that cost you?

9.41: Oooh, they are going back on their ‘this year only’ promise. What is it? Resident Evil 5…In game footage apparently. Looks to be set in the Southern States of the US. Interesting.

9.43: Assassins Creed time, another title I'm excited about. That Jade bint that Mike wants to fuck is coming out. Some footage – Yay! Jerusalem is being shown. The whole city is interactive. It’s like a fucking Grand Theft Auto. Impressive! Oh my god, this is fucking in game…They are actually playing this…This is fucking gorgeous. Its running at about 15FPS, hopefully they can increase this. So they’ve got him climbing up the building…like Assassins do. Looks very much like Prince of Persia. Lots of blood, nice. Jade is the worst presenter, ever! Oooh, a boss battle of sorts. It appears that the Assassin is American. I have no idea why. Combat is very Prince of Persia…Very Prince of Persia. I'm now less excited – Combat looks very unoriginal, and increasingly simple. Nice chase through the city shows off the huge environment. Assassins Creed is coming out in November.

9.49: So that was good.

9.50: Something to do with Star Wars now. It must be Halo. Fuck. Bungie and WETA and Neil Beauchamp – Look at the Live Action short. Halo 3…Whoa…what the fuck is this? Its live action, guys! It looks very 1998 at the moment. I am guessing that this will be on YouTube for weeks to come. Lots of helmets, and Cars, and shit. Barcode Tattoos, its all very 1998 still. A few Marines. A few Rifles. This is what they’ve been spending their time doing? Luke Smith, I'm upset. This is terrible. Yeah, that was fucking terrible. What a waste of time.

9.52: September 25th for Halo 3. There is a new console being launched. It’s Green. Special Edition. Worldwide launch. With lots of Halo accessories. How quaint. That’s another few million in the bank, MS.

9.55: Lots of games being shown…again. It’s about the games, apparently. It’s the end. Here’s more Halo. Some Campaign footage? Big Monsters. Halo music. Big space ships. Where’s David Spade? Looks very Halo like…Looks pretty enough. Lots of flying things. People dying…Holograms. Multiplayer action by the looks of it. I want one of those bike things. Nice shot at the end there.

9.57: Jump in – awesome.