The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Blogger

So, in a no doubt vain attempt to assuage my cravings for affection I have put aside the few scraps of dignity I may have had left and signed up to... a dating site.

I do this not in any serious hope or expectation of meeting any social or romantic partners, but for the same reason I play the lottery: to illustrate the futility of the excersize. "You don't know if you don't try" they say to me. To which I of course counter "actually, I DO know. I know exactly what will happen. NOTHING. But, in the interests of scientific rigour I will go waste my time in order to shut you up".

So, what's the problem with the whole online dating thing I hear you ask? Well, it goes something like this. When we sign up we are first asked to illustrate our narcissism by uploading pictures or ourselves. Then we are asked to prove our egocentricity by writing severel lengthy paeons to how utterly fantastic and interesting we are. Then, after all that we supposed to demonstrate our obnoxious nature by randomly hassling complete strangers.

And this, somehow is supposed to impress people.

Of course I'm glossing over the whole fact that the reason we're all there in the first place is because we're all social rejects and emotional cripples completely incapable of attracting a mate in the real world, and thus even if you do somehow end up meeting someone they will be mentally unstable to a frightening degree.

I know I am.

I Stumble 4 Porn

This is a post that does exactly what it says on the tin. In the spirit of living dangerously I have decided to try turning on the porn on Stumble Upon and see what comes up.

I'm not really sure why. Boredom I suppose. Porn is good for boredom, right?

Wrong, wrong, wrong. I suppose I was hoping for some form of nightmarish internet sex to come up and then we could point at it and laugh an go eeewww.

But no. If there's one thing that this exercize has confirmed to me it's just how incredibly boring porn is. That's assuming you can even define it as porn. according to the dictionary pornography is defined as:

Sexually explicit pictures, writing, or other material whose primary purpose is to cause sexual arousal.

obscene writings, drawings, photographs, or the like, esp. those having little or no artistic merit.

Is a picture of a lady who just happens to be naked REALLY porn then? I mean are we really that disconnected that the sight of a womans ankles will drive us mad with desire? Maybe I'm just old and jaded, but it seems to me there should be something more involved than the mere existence of boobs.

Now, to be fair, you do occasionally get something with an actual penis in. But why does it always seem so ridiculous? Here is a naked lady. Having SEX! In her BUMHOLE!!! But why is she wearing that ridiculous hat?!?! I mean, she's indoors for a start. And it's an old mans flat cap, like something out of Steptoe and Son or something. Incongrous much?

Well, fine. Average porn is obviously not going to provide much trauma for discussion. Let's try FETISH porn. Thats gotta be freaky, right?

Meanwhile, behind the facade of this innocent looking dictionary....

any object or nongenital part of the body that causes a habitual erotic response or fixation

Something, such as a material object or a nonsexual part of the body, that arouses sexual desire and may become necessary for sexual gratification

An abnormally obsessive preoccupation or attachment; a fixation

Well, I hate to argue with the dictionary, but thats not quite right. Fetish Sexuality actually involves either

1. Bondage
2. Latex
3. Rock Chicks

And thats it. I mean, here was I expecting some sort of insight into the multifarious nature of human sexuality and all I get is girls with tatoos dressed in rubber and tied up a bit. Now, to be fair some of the outfits that popped up were pretty cool. But it should be noted that I wasn't stumbling for fashion here. And again we run the same gamut of nothing happening really to vaguely sexual, with a fair amount of VAGINA! in between.


I'm not really sure where I'm going with all this (as with most things I write). Perhaps just that I went looking at porn for ages, and rather than touching myself I went and did the washing up instead. Not that I'd tell you if it'd gone differently.


OR WOULD I?
Ahh, there's the trauma. I knew we'd get there in the end.

re: Tardy

Just occured to me that I haven't actually managed to post anything this past week. This is down to a number of issues ranging from work, stress, depression, apathy, forgetfullness and spending all my time playing video games rather than doing anything even remotely constructive.

This isn't really my fault, as I was forced into panic buying Metroid: Prime Trilogy at the start of the week when it was announced they were gonna stop making it. So rather than waiting for it to go down under £30 I ended up paying £45. I justify this to myself by repeatedly chanting "it's 3 games" over and over. Plus It will (possibly) start getting silly expensive to get hold of soon, as everyone else panic buys it as well.

Mind you, if there's a £25 second hand copy floating around next time I have the misfortune to go down the town I will not be best pleased.

But still, I really need to work on some of the things I wanted to write posts about. I have a list and everything. A list from pretty much before I started this up. Which I have done NOTHING with. Still, some of this stuff requires a bit of research, and I really can't be bothered to watch all the Star Wars films right now. Maybe I should take a day off work and catch up? Who knows.

Anyway, by way of pennance (there's no point saying apology since it's not like anyones reading this at all, let alone waiting with baited breathe) I will include.....

Have A Break, Have A Quick Bat

So me an S-San went to the pictures last yesterday to see Daybreakers. It was, shockingly enough, not a bad film. It wasn't a massively great one, but I'd say the positives outweigh the negatives fairly comfortably.

What we have is nice idea about what happens when vampires outnumber humans. The whole society seems pretty well realised, and visually everything looks very nice with an interesting blend of modern and 40s/50s style.

The subsiders makeup effects are VERY good, giving a great sense of twisted and bestial but still allowing a hint of patheticness to visible. Generally the film makes good use of physical effects, with the only obvious CG being used on the burning vampires.

The plot has some nice ideas, and you can't really have a go at the lack of science involved, as it is made clear that these are the classic undead type vampires rather than something more modern. There's a great establishing shot early on showing the characters lack of reflection. I suppose in way the "cure" discovered does make a kind of sense, since you cannot kill that which does not live. But thats all I'll say for fear of spoilers.

The best performance is easily Willem Dafoe turns in easily the best performance in the film, Sam Neill makes a fairly enjoyable villain though. The leads are, it has to be said, generic at best. I'm not gonna say Ethan Hawke is Keanu Reaves or anything, but they are kind of just... there.

I'd say the major problem with the film is simply in the closing scenes, at is it really feels that after the big reveal they really didn't quite now how to end the film. after a point it just goes on to long, as various characters turn up to save the day in turn, finally culminating in a driving off into the sunrise shot which is frankly just as cliched and played out as it sounds. Can't really go into to much detail without giving away spoilers, but they should have faded out after the secound round of Dawn Of The Dead. I'll try not to point how silly it is for the leads to be running around in sudden action hero mode after suffering extreme bloodloss at this point, since it is a bit daft.

Bonus points are given for not having the leads suddenly leap on each other and start fucking despite the complete abcense of any chemistry or attraction like pretty much every other film. Though there are a few points where they do kind of make you think thats going to happen. I'm not sure whether to take points off for that or not.

So, overall then: Yes this is pretty good film. It's an interesting take on the whole Vampire idea, and does have the advantage of portraying Vampires with some actual balls, rather than the whingy whiney emo gheyness that seems so prevalent these days. However I can't honestly say I'd rush out to buy it on DVD at any point.

Required Reading: Barefoot Gen

If there's a single Manga that I could point to and say that it has had a profound impact on me, it would have to be Barefoot Gen. I'm not quite sure if I can really express the impact of this book, but I'm going to try. Because as far as I'm concerned this is a book that NEEDS to be read.

I first discovered this book in, of all places, school. Back in the day (when steam powered dinosaurs ruled the earth and we ate rocks for breakfast) before I'd even heard of the word Manga. I was in the library, at lunchtime, going through the Asterix and Tintin books for something to read when I found it. 2 Volumes of Barefoot Gen. So I naively picked one up and read it. Only I couldn't actually read it all the way through. I had to go for a breathe of fresh air before I could face finishing them. I was still young then, and far less inured to the horrors on offer than I later became (I couldn't handle Tesuo the first time either).

The story is fairly straightfoward. It follows the life of Gen and is family, in the closing days of world war 2. They live in Hiroshima.

You can see where this is going.

There's just something about the straightforward way the horrors of the bomb are depicted. I'd never before seen anything quite like it. Even now I find it disturbing. It's.... unflinching? The whole point of the book is basically to bring home to the reader the magnitude of human suffering involved, and I think this goal is acheived. I think the simple fact that this is a semi autobiographical work is what really does it. The simple fact that what we're presented with is REAL.

Of course since then I've discovered that the book goes on far beyond what I saw in my childhood. 10 volumes total, depicting the aftermath of the bomb and the surrender on the lives of people.

It's a major strength of the work that it doesn't flinch from it's criticizing of both the Americans who dropped the bomb, but also the Japanese powers who started the war. The first volume gives you a disturbing taste of what it was like in Japan during the war. A place of fanatical nationalism and conformity gone mad. This I feel is very important in any work dealing with this period. The use of nuclear weapons granted Japan as a nation a certain sense of victimhood, but it's easy for that to overshadow the crimes Japan commited in the war. Including crimes against it's own people.

So, the story continues on, in it's strangely compelling way. Ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances is perhaps a phrase that you could use, cliched as it is. Gen, his family and friends struggle to survive, despite all the suffering and misfortune that is thrown in their way. And unrelenting suffering is quite a running theme. As much as you want for the fated happily ever after the characters so obviously deserve to appear it never does. But they go on, trying hard and doing their best. Because it's basically that or die.

Inspiring and horrifying in equal measure, this is really an epic story of the true costs of war, and of it's victims.

More people should read this, especially nowadays.

Technical Difficulties

I bought Sam & Max for the Wii. It came through the mail yesterday, so when I got it I settled down for a pleasant evenings pointing & clicking. I mean, I'd really enjoyed Secret Files Tunguska, and this is like a proper franchise from the P.C. It's bound to be even better right?

Well.... Not exactly. I've only played it for an evening, and to be fair half of that was wandering around trying to work out what to do until I finally noticed the obvious item I'd missed, so I can't really review the game properly. So far it's quite funny, fairly clicky and rather pointy, all well and good. What I feel compelled to discuss are the technical issues.

Now, some of this has been mentioned in the reviews I didn't read before buying the game, and mostly function as a minor inconvenience (with one rather notable exception).

Graphically there are some glitches around. I've seen framerate issues mentioned, which seems about right. Although there was one dialogue scene where the characters weren't rendered AT ALL.

The sound often cuts off the last beat of a line of dialogue, which while not terminal is rather odd and get's quite annoying. Doesn't always do it mind you. Just enough so you can't help but notice.

Response can be a little funny on occasion, most notably for me when you click on something you're right next to and the character walks away and realigns themselves, ending up in basically the same position.

However the most notable problem was one I didn't see mentioned in any reviews. Simply that the game KILLED MY SYTEM ENTIRELY. TWICE.

First time through I'm pottering through, I complete a bit in one location and go to leave. I walk out the door... And everything freezes. The game starts emiting a disturbing tone, pitched about "you're fucked now" level. It's crashed. However it's crashed so hard it's taken the Wii with it. Nothing responds. Can't power off, can't eject, can't restart. Had to yank the power in the end.

Now, I should of course note that after plugging the power back in everything worked again and I was able to continue. Though I made damn sure to save a lot more often.

But that is hardly the point. What is actually shocking is that a game this buggy is available on a console. I mean, I may expect some problems from some old/cheap/free piece of software on the P.C. You have a lot more potential for thing to get buggy on a variable platform like that. But are you honestly telling me that this went through testing and they just said "meh, whatever"? This is, put simply, not good enough. This is, when you come down to it, BETA.

Which is a real shame. Because I really WANT to like this game. It seems like it's gonna be quite fun. But with these ridiculous niggly problems always ticking away in the background (and on occasion destroying everything you've just spent the last hour and half doing) There's no way I can, in all good concience, recommend this. There is simply no excuse for these bugs to exist.

Now, I'm gonna keep playing, and who knows? Things may improve. But on first impressions this really is not a good start.

This Is What Wii Want

You see what I did there? I am the new Noel Coward.

Moving on....

I've been thinking a bit about gaming recently, specifically gaming on the Wii, specifically after reading this article on Destructoid. What stands out of course are the frequent mentions of those old, tired, yet shockingly ill defined terms "hardcore", "mature" and of course "success". Now, I'm not expert in the intracacies of the video game industry and it's demographics, but I am on the internet and thus fully qualified to opine at great length about pretty much anything based only on my own opinions and biases. So, here we go...

Firstly, is there a market for "mature" games on the Wii? Yes. Hello. That would be me then. But what do we even mean by "mature"? Near as I can tell it's all about the swearing and sexual references. Violence is largely taken for granted, especially in video games. I'm not saying it should be, far from it. But let's face it, kill the alienzombieterrorist is basically a staple element of a rather high percentage of games.

Indeed, one of the major reasons I decided to buy a Wii in the first place was simply that it had a selection of games that didn't involve mindless wholesale slaughter.

But just adding a few expletives and a pair of pixilated breasts hardly makes a game mature, does it? It make it unsuitable for children (conditional of course on temprement, upbringing, enviroment and other such factors), but thats as far as it goes. House Of The Dead: Overkill, good as it is, is hardly overflowing with sophisticated subtext. And that's fine as far as it goes, but really when you're labelling something as intended for mature audiences I'd expect it to have little more meat on it than the metaphorical equivilent of shouting "BUM!" in the playground (I'm looking at you Torchwood).

Next let us address the whole tedious "Hardcore" vs "Casual" issue. What exactly is the difference? Like most of these sort of things it's really just a self imposed label designed to bolster feelings of superiority in one party at the detriment of another. Though I suppose you could also classify it as oone group who plays games for fun, and one who plays games as work. Different people will look for different qualities in games, regardless of how much time/effort/self respect they invest in the hobby. No, someones mum probably wouldn't like (insert latest generic flavour of the month fps). So what? She may well own at puzzle games, or point and click. Frankly I'd rather be someone who's not very good at a game but enjoying themselves. These are, after all supposed to GAMES. Played for their entertainment value.

Now success is only ever really going to be measured in one way. How much money the game makes. For all I, or indeed anyone else, can  rave about how fantastic something is, if it doesn't make the publishers a profit then it's simply not succesful. However there is an interesting comment in the article regarding the timeframe for said return. Most games look to make a return in the first three weeks? That seems to me to be a pretty short timeframe for the shelflife of a title. Yet on the Wii it's longer. Why? Perhaps it would be more sensible to ask why everyone should be expected to rush out and buy everything as soon as it's released. Whilst obviously there are going to be certain titles that people want to play immediately not every game for every player is going to fall into this catagory. And for some people (by which I of course mean me) who have a list of new and upcoming titles they'd LIKE to play, but are actually busy playing something else right now. This goes back to the whole casual vs hardcore thing perhaps. You'll have those who regard gaming as an occupation who absolutely must have the latest titles to impress nobody with, and then you've got those who will get around to playing it when they have the time/money/inclination/whatever.

What's really interesting however is when this brings us to COMPARATIVE success, franchises, and multi-platform releases. Afterall, when gauging success people don't look at the percentage profit (which let's face it is probably classified anyway), it's all about how many units more or less than whatever other title. Myself, I've never thought bulk numbers were much of an indicator of actual quality in anything. Let's face it, the state of modern cinema proves that quite conclusively. It's this sort of focus that makes it hard to accurately judge success for the more niche markets. I mean, you can make a nice percentage profit, sell out your print run and have a game that people hang onto and play the shit out of, but if you're not shifting X million units nobody will even notice. It's the implication that companies are not satisfied with anything less that is quite forboding. There is undoubtedly a niche market for mature games on the Wii. And since that market exists it can be exploited. But to expect a niche market to behave in the sameway as the mainstream seems a little naive.

Now the issue of franchise based games is briefly brought up, and expounded upon somewhat in the comments (at least as far as I read) with some reference to the difficulty of developing cross platform titles for the Wii due to it's unique control style and comparitive lack of power. The argument going along the lines that the Wii looses out to the 360 or PS3 in these sort of titles since it's too much hassle to port them across. Lacking the big name franchises it thus does not attract the "mature" gamer.

So, did I miss the memo where it was decreed that all consoles must be exactly the same? Even down to having the exact same games? As far as I'm concerned the whole POINT of the Wii is that it doesn't have all the same titles as everything else. That it does something DIFFERENT. Trying to shoehorn the standard games available on everything else seems fairly pointless. Similarly, not every machine must have a version of whatever umpteenth sequal is coming out. Indeed, one of the most agravating things for any fan of a particular franchise is when it starts jumping around systems. You don't really want to have to buy a whole new system every time just to keep up, do you? Rather than relying on the tried, trusted, stale and increasingly generic names of yore surely you should be looking to develop new titles of your own? Play to the strengths of the system, rather than just trying to replicate. Just because it's on the xbox doesn't mean it also needs to be on the Wii. They're different machines, designed to do different things. Indeed, I have a few cross platform releases, and those that have come from elsewhere do give of a distinct vibe of "this would be better with a regular controller". I'm not saying their bad, I'm not saying it impedes your enjoyment. But it's there, even if it's only subtley.

Basically, at the end of the day if someone wants xbox style games they'll buy a goddamn xbox. Many people will have multiple consoles as it is, further undermining the neccesity of multi platform releases.

The Wii CAN do regular games. It's just that's not what it's BEST at.

So, what SHOULD they be doing with the system? Ultimately what any developer should do with any system. Make good games. Sounds obvious really. Develop original titles with interesting gameplay and decent stories, and for the love of god STOP DUBBING THE DIALOGUE. The Wii has wierd freaky controls. So USE that. Don't be a slave to it, and don't try to ignore it. Integrate it. You don't need sixty buttons to make an decent game, neither do you have to spack out swinging it around to do anything. There's lots you could do, but please don't stop just because you don't instantly make umptymillion. There are many levels of sucess, and you don't need to be a billionaire to make a living.

Oh, and could somebody PLEASE start making H games for the Wii? Just THINK about how much fun you could have with that. If nothing else Onechanbara has proved how well the Wii handles jiggly. Variety, as they say, is the spice of life. SO why not a little sexy for after the violence?

The End Of An Earhole

Last night was the end of many things old, and yet also the beginning of something new and possibly glorious.

And no, I'm not talking about your puny human new year. I'm talking about Doctor Who. Like anything else matters.

The End Of Time parts 1 & 2 marked the end of era in Doctor Who, as the franchise finally parts from the hands of Tennant and Davies, and in many ways I suppose is a kind of celebration of that era. Both it's strengths and sadly it's limitations.

Part One seems almost rushed, setting up various elements quite quickly, yet still taking some time for a few nice, quiet moments (All together now, "The Cafe Scene!!). You have great performances all round, notably from the leads of course. I mean, that IS why they're the leads and all. But it's worth saying. David Tennant is a brilliant Doctor, and does get some great bits to work with here. John Simms Master is immensely watchable, and gives a layered performance which really shows the depth of the character. He is also entertainingly crazy of course, which doesn't hurt. Bernard Cribbins as Wilf is, as he ever was, simply lovely. Seriously, everybody loves Wilf.

The cliffhanger at the end of episode 1 is pretty awesome, with the human race wiped out (bar 2) and then the extra excitement of the return of the Time Lords. You're not really sure where they're going with it all, and thus can't really say what happens next. Which is what it should be.

Part 2 opens up in a rather exposition heavy way, which does rather set the theme for the episode of tell, don't show. Whilst they're trying to establish that the Time Lords have become a threat worse than the Daleks there isn't much onscreen to actually justify it. We get some lovely hints about what they had become, a couple of tantalizing lines suggesting that Time itself was used as a weapon. But thats basically it. The Narrator was billed quite accurately. Not to avoid spoilers (everyone said he was Rassilon) but simply because he's basically there to tell you stuff. Some frankly nebulous evil masterplan about destroying time or something, maybe a bit of jiggery pokery with his acme doom gauntlet, but thats about it. This of course is a terrible shame, because we have one brilliant moment when the Doctor realizes they're coming back which really does set up some expectations of oncoming DOOM (you know, the bit with the gun).

And then they just stand there and narrate.

I mean, it all looks lovely. Gallifrey really does look like a rather hideous place to be, but the whole planets in the sky thing has been done already. As indeed has forbidden ultimate evil being pulled out of the time war.  The whole set up at the end of forcing the Doctor into a position where he has to choose to kill someone is great, but undercut somewhat by the resolution when he doesn't actually have to. Not that you really care at the time though, since we do have some serious ACTING going on.

At this point I should probably mention Star Wars, since every other review is going to. Yes the bit with the missles is more than a little reminisent of the TIE attack, but so what? Frankly more incongrous to me is the whole segment being much more lighter in tone than everything surrounding it. We suddenly kick in to a bit of hollywood chase scene, which is nice enough and no doubt fantastic for the kids. But it just feels a bit of an odd filling for a doom sandwich.

Finally of course we come to the Doctors death, which after all is kind of the point, the whole things been leading up to this, right?

Yes and no. Whilst yes he does die, and they do achieve it in a somewhat unexpected fashion, it does feel a little.. tacked on and drawn out. But it's not really bad, just different. I think it's great that the Doctor dies in the way he does, saving one mans life rather than everyone and everything ever as it does show off the moral character a bit. But then he's up and around a bit to long afterwards. Going around the various companion characters is a nice idea, a little goodbye for the various other players of this era of the program, and does make a change from the standard flashback montage. It may well have been only about an hour for the Doctor, which kind of works. But that's not explicit on screen. Perhaps if he was a little more obviously deteriorating up until the end?

Then of course we have the long awaited regeneration. All I can really say at this stage is Matt Smith pulls off post regenerative crazy disorder with gusto, and the wrecking up of the Tardis is pretty awesome.

So yeah. On the whole a pretty good run. Entertaining viewing certainly, but not without it's flaws. This isn't really a bad thing. I mean if they made a perfect episode there wouldn't be much point going on would there. Even Genesis Of The Daleks has the clam. Very much a greatest hits of the Davies era in various levels of disguise (slim to none), but then if thats not a fitting send off then what is? At least he didn't just fall of his bike.

Roll on number 11.