Not Exactly X-Rated Action.

You've got to feel sorry for the developers of The Bureau: XCOM Declassified. Throughout the long and troubled production of the game they never really caught any breaks. No matter how good a game the final product may have actually ended up being, coming out and announcing an FPS Prequel to a beloved franchise to the internet was never going to end well.

This is not marketing. This is SUICIDE.

And then after weathering the inevitable shitstorm all their thunder is suddenly stolen by the surprise announcement of a "proper" XCOM game. Which, unsurprisingly is VERY popular. And then they start scrambling around trying to be more like this new version. Because desperately aping whatever happens to be popular always works SO WELL. But they do it and they finish the game and then just before it's finally released, what happens?

MOTHERFUCKING CHICKEN LEGS HAPPENED.

The great big incredibly awesome expansion for Enemy Unknown is suddenly announced out of nowhere. And just like that nobody gives shit about The Bureau again.

Which, in all honesty is probably for the best.

The Edge Of Reason

So, you may have noticed that I've been waxing lyrical on the subject of Pacific Rim lately. Funny story, but I'd just seen the movie and was all in the mood for more awesome Jaeger vs Kaiju type action, whilst simultaneously having 850 or so points on the xbox that needed to be finished up before microsoft switch over to real money transactions and put all the prices up. And guess what had just come out on the arcade?

No clues, just guess.

One might almost call it fate. Perhaps not quite a fate worse than death, but it's not honestly one of the best decisions I've ever made.

It's The Loneliest Number

There is a lot being said about the big reveal of the new Xbox around and about, as well you might expect. Not much of it is exactly positive. But really, there is at least one good thing I think we can all take away from this: 

In these times of financial hardship and economic uncertainty, it's certainly heartening to know that we are not going to buy ANY new consoles for a very long time.

An Unfortunate Report

Anyone who knows me will say one of two things. Either they'll tell you that they are in fact an imaginary penguin and question how it is you're even talking to them, or they'll tell you that I likes me a bit of Yu-Gi-Oh.

IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

Thus it's with a heavy heart that I have to report that the new Yu-Gi-Oh! Decade Duels Plus game isn't actually very good.

X & Violence Part 12: Generation Gap

Stumbleupon is handy service to have for when your bored, serving up random things on a variety of topics. But if there's one thing that's REALLY been getting on my tits it's the tendency for about 90% of the Video Game pages it brings up to consist of wild rumours and unfounded speculation about the next generation of consoles.

Now, I realize that 90% of the internet is founded on wild rumors and unfounded speculation. At least in terms of the small amount of it that isn't porn. But that's a whole different argument. No, today I want to ask one simple question:

What exactly is it that's wrong with the current generation of consoles?

Oh yeah...

2012: The Year That Didn't End

As I sit here, at the very end of the month of December in the year of someone's lord two thousand and twelve I cannot help but notice that the world did in fact NOT come to a terrifying cataclysmic halt. At least as far as I can tell. I mean, obviously there are bits that I can't see from here, but I'm fairly sure that if any of them had been destroyed someone would have mentioned it on twitter or something.

Thus I am faced with with the grim prospect of another year and the inevitable tedium it will bring. But first, let's review the inevitable tedium of the year gone by, as is our custom. As ever the criteria for inclusion is simply stuff that I got, did, played, watched, listened to or otherwise experienced in the past year. Whether or not it was actually released, or indeed bears the slightest relevance to that time period at all, is up to the whims of fate.

Terror From The Derp

It's been a while since I've posted anything here. Not that I haven't had a few ideas for things to wibble on about, but other stuff has been consuming my time. Firstly of course there was all that business with my xbox profile getting hacked, which required me to replay ALL THE GAMES. And then, I'd no sooner finished reordering my activity history when the earth was invaded by aliens.

"Hey guys, what's happening here?"

Yeah, XCOM happened. It happened SO HARD.

Unlucky For Some

So, my xbox profile got hacked this week. I have no idea how. I'm hardly in the habit of giving out my passwords to all the thoroughly convincing unsolicited emails I receive on a daily basis. Although since most of them are from banks and services I've never dealt with in my life that's hardly surprising.

Lovely. Wonderful.

Indeed, I'm hardly what you'd call prolific or gregarious in terms of my online activity, generally preferring to sit on my own on the corner ranting about the Myrka and giggling quietly. Nevertheless somehow I got targeted by T3H L33T HAX0RZ CR3W.

X & Violence Part 11: Press X Not To Care

I finally got around to preordering X-COM the other day, because what's the point in saving the earth if you can't look like Guile whilst doing?

It took a team of 100 scientists and engineers 3 months to construct this hair.

Thing is whilst I was in the shop I managed to pick up a few new games I have poor impulse control. And the first of these that I proceeded to actually play was Splatterhouse. Overall I'd say it was a fun if flawed game. As brawlers go it's not at all bad once it get's going, but there are these various issues which got me thinking. It has several instances of things which, in my humble opinion, break the rules of good game design. And I was thinking that perhaps what I should do is try to write up these nebulous concepts as a properly defined list of commandments.

And one day I will. But right now we're going to talk about Quick-Time events.

This Is How The World Ends

So, I finally managed to finish Magna Carta 2 last night. And after all that effort spent wading through the game the question I find myself faced with is do I trade the game? Or simply set it on fire so that no one else ever has to go through all that shit?

It is not a very good game. In fact it is actually a game that I would be inclined to label as OBJECTIVELY bad. Not this game is, in my personal opinion, not great. But just..... BAD.

It's a metaphor.

X & Violence Part 10: Sequelitis

As we all know, the modern entertainment industry is creatively bankrupt in all it's forms. Be it games, films, TV or music there is hardly anything original being produced any more. The cinema is an endless parade of sequels, reboots and comic book adaptations. And with games is basically the same thing. Only worse because instead of just having a crappy reboot we have a crappy FPS reboot.

Seriously, can we just stop doing this?

X & Violence Part 9: High Hoe

Since I am apparently going through a phase of stating the obvious in regards to commonly discussed topics, let's have a little chat about this whole hardcore vs casual thing.

Ever notice how often this image crops up when you talk about hardcore gamers?

X & Violence Part 8: Brother, Thou Wert Art

So, last time we ended on a bit of a downer. Again. But I still think the point remains valid, and it leads us neatly to the subject of the artistic merit of the gaming medium. So let's talk about that a little.

X & Violence Part 7: Something Blue

Okay, so I think it's time to take a break from serious and/ or controversial topics for a while, and talk about something a little more light hearted. So, what's on my mind today?

The whole area of pre owned games & the various attendant issues arising from it.

Yeah, this is gonna go well.

X & Violence Part 5: And Sex(y)

So, let's talk about sexism in video games. I mean, this is a subject that anyone who's interested in the medium is going to have address sooner or later. I must admit that while I had some thoughts and ideas for a post I wasn't planning on doing one so soon. But then events caught up with me...

X & Violence Part 4: Taking The Shark For A Walk

So, I managed to achieve a couple of things last time. I managed to retain a mostly positive tone when discussing something. And thing that I was discussing was one of the key titles involved I finally convincing me to actually buy a new console. There are a few of these as you might imagine. And I haven't gotten all of them yet. But today i'd like to talk about another one of them. And this time I don't think I'm going to be able to be QUITE as positive overall.

So, let's talk about The Force Unleashed.

X & Violence Part 3: Hell Is Other People

One of the things I wanted to do with this particular series of posts was to talk about specific games, and the thoughts and issues that have arisen through playing them. So far I've not really been able to do this, as I've been discussing things in a broader sense. But one thing that I particularly wanted to talk about going into this was the Halo franchise. Obviously it's a big important IP for the xbox. But more than that it's something that I quite like, but I know quite a lot of people don't. Certainly none in my social group. So I figured it could be fun to explore what it is I like about the franchise, and see if I can answer some of the common criticisms levelled at it.

And the funny thing is that normally the answer is "Yeah, that's very true."

I refuse to not use this picture.

X & Violence Part 2: Peen There, Done That

Okay, so I guess that introductory post to this particular series got a little negative towards the end. And even though I guessed correctly I didn't get a prize. What sort of fucking game is this anyway?

So, this time I thought I'd try and raise the tone a little and talk about something the xbox does better than the wii. No, I'm still not talking about graphics and I NEVER WILL BE. Today I want to talk a little about achievements.

X & Violence Part 1: All A Bored

As you may be aware, a little while ago I finally bought myself an xbox. Why? Well, partly because I'd actually been given opportunity to play a few games on a friends one and quite enjoyed it. Partly because I was getting back into Star Wars in a big way and wanted to get The Force Unleashed. But if I'm honest it's mostly because I was sulking. Various issues had ruined my plans for the weekend and set me in a rather bad mood. And nothing brightens ones mood quite like wasting three hundred quid or so.

As a consequence of this of course my available free time has become rather occupied, and I haven't been doing quite as much of other things as maybe I should. Some might call it video game addiction. Personally I'd say it's more to do with having a compulsive personality and shitty life. Anyway point is since I've been playing a lot of video games it means I've been THINKING a lot about video games. So why not turn this to my advantage and squeeze out a few posts on the subject?

So, let's start with some general faff and see where the thought train leads us.