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.

dean

Welcome to the jungle, bitch

What bothers me most, is that real people are playing Pokemon. Yeah, I'll let the kids have their fun collecting and battling furry little creatures, but seriously, how the fuck are men in their 30's actually getting any satisfaction out of this game?

I'll admit to having played the original back in 2000 on the GBA. I think I had Pokemon Blue, and I have some fairly decent memories of playing that game. My Dad and I went on a trip to France, and as a gift for the journey, he bought me a Gameboy colour. To go with the Gameboy, I picked up Pokemon, and away we went. We did a lot of driving, and I only had Pokemon blue and Space Invaders to keep me occupied when I should really have been enjoying the beautiful south of France.

Oh well.

That was years ago.

I've not been able to touch a Pokemon game since, and I've not felt the need. However, the recent hype surrounding the latest Pokemon games, Diamond and Pearl, had me a little...interested.

I was hearing hype from adults. Not just any adults; adults who actually have sex. With women.

So, for the sake of journalism, I wandered over to the illustrious Metrotown Mall, and procured a copy of Pokemon: Diamond for the Nintendo: DS. It should have cost me $44.99, but I managed to get it for free, because Im a clever son of a bitch, and I like to steal.

Only kidding kids, I traded in 'Generic FPS' for it. Gonzo says it's shit. It needs not be on my shelf.

So I didn't get around to playing it yesterday, you know, being busy with life. So this morning, after wrapping up the podcast, I jumped back into bed with my wife, who happened to be reading, and booted up the old DS.

Why the fuck did I bother?

I wont go into too much detail, because I cant, but the game hasnt changed. At all.

Nothing is different. You start off in the same town, with the same story, with the same Pokemon, same graphics, same sound, same enemies...

Fuck.

"What about the new Pokemon?"

Fuck the new Pokemon! They haven't changed in eight fucking years! Its still the same furry little fuck, albeit with a new earlobe.

Why are you people falling for this?

As mentioned, this game is perfect for kids. If I had a seven year old kid, I would rush out, buy him a pink (Im open) DS and a copy of Pokemon, and allow him to enjoy himself. It truly is a great title they have for that type of consumer.

You get to hunt, dig, collect, chat, battle, and play all to your hearts content. It's perfect for the little players out there.

So what about anyone over the age of 16? What the fuck is your excuse? Why is the game so enjoyable that you feel compelled to spend nearly $50 on the same game?

"But What about EA? They release the same games each year!"

Fuck EA! Adults like Football and Basketball, so they like to play Football and Basketball games! Why are you, Mr. "thirdlineITsupport" Man going to a shop, laying money on the table, and encouraging this type of bullshit to continue?

Not only that, but why the fuck do you then go onto the Internet, and chat with other balding, fat, middle aged geeks, about the fucking game? The very same game, whereby, 15 minutes earlier, you were online with a 9 year old, getting you ass handed to you by his fucking Charizard!

Gonzo

Leprosy

Asked what his take on the reaction to Microsoft’s E3 shizzle was, Peter Moore replied that he thought the reaction was that “there weren't a lot of announcements per se”. He then sought to excuse Microsoft’s decision to feature only games coming out this year.

The defensive tone of his response is a symptom- of the festering pustules that affect the tied-in games consumer- the consumer who’s associated himself with the games industry to the extent that he (or she, lol) stays up all night to catch industry trade-show announcements from the American west coast. All that person does is look forward, to more announcements, to more hype- a screenshot here, a rumour there, leaked footage elsewhere… It’s a perpetual state of fantasy, of imagining what will happen tomorrow, at the detriment of the reality of today.

Kudos to Microsoft for focussing on this year’s releases, whatever its motivation. Because this continual state of daydreaming about future releases really ought to stop. It’s very natural to speculate about future advances, or look out for genuinely new and exciting developments in how we might play (I’m excited by The Crossing, though I still know fuck-all about it). But you can take that too far. The objects of fans’ drooling anticipation at E3 2006 have returned this year in more concrete and elaborate form. But the thirst for hype was not satiated. It’s old news. "Gamers" want new exclusives, new announcements, new games with ridiculously tarted-up teaser trailers, wonderful, shiny, gloriously unreal nebulous pieces of code.

I suspect there’s something pathological about this state of mind, hence the title. Instead of focussing on the merits (and many demerits) of the “next-generation” titles which are with us now, we choose to look past to an idealised game we know nothing about, and hence can attribute all sorts of exciting prospects to. This being my opening blog as a Player, it seemed proper to highlight this nonsensical feature about the tied-in gamer. Particularly given The Player's strict no-hype, live in the now (and live it best) mission statement.

Never has the chasm between reality and fantasy been so pronounced than in today's games industry. The comedown from the extravagant promises made by developers, and implicitly made by touched-up trailers, and the finished code, rivals even the lewdest night on the charlie. Sure, the looks, or a close approximation thereto, are by and large delivered- but it’s what the game does with them that counts. Whether it’s uninspired linear shooting (Resistance), ridiculously implemented gimmicks (The Darkness), this Player won’t be fooled again. Just say no, kids.

Dean

Rocky rocks!

It's a rainy, Saturday afternoon in Vancouver, and I've just been shopping (if we can call it that). I've come back with four DVDs, one being the latest Rocky flick.

We've just got to about half way through, and we're watching the 'training montage'.
Its fantastic, and it hasn't changed in thirty years. Same music, same locations, same cuts, same actors, same "look at me i'm running" scene with a fade out at the end.

For my money, its one of the most cinematic experiences you can find; and it begs the question - "Why the fuck doesnt this exist in videogames?"

The closest thing that I can think of, are the last few Metal Gear Solid's. Those first few notes of the MGS theme as you watch Snake do whateverthefuck it is he does, are possibly the most notorious in Videogames.

Its just a shame Metal Gear Solid plays like a retard at a MENSA meeting.

The difference between good cinematography and good gameplay, is that gameplay is always evolving. We can sit back, and watch films from the 70's and they stand up as well against the movies of 2007 as they did back in '77.

Can the same be said of games from '77?
What about '97?

By all accounts, Final Fantasy VII has been heralded as 'the' game of that year, yet its fucking terrible today.

Are we ever going to see mainstream games reach the same heights as Star Wars, The Godfather, and The French Connection? Are we going to be able to show our kids in 10/20 years time how fantastic games were 'back in the day'?

Obviously, Monkey Island is a stand out exception.

That game, will not age!

Dean

The kids love to hate me

So I've been getting some lovely feedback on the various forums with regards to my comments on Podcast #17. I don’t believe that I said anything particularly revolutionary; however, it seems to have struck a chord with a certain type of forumite. Perhaps my over exuberance has rubbed people the wrong way, but my point still stands. XBOX Live, for the most part, has left me feeling pretty sour about people who play games via that system. Having been a very prominent member of the early LIVE scene on the original XBOX, I’ve had quite a lot of experience with the system, and the guys who enjoy playing. I remember a time when all I would do was come home from work, grab a quick sandwich, and sit down in front of the TV (headset primed and ready) for a full evening of Project Gotham 2, or whatever else we were playing at the time.

I must have spent months doing this, and it really affected my life outside of the games. I was always tired for work, and thus, underperformed. I would spend my entire nights captivated in my small house, simply playing this game, with anonymous usernames from across the land. On the weekends, I may venture down my local town centre, but it was always to pick up the latest and greatest XBOX game, and never to do anything else.

Thankfully, I kicked this habit pretty sharpish, and managed to get my life back onto track.
Here’s the thing. I didn’t actually enjoy my time with the games. It was sure fire way to spend a few hours on a cold winters night; but was I really having fun? It was force of habit that kept me coming back; sharing the same experience with the same bunch of people, night in, night out. It wasn’t healthy, and it wasn’t enjoyable.

But hey, it was new, it hadn’t existed before that time, and PGR2 was a pretty stunning game at the time.

So recently, at the behest of Gonzo, I started spending a few Saturday’s playing Gears of War and PGR3 with a few folks from the EDGE forum. Fuck me, it was vile. Apparently I had a bit of a reputation at the other forum, and thus, I was greeted with some pretty awesome comments.
“Are you really Dean from the forum?

“Wow, you’re such a cunt over there; I bet you’re not as much of a cunt on here”

“What you said about ‘random gaming subject’ 34 weeks ago was really stupid. You’re a complete wanker for saying that” were my personal favourites. It seemed that this clique of forumites had made their minds up about me, and were going to let me know. Regardless, I wasn’t too concerned with that, and just decided to stick it out, and allow my (pretty shit hot) PGR3 skills speak for themselves.

They did, and again, I was greeted with some superfluous comments that made me laugh.

"Wow, Dean – how is someone like you so good at this game? "

Someone like me, indeed.

So a week went by, and I stuck it out. Hell, it was winter in Canada; there really isn’t much to do in the wind and the rain. The games very soon moved onto Gears of War, a game which I'm not really a fan of, and one which bored me very quickly. However, Gonzo somehow convinced me that it was, “the best game in the entire world” in multiplayer via LIVE, so I decided to stick it out.

Oh my god.

Never in my life have I met such a raving band of fanboys, who are quite unequivocal in their determination to act like complete assholes. I felt completely humiliated. Not due to my lack of skill, but for the total disregard my fellow players had for each other. I felt like an onlooker watching the fat kid being ripped to shreds in the showers after a P.E. class. To think, these are guys in their 20’s and 30’s who, apparently, feel they have some divine right to be a belligerent cunt in the online environment, simply because we aren’t in the same room as them.

So I leave. I get out of there and vow never to play with those guys again.
Over the course of a few months, the rabid fanboys grew even closer. The threads stretch to the thousand post mark, the PM’s flow, and the banter gets increasingly familiar. Until, it all gets too much to handle, and I rhyme rhythmically on the podcast about how fucking sad they all are.

Welcome to ‘The Player’, I say.

Dean

Baseball

I've never understood Baseball. I get the general premise: You pitch a ball to the hitter, and he tries to hit it. He then makes his way, in a circular fashion, from home base to first, second, third, and eventually home again.

So its basically rounders, for big boys.

While im just ignorant enough to say it's shit when compared to Cricket as a spectator sport, im North American enough to understand why its the national pastime.

Hot summers days, sitting with your Dad, among another 40,000 people. Having a Coke and a Hot Dog, and just enjoying the relaxation of watching two teams take swings at 95 mph balls.

Sounds a little romantic eh?

Personally, I couldnt give a shit, I've much more important things to do than watch eight hours of fat Cuban's sweat it out on the field. However, after recently playing 2K Sports' latest effort, MLB2K7, I've become very much enamoured with the sport these crazy yanks love so much.

If you've read my previous 2K sports reviews, you'll know im a big fan. Great presentation, solid gameplay, and revolutionary controls that add much to the game. Take NBA 'k7's latest addition: The ability to choose which type of shot you're taking with a flick of the right analogue stick.

You want to avoid the outstretched hands of the defender, hit right on the stick, and you're player will cleverly perform a layup to the right of the defender, thus making him miss, and you score.

So what have 2K done with MLB over and above increasing the visual flair, and adding Nirvana to the soundtrack!

Analogue hitting, boys!!!!

You set up for you swing with a pullback on the right stick, and you push it forward in the direction you want to hit.

Its crazy difficult to do, as you have to line up your movement of the stick, to the position of the ball, but when you get it...Christ its impressive!

Im being a pussy right now, and opting to take the easy router.

Pressing 'A' to hit rocks my world.

Staff

Welcome

This is the The Player magazine's very own blog. Part of the blogosphere, a fitting choice of word give that everyone on the internet is fat. Except us...and you. You're just big-boned.

But wait, confusion. We are you. You are The Player. Come back here to see what you really think, then, you might be surprised.