Insert pun here about 'Steam'.

Short post today, I'm buried under a mound of not-doing-much.

I'm going to express an unpopular opinion here: I do not use Steam. I avoid getting Steam put on my computer, and even go so far as to refuse to try the Dawn of War II demo sitting on a DVD in front of me, purely because it requires Steam to be installed.

One reason for my dislike of Steam is the Big Brotherish method of playing it's games. You MUST be on the internet and have Steam running in order to be able to play it's games. That doesn't seem like a massive thing at first, but as well as using computer resources it's also keeping a tab on the games people play. It bothers me that my recreational habits are being poured over by some market research consultant (even though, let's be honest, even without Steam that's probably happening)

The main thing is that it's a DRM method that no one seems to even notice. Starforge gets every nerd's hackles up like there's a large predator in the room, and the "5 install only" methods of some recent games (Mass Effect, which I admit I loved, and Spore, which I'm INCREDIBLY indifferent to) raised more of an uproar then jokes about putting a baby in a microwave.

Steam is a DRM method just the same, which no one even considers because it means they can get games without getting to get up from their chair. I don't mind Digital Rights Management, since I believe people are entitled to payment for their hard work. What bothers me is that if another DRM company tried to do what Valve does (require you to be constantly online to play it, not to mention having a program in the background monitoring your gameplay time) they would be crucified. But because it's part of the store's system and Valve made Half Life, they get away with it.

It just bothers me.

Taking to the air

You know what, I am running out of nerdgasm topics.

Dirigibles. You know what they are? Picture a hot air balloon, inflated massively, with a full blown interior, kind of like an airplane. Actually, nevermind that, just watch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and you'll see one.

Using my rudimentary knowledge of things (I know a lot about things, just not much about specific things, and a great deal of general things), here is how I piece together the timeline.

Dirigibles are slower then planes, much slower, even when put side by side with directly comparable technology Dirigibles are slower. However, at the time they were around they had much larger carrying capacity.

However, there are two things that screwed with the history of the development of this stuff. Back then there were three methods of traveling between continents. Boats, which were slow and sturdy. Airships, which were a little faster then boats without the risk of dangers at sea. And planes, which were something the public found highly resistable, I mean, they're a tiny metal box with wings that's supposed to somehow stay in the air! That's friggin' mental!

The two events that occured were:

1. The Hindenburg disaster. Happening between World War 1 and World War 2, it showed just how disasterously Airships could go. Everyone on board killed in a firey conflagration of the elements. Yeah, not pleasent, but it was one of the most widely publicised disasters in media history, because the entire thing was RECORDED ON FILM. Seriously, the "Oh the Humanity!" line is common knowledge. So naturally airships got a bit of a bum rap from that.

2. World War 2. Now, in this one, I MAY be speaking out of my ass. I read this somewhere ages ago, and could be wrong, so if I am just call me on it. In World War 2 there needed to be discussion between America and their European based allies. Of course this couldn't be done over morse code or other unreliable messages, so there needed to be steady, reliable transport for the American President to meet with his allies. Airships were out, for obvious reasons. They couldn't use boats, out of fear of German boats intercepting them. So instead they went for an official plane (which, if I recall right, is the origin of Airforce 1 being used as the designation for whatever plane the President is on).

So, having seen their President go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, side to side (sorry, just been watching too much Dr Steel) on a plane, the American public thought "well golly, if the President can use those fan-dangled plane machines, so can we!"

And now, airships are limited only to the friggin' Goodyear Blimp. Screw Godyear, I want to see research put into Airships. If they had as much technological development as planes did, they'd probably still be slower, they'd be much safer, they'd be much more luxurious (more like spacious train travels then cramped airplane confines) and I sincerely doubt they'd use as much fuel. The only major "Holy crap, we're in trouble" factor with Airships is the fact they need to use flammable gasses to lift themselves, but that is something that could be mitigated and possibly even dealt with entirely as a threat. If not for the Hindenburg, rather then Slow Boat -> Fast plane, there could be the middle ground of Slow Boat -> Moderate Airship -> Fast plane

I want an Airship, damnit!

(P.S. Yes, I know there are still some Airships in use, but I much prefer the mental image of them being used as a cheaper, longer, but more luxurious travel alternative then floating advertising).

Having seen Transformers 2:

I'll put a few first-impressions up about the new Transformers movie, rather then an actual review or anything like that. Before I start I'll just say this: Michael Bay, I am disappoint. I say this as a fan of the original Transformers movie you made, I am genuinely disappoint (tense mistake done deliberately). There was so much potential in this movie, and it has been actively squandered. WARNING: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. FURTHER WARNING: This was written in bits and pieces, some things may be poorly written.


1. The Underworld/Matrix problem: When you're making a fictional story of any kind in any media format you're asking the audience to suspend their disbelief about the story itself, and accept the presented story as a potential event.

This is rendered impossible when you're openly changing things. You may not think we'll notice, but we do. The NEST General? Yeah, he was in the first movie in the attack on the US base which was declared to have NO SURVIVORS. Maybe this was dealt with in a comic or something, but that does not help us movie goers. All I saw when he came on screen was "Wait, he's meant to be DEAD."

This is only one of a number of things. The whole "Last of the Primes" thing, "Only a Prime can kill me"? If you're going to throw that stuff in, at least EXPLAIN what a Prime is in the movie. In the original movie it was presented that Megatron and Prime were on equal footing, now apparently Megatron is the servant of a more powerful one of Prime's predecessors? You might want to try and clarify things, because the background you added in this movie just didn't mesh with what I could glean from the original movie. It just broke the immersion.


2. In the first movie there was no problem with the humans being the primary characters, it was expected. Excessive Transformer presence would just cost WAY too much to film, plus you needed to make the main character someone we could empathize with easily and understand, I.E. A human.

However, we now KNOW who the Transformers are, and your budget is way bigger so you can have more special effects shots. To me that just screamed "More personality to the Transformers", but instead you went the opposite way. You added more Transformers, the vast majority with absolutely NO personality, and filled even more screen time with humans or - at best - human-scale transformers. Yes, I get that it's good to have enemies it's possible for the humans to defeat, but they weren't interesting.

When we shouted "We want more Transformers in our Transformers!", we weren't talking about quantity, we were talking about Quality. Even those Transformers with previously established personalities (Ironhide and Rachet) were pretty much ignored for the vast majority of the movie outside of scenes where they're shooting stuff. Then the new Autobots introduced (there were new Decepticons introduced, but since they were just dragged in to Numbers-Up the final fight, it's kinda forgivable they're not characterised) were just used to show off new cars you had access to. Who was the dude with wheeled feet and blade hands? He looked awesome, he killed a Decepticon, and he only had ONE line in the entire movie. I didn't even get his name. Ar-Cee was apparently three motorbikes, but we never saw a scrap of personality on her (P.S. Having a human sized Transformer then NOT using her for human-sized interaction? Lost opportunity, just like point 3 mentioned below).

That University guy alongside Sam and Mikhala? Drop him. I have no interest in him having panic attacks. YES, I understand that he's meant to show how most people would react in that situation so Sam is made to look all the braver, but he was annoying, in the story he was pointless. The ONLY thing he did was fail at an attempt to ground how unbelievable the events of the movie are, and point them at the ex- Sector Seven guy. If you removed him, there would be no change. In fact, the movie could potentially be improved by there being more time to add character to more Transformers.

While on this topic, I would be remiss if I did not thank you for adding Jetfire. While his role was reasonably small and his character wasn't INCREDIBLY deep, he is a good example of what the movie needed. He was a newly added Transformer with CHARACTER. It didn't take much, just a couple of scenes showing what he could do, a chance to actually talk, and a return to the screen later on to remind us of him. That's all it took, and you could have made us WANT the Transformers to win.

Final point in this... well... point. The excess of humans is felt nowhere more then in the final fight scene. It didn't feel like Transformers, it felt like US Millitary Vs Decepticons (with the Autobots making an appearance).


3. The Twins. I wouldn't harp on about the 'hilarious' antics they engaged in or the negative stereotypes, I'll summarize my dislike with this: They are a wasted opportunity.

Here we have two relatively small Transformers who have an extended sequence in the company of humans, and yet they have NO personality beyond offensive racial stereotypes. Here was a chance for some actual personality, for some actual character and historical development. Make them smart-ass characters (preferably actually AMUSING ones), but keep in mind these people have been through a civilization-destroying CIVIL WAR. They're going to be hiding scars. This was a perfect opportunity, during their traveling sequences or while they're camping out, for Sam to talk with the twins about Cybertron or the war and learn more about them. HUMANISE them, make us want the Autobots to win for reasons other then self interest. We need to want the good guys to win for more reason then simple "The bad guys will kill us if they emerge victorious."

They could have had genuine personality, so their scene opposite Devestator would be actually be interesting rather then just making me think "just get on to the proper fight". Yes, comic relief is important, but this movie went overboard with reasonably poor attempts at it. Did we need to have scenes of one dog humping another? No. It had no purpose. Did we need to have scenes of Sam getting attacked by transmogrified cutlery and his mother having a breakdown at the house? No. They could have shaved five minutes and tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars off the budget by removing those scenes, and possibly used that money/time to add to actually purposeful events in the movie.


4. The Robo-human. Yes, I know it's a "tribute" to the Pretender Transformers, but did it have ANY purpose other then trying to add a quickly forgetable "Is Sam going to cheat" subplot? (SPOILER: It turns out Sam ISN'T going to cheat on his girlfriend. There's a shocking surprise). There were a large number of things like this. Really it was just an excuse to add another hot chick to the movie, and to be honest I found her quite unappealing. If you removed that character from the movie and replaced her with, oh, I don't know, an actual FULL sized transformer, it would seem more interesting and threatening. Her presence didn't add anything to the movie, if anything it detracted. Surely if the Decepticons were capable of making their alternative forms passable as humans, they'd do it for more then Infiltrating a university they have no interest in.

Yes, I know Sam's there so they MUST have interest in it, but if you listen to the dialogue you see she's already at the University for a day or two before Sam arrives, or Sam even knows he has the McGuffin.


5. Optimus Prime power up? Really? Bay, you're moving a bit towards the side of Transformers that's complete crap. I realise the idea of silicon based life having defined 'rules' we can understand is a bit of a cop-out to reference, especially when it's shown they can alter their structure so radically, but the idea of Prime WEARING THE WEAPONS of another Transformer and suddenly becoming more powerful just seems like crap to me.

Just to add insult to injury, that final fight sequence was incredibly badly paced. Optimus comes back, the big bad evil guy teleports in, steals McGuffin, starts end of World, Optimus 'powers up', handles it in a matter of half a minute, relaxes and has a smoke. There was nothing to establish just how fearsome the Fallen WAS aside from people going on about it, and a few fuzzy smack-downs. If you MUST have Prime power up, have Prime try to handle him unaugmented first, to show just how powerful this bastard is. Having Prime suddenly come back with weapons from another robot attached and easily handle

On the topic of Prime, sometime more I want to say. His dramatic sacrifice fight scene was quite impressive to watch, but the end of it was quite poor in my view.

Prime has fought like a Demon against three or four Decepticons for a good couple of minutes to allow Sam the chance to escape. Good! Awesome! That's the Prime we know. Then he dies to a sneak attack from behind by Megatron. No, sorry but it lacks drama. Yes, it establishes that Megatron is a sneaky prick, we know that already though, so it doesn't need establishing. What would be more impressive is Prime fighting like a Demon against the Decepticons present (except Megatron) and emerging victorious but damaged, then an undamaged Megatron kicking the crap out of him. Keep in mind, in the first movie we watched a Megatron recovering from centuries of freezing kick the crap out of Prime, after tearing an Autobot in two. Megatron is meant to be TERRIFYING, the moment the Autobots saw him hanging around in the first one they started shouting about falling back

6. The Fallen is the weakest main villain I've seen in a long time. Despite Megatron seeming all subservient (friggin' MEGATRON being subservient! Actually, to get more personality out of it I would have liked to have seen more push and pull in that relationship, Megatron sees it as a partnership, Fallen disagrees, that sort of thing) the Fallen never seems like a genuine Villain. It's obvious they were going for a Darth Vader/Emperor thing, with Megatron being the Darth Vader fought so often through the series, and the Fallen being the Emperor who's so dangerous at the end. But they missed, it just felt like he wasn't DOING anything. He shows up at the end to be essentially a video-game boss fight and to show how badass Prime is. We've spent all this time supposed to be fearing Megatron, and now this rather unfearsomely designed Robot swans in with his stupid beard and we're supposed to be afraid of him?

When he was beaten (SPOILER: THE BAD GUY DIES) I feel no elation, no joy that the threat is passed. I really feel nothing like that, all I feel is disappointment.

Disappointment. I suppose that's where I'm going with ALL of these points. I was just disappointed by the movie. I had high hopes, and I was let down.


Wow, this ended up alot longer then I imagined.

Writers in games

Read this. Then come back here.

Go on, it doesn't take long, I'll wait.

Read it? Good. When I showed that to a friend their reaction pretty much summarised my view.

"Accepting your flaws is a good thing. Embracing them is bad."

That's pretty much what the article is about. Yes, it is true that very, very few games have good stories. Halo's story was so laughable I had to treat it as a subtle parody just to play it. Half Life fans seem to have mistaken a 'complex' story with a 'good' one. There are many games that need to learn when to shut up and let us shoot space marines with our magical gun that fires cosmic paperclips. However the tone the (very short) article seemed to take seemed to me like the guy was saying "Well we can't do stories, so let's just keep rendering those three dimensional breasts and swords and cut one off with the other to our heart's content".

To that I say NO I RESPECTFULLY DISAGREE WITH YOUR OPINION IN A LOUD TONE OF VOICE.

One one hand I understand what is being said, people need to realise that a game is an interactive medium and so being treated to a visual book is no fun, but stating that developers should stop trying to tell grand stories in their games actually offends me. There are not many of them, but there are some GREAT games out there with great stories. Yes, they are the minority, but they are growing, and they show how possible it is with this medium to tell a grand tale.

You know what fills me with hope? When I hear of game studios hiring professional writers for their epic games. More often then not it doesn't happen, since the game will be the baby of the original head developer (who doesn't realise his story telling ability is often somewhere between an apple and an orange). However there are plenty of cases of games studios hiring writers. Often it seems the writer is hired just for small things (like randomly generated missions in MMOs), but there are also occasions of games with actual authors and professional writers attached.

That leads me neatly into a point I've wanted to bring up for a long time. A while back I stumbled across an epic arguement on a forum about the quality of the story behind the Halo games. One party claiming the writing could be disfavourably compared to being attacked and eaten by zombies, the other party claiming it was inspired by divine sources and milked from the nipple of Aphrodite herself.

Obviously I've already revealed my side in this arguement. The Halo story is as enthralling as a damp rag. The part that really made me laugh was when side one argued about how horrible the story was, side two replied with the following.

"If you read the novels you'll see why the halo story is so awesome."

I've never looked at the Halo novels, I don't know if they are well written, or what. But here we have the subtle collapse of the pro-halo-story arguement. The arguement is that the Halo story is horrifically bad, the Halo story is seperate to the novel. It's like someone saying the Spiderman movies are great because X happened in the comics (I know, not entirely metaphorically correct, but the point stands). The Halo novels are giving the setting and characters to an actual author and saying "What can you do with this, having been given this background information?". When arguing about the quality of a game's storyline, all you can utilise is the game itself.

Now, let's finish on something completely different.

Awwwwww..

Non-expert commentary

So, people hear rumours spreading around about how bad a certain example of a type of media is. From there they spread the word, informing others of how horrible it is, relating annecdotes discussing why it should be banned or shunned.

What am I discussing here? Two different events, actually.

1. Mass Effect's nudity

2. Twilight.


I will be the first to say I laughed alongside many'a geek when one of the outspoken critics of Mass Effect laughed off the question "Have you actually played the game" with the response "oh good lord no".

"Ah ha ha, what ignorance!" I spake to myself, content in my own knowledge and superiority.

Probably a year later I read about Twilight and joined in the chorus loudly shouting about how crap it was. A friend asked me "Have you actually read it?", and I barely stopped myself from replying with a hearty "oh good lord no". It took me a second to realise what I was doing. I was doing the exact same thing as others did with Mass Effect, one of my favourite games.

So, am I simply a hypocritical arse?

Oh good lord no.

The primary difference is that I didn't just take word of mouth from a few individuals. I read up about it. I read Twilight book and movie reviews, both positive and negative (although I have to admit, overwhelmingly negative, but that's because they seemed to be the easiest to find). While I have never seen the Twilight movie or read the book, I maintain I am justified in disliking it without having read/seen it. Why is that? Because I basically did the internet equivilent of asking around about it and worked out from the opinions given (positive and negative) what sort of book/movie it was. From there I decided it is not the sort of book/movie I enjoy. In fact it is the sort of book/movie I relegate to the pile "Fucking shit."

Now, finish on a metaphor.

I don't have to eat crap to know it would taste bad. I can just look at it and say "Well, that would taste quite bad based on the smell and visual texture of it." Granted there is the possibility I may be pleasently surprised, and find this is crap from the Francais-monster, which has faeces that tastes like a perfectly cooked croissant with a light dabbing of butter inside, fed to me by a beautiful, scantily clad maiden. It could taste like that, but eating every pile of shit just because there may be nice tasting poo somewhere is stupid.

On the other hand, if someone puts a plate in front of you with something on it, covered in a cloth, and says "Underneath this is shit, don't eat it!", I will likely pull back the cloth to see if it is, indeed, shit underneath.

An awkward metaphor, but it massively increased the number of 'poo' synonyms I've used in this blog.

Fast zombies suck

Edit: Additional: Unrelated to the below. Remember how I stated "Anyone who can complete the mission 'Occupation of Arteria Carpal' (or whatever it's called) is a freak". I must amend that. "Anyone who can complete that mission without ENORMOUS DIFFICULTY" is a freak. Since I kinda just finished it. With an A rating.


It's taken me months, if not years, but I've finally worked out why no movie with fast zombies has impacted on me as much as slow zombies.

Long term readers (or reader, possibly, this isn't a big blog) know of my fear of zombies. One of the main factors of that fear is the fact that when you get killed by zombies, you don't just die, you get dragged down and torn apart, eaten in front of your dying eyes. A horde of the bastards holding you in place as scrabbling fingernails and teeth rip at your flesh with an inevitable slowness you cannot hold back.

Consider the movies with fast moving zombies, primarily Dawn of the Dead (remake) (note, 28 days/weeks later is a good movie, but it is NOT a zombie movie, reasons later). In that movie we saw almost no one get genuinely pulled down and eaten. There were hints that the stupid security guard had that happen, but even what we saw was more like the savaging of dogs then the relentless feast of the undead. Fast zombies lack one of the primary fears of Shambling zombies, so they just lose points with me. Sure, in a purely practical sense it'd be better to be facing a horde of slow zombies then a horde of fast zombies, but they lack one of the primary fear inducers for me.


Now, as for why 28 days/weeks isn't a zombie movie? Even avoiding the semantical differences of "It's a virus, not the evil undead" (which doesn't work, since plenty of zombie stories rely upon the idea of zombism being spread through a virus), the reason is the effect of the zombification. Zombies have a specific terror-inducing purpose, to devour you. The 'Rage'd in 28 D/W are just there to inflict harm by any means, with the possibility of infecting you. It's more like an out of control riot then a zombie invasion.

Don't get me wrong, great series of movies, just not zombie movies.

Narrative stupidity

People who know me, or long term readers will be familiar with the fact that I have a genuine... I won't say phobia, but in the region, about Zombies. If I watch a zombie movie, I cannot sleep that night. Very little other stuff has that impact on me. Zombies just freak me the hell out. In an effort to combat this I am forcing myself to watch Zombie movies at every available opportunity (in daylight, to minimise the negative effect. Baby-steps fellows, baby steps.).

One of my recent attempts was watching the remake of Dawn of the Dead. A pretty meh movie, and the speed of the zombies actually lessens the impact they have on me, but it made me think of something (stop reading if you don't want spoilers, but this doesn't give away too much, really). I can understand from a narrative perspective WHY the survivors decided to venture out to try and find somewhere safer, it moves the story along beyond "here be living people in the mall, there be dead outside" to a direct confrontation with masses of the living dead which makes for a more climactic finish. It doesn't change the fact the plan is FUCKING STUPID.

Like I said, from a narrative standpoint it makes sense, it moves the story along into something like a peak of action, but it is still completely moronic. They're abandoning a safehouse with food, water and protection (and yes, I do understand that their idea of it being safe has been shaken, doesn't stop the plan being stupid) to attempt to cross through no-man's land in the hope of there being a better safehouse elsewhere. Sorry guys and dolls, but that is completely moronic. They even try to lampshade it by having one of the characters define it in those terms and then agree with it anyway. It doesn't work, it just makes him look like a moron because he knows what's happening but goes along with it anyway.

Their logic is something like this: "If we stay here, eventually we'll probably all be killed. But if we go out there, we'll all have a much higher chance of being killed for a short time, then if we survive in the near future we MIGHT find somewhere safer then we are."

When the narrative requires your characters act like complete idiots, don't expect your audience to not notice. Hell, in the horror genre this is a common occurence.

"What are you doing! Don't friggin' split up!"
"Yeah, great plan, go and check out the dark room by yourself without telling anyone where you're going."
"Why in the name of CHRIST are you leaving the tent without a weapon, despite knowing there's an undead bear trying to eat you!?"

It is Jason's superpower. He inspires idiocy in his victims.

Electronics Boutique games is a rip-off

Just a short post today dealing with something that annoys me.

If you're a fan of Zero Punctuation, or otherwise live here, you may have heard the prices for games in Australia. They're ridiculous. Recent events have brought to my attention that these prices may be majoritively the fault of Electronics Boutique games.

"Ha ha," you snidely laugh, dismissing my proposal without a second thought as the two dimensional Socratic Dialogue rip-off that you are, "what a poorly constructed arguement.

For your entertainment I submit two links.

BAM!

http://www.ebgames.com.au/ps3/product.cfm?id=12939&refer=productsearch

And BAM!

http://dstore.com.au/games/Armored-Core-For-Answer/2732218.html


From $110 Australian to $55 Australian (although to be fair, the Dstore one I ended up buying in the end WAS on special. It was down from $60).

You tug your collar awkwardly and begin sweating like a Walrus under the withering gaze of my arguement. "Well surely," stumbles out of your lips like a drunken hooker, "the shipping cost makes up for the difference."

BAM!

No. The shipping would have been $10 or so. I bought it piggybacking on a friend of mine buying something else there, and they had a special on that weekend wherein shipping was free for two or more items.

Even had I bought it by myself and forked over the shipping, and had it not been on special, that still would've bene a saving of $40. I could get myself half a case worth of beer at my local bar for that. I could buy nearly a full case of beer for that at the bottleshop.

EB nearly denied me a dozen beers. And for that they have my eternal hatred.







And now, just to round things off:

Mythbusters Vs Prototype this

I imagine all of you are aware of Mythbusters. The collection of crazy dudes (and ladies) so awesome they inspire many'a nerdgasm. Some of you may also be aware of Prototype This, a new show by the same production company. Essentially PT is similar to MB in that it's about a bunch of eccentric genius' putting their hard earned knowledge to work in creating zany contraptions to prove a point. The difference is that while MB test out the likelihood of a Myth being true, PT use it to attempt to build working prototypes of possible future inventions.

Sounds fun right? Well, having seen a few episodes I feel I am now an expert on the matter and as such can comment in such a way that I cannot ever be disproven.

Prototype This just doesn't have the same degree of appeal for a variety of reasons.

1. Unpolished. This will obviously fix with age, as they settle into their roles and the production team smooth everything out. They'll work out what parts of the procedure work on the show, what parts struggle, and what parts they need to add. As the show goes on, this will be fixed

2. Different challenges. In Mythbusters the joy is seeing the trial and error. They'll spend days building this huge rig, then abandon it when it doesn't work in favour of using something very low tech.

3. The Spectacle. On Mythbusters the excitement of the team is almost palpable, you can feel it and get excited alongside them. Since PT so far seem to be showcasing their inventions for the (altogether too small (again something time might fix)) crowd, and none of them get as excited, it's hard to feel like laughing aloud.

4. The artificial deadline. Mythbusters occasionally mentioned how some things would 'take too long', but they never really set a deliberate deadline outside of specific challenges in which the deadline added to the fun. In Prototype This they set themselves an artificial deadline to add to the rushed feeling, but it never really inspires the excitement they're going for, for me. Instead I just see them all get stressed and rushed and I don't enjoy myself as much. Occasionally the Mythbusters would get down about something not working, but in general it was a feeling of excitement. Prototype this feels like watching people do work.

5. Non-personalities. Maybe it's just because (once more time) we haven't had time to get to know them, but the main people in Prototype this feel too similar, with the only differentiating factor being their haircuts (which is a pretty petty complaint, but come on, these haircuts are just plain scary).

6. EXPLOSIONS. Prototype This are building shit. Mythbusters are blowing shit up. I REST MY CASE.

Ok, a little more detail. Building things is a long and laborious process, meaning the show can only really focus upon one thing at a time, with the entire team working together to build a single item. Mythbusters swapped between several stories at JUST the right pacing. Since you wanted to see where the story went, so you were kept there waiting to see it return, all the while enjoying the next one. Prototype This feels almost like a lecture, keeping to one topic for the whole hour.

EXPLOSIONS.

Sustainable evil

In a recent conversation with my brother we remarked upon something that's been bothering me for while. Are you familiar with Dungeons and Dragons? Passingly? Ok, near enough.

In the backstory there's this race of black skinned Elves who are evil (no racial comparisons intended by the designers... hopefully). They are evil pretty much to the last man (although considering how 99.99% of them are evil, there's a surprisingly large number of misrepresented rebels), and as such their society consists of oppression, scheming, political assassinations and vast amounts of "let's fuck over our neighbour and take their stuff". That's all well and good, it provides a good moral reason for the appropriately varied small group of elite warriors and wizards to sneak in and kill them because they're being evil and threatening, and sometimes that's GOOD for a party. No moral considerations, just "bad guys are here, stab their faces in". Oh, and they live in one of the most hostile areas of the world imaginable, where everything wants to eat everything else's faces.

However...

And this is a big BIG however...

As mentioned this is a race of Elves. In common Fantasy one of the normal aspects of Elves is that they breed very, very slowly. Maybe they're so sick of beautiful people they don't get it on much, but in general Elves breed slowly. The only reason the race doesn't die out completely is they're very good at what they do, and so don't die alot.

So a race that constantly kills each other, lives in one of the most hostile lands imaginable, and constantly tries to invade the 'good' surface world... SOMEHOW has a viable population. Call me picky, but this makes no sense. In general if a species is constantly getting picked off, the only way to avoid that is to have LOTS of babies, which it's already established Elves don't do. As an evil race of bastards, this is completely unsustainable.

It is then my brother came up with one of the greatest terms ever.

S.E.R.

Sustainable Evil Race.

A Sustainable Evil Race is one in which the population will never fall below a certain line of sustainable growth, no matter how many of them are killed by "heroic Adventueres" walking in, stabbing them and taking their shit, or the elements, or their environment, or even each other. Orcs and Goblins are normally a good example of this, since there seem to be so many of the bastards you couldn't stop them from showing up, even if you wanted to. Drow and other evil elven-like races? Not so much. Kill a couple and it'd be a genuine blow to the race. Kill an army of races like Kobolds and they'll be up and at'em again in a couple of years.

So, what is required for a sustainably evil race? Let's introduce some faux maths.

B = Birth Rate, how many will be born over a given time period
S = Percent who survive to 'fighting' age, the age they can fight alongside other evil buggers.
E = Environmental dangers, how many will die because of their surroundings over a given time period
I = Infighting dangers, how many will die because of they are all arseholes over a given time period
H = Heroic dangers, how many will die because of "heroes" killing them and taking their stuff over a given time period
L = Locations, how far spread around the world they are

(B x S - E - I - H)^L

An Example or two:

Drow have a low Birth Rate, but most of then survive because of protection by their family. Their environmental dangers are enormous, as is the infighting. Heroes aren't TOO common, but common enough to be a threat. While the Underdark (where they live) is meant to be enormous, it's also meant to be very inhospitable, and as such there aren't too many Drow settlements. As such, it's quite easy to imagine the Drow are NOT a sustainable evil population. If they didn't have as much infighting or heroic encounters it's not hard to imagine they'd have a greater chance of survival.

Goblins breed like rabbit hermaphrodites, alot of them probably die before reaching 'fighting' age because of low resources. They're the bottom of the food chain and bicker among themselves all the time, as well as having enormous problems with huge numbers of threatening heroes. But, and a big but, they are EVERYWHERE. The fact they breed like it's going out of fashion coupled with the fact they're all over the place means the best you can possibly do is wipe out a few tribes, and even then the other tribes will have bred enough in that time to make up for it. Goblins ARE a sustainably evil population.


What's the lesson here kids? If a race is going to have massive infighting, be evil enough to want to invade everywhere, and have major problems with the tough environment, they're going to need to breed enormously just to keep the numbers up. Remember that when you're designing stuff.

Games without stories

One might think from the title I may be about to talk about random puzzle games, or pointless fighting games, but no, I'm here to talk about games that TRY to have a story, and fail.

We've all played them. They're the pointless fighting games (or, as I recently found, Armored Core 4) that believe they have a story. They believe it, but that doesn't make it true.

Soul Calibur 4 is a perfect example. I just wish there isn't an actual writer who comes up with all that stuff. It's a bad story to begin with, and I didn't even understand it until I read it on Wikipedia ("wait, is THAT what it was meant to be? How the hell'd they work that out from that cutscene?"), and even now I think it was a waste of disc space that could've contained more breasts. Ha ha. I kid, I kid, that game couldn't contain more breasts if it came with the Victoria's Secret catalogue.

What inspired this? The above mentioned Armored Core 4. I love a good giant-robot-fighting game, and while AC4 may be a bit too fast paced for me (I still love it, I'm just not particularly good at it). It really, really wishes it had a story. It doesn't. It has characters (or close approximations of them) and unrelated events. I'm sure it was meant to be a grand, powerful event when you wiped out the entire central structure of an entire super-corporation that controlled 1/6th of the earth, but it never felt like it. It felt like another 100K in the bank to spend on new shooty-death-McBoom weapons. They could have told me someone killed my 'handler', and my only thought would be "hooray, less pretentious stuff that has no relation to anything". Here's a hint game writers, if my character has killed hundreds of people at the instructions of my handler, then told to go off and kill a big boss, when she later shows remorse at the death of a man who was "fighting for what he believed in... a real hero", it seems pointless and out of character, especially when she later tells me to go blow up what's left of the hero's army for enough money to buy the dead sea scrolls and use them as toilet paper.

I've done some reading up and you-tube watching of the game "Mortal Kombat Vs DC Universe", and it succumbs to the same problem. They believe there is a story. The story makes no sense, and basically consists of a whole bunch of mumbo jumbo trying to justify why close friends in the DC Universe start biffing each other, and how Batman still manages to win everything even when he gets butch-slapped to the ground.

One last example, the most recent Dead or Alive game (like I said, it's mostly fighting games with this problem). Most of the time in 'story' mode they just threw you into random fights, but every now and then they'd give you a cutscene to try and justify the fight. Some of them are just pointless, and you can tell it was just to pad out the story mode and CGI budget, others is obviously just to show off their breast physics engine. The bit that really screws it up is how little sense so much of it makes. Case in point, playing as one of the ladies, there's a point where you have to hire a mercenary to later on help you defeat the evil corporation, righto, we're following so far. The Mercenary responds that he'll only fight for people who can beat him in combat. Beside being probably the stupidest requirement in a job ever (let's face it, most mercenaries aren't hired by better soldiers then they are), it's also the most pointless. Considering in this game every single fight seems to be resolved with hand to hand combat, if she can beat him then there's no point in hiring the mercenary, as she'd do a better job herself.


Game Designers, please, either have a story or don't. These half-stories in games are confusing and pointless.

Don't see the new Punisher movie

I was all set up and prepared to do a post discussing how so many prime time TV shows seem to want to reference fight club, but so few of them get it, but then... Then I saw the second Punisher movie (the third, if you count the original one a decade or so ago). "Punisher: Warzone".

Oh sweet jesus. Surely there are better stories that can be told. That movie was incredibly painful. I believe the metaphor I used on facebook to describe it was "It's like getting your wisdom teeth removed via your scrotum" (to female readers lacking in male genitalia, you'll have to imagine something quite painful and awkward).


1. The child. Sure, her father's dead, but would she REALLY latch on, that quickly, to a tall male who wanders in? Especially since this tall male makes her mother cry first time they meet. What did he do to her before she latched on? He gave her a flashlight. Whoop-di-do.

A note for next time. If you want a more emotional story, have her be afraid of him. She reminds him of his own daughter, so if she was bloody terrified of him that'd really screw with his head.


2. Use some ACTUAL bad guys. It's a comic book story, the only genre where you can get away with larger then life bad guys. Closest they had was 'Jigsaw', who basically was a normal mob boss made ugly. And Jigsaw's "muscle"? His crazy brother. He was nuts, but neither he nor the mob boss felt like larger then life threatening villains.

Throughout the movie it felt like they were trying to make them both into something more threatening then they are, but... They were only human. The opening scene shows the Punisher killing dozens of "only humans". At no point did it feel like he was in danger, especially since his always-worn bullet proof vest took about a dozen bullets at various points in the movie, only about three of which did more then make him blink. In the first (technically second) Punisher movie, they showed how he could be genuinely threatened and get the shit beaten out of him. In this one he felt like the Terminator sans imposing jawline.

Put the Terminator (without jawline) against a nutcase moron and an ugly bastard who cries when he looks in a mirror, and you know who will win before the opening credits are even finished.


3. No emotional connection. The only person I felt even a vague emotional connection with throughout the entire movie was Neumann. Yes, THAT Neumanna. From Seinfeld. That says how poor the movie was. No matter how many 'good men' died, or the pain they left behind, only Neumann got my sympathy.

Why I dislike Games Workshop

Feel free to ignore this post. It's written in the grips of a hangover, and thus it probably makes no sense.

Wargaming is a well known side of tabletop gaming. The flipside of the coin to Roleplaying, if you will. Rather then a focus upon the individual and their efforts to save the world, Wargaming casts it's focus wider, aiming to recreate the feeling of massive battles, all the while depersonalising the tragedy of such events. However, I play the Total War games and love them, so I lose all right to criticise them for depersonalising mass slaughter.

Games Workshop is the Wargaming company I've had most of my experience with. When my brother was in his early teens he was bitten by the bug, and loved his Ork army in Warhammer 40,000. It was a brighter era, back in 2nd Edition Warhammer 40K. The Squigs were funny, crazy little muchroom monsters. The Gretchin were sneaky little gits who stole their weaponry so they could join in the biffs and couldn't threaten anything. Ork guns were as likely to blow up their owner as destroy a tank in one shot, and just as likely to patter out a weak spray of bullets that couldn't dent paper. But, most importantly, it realised it was a game, and as such didn't take itself immensely seriously. Each race fulfilled a niche, not just in the gaming aspect, but in what it provided to the players. If you wanted a deadly serious threat to the world, you'd play as Chaos. If you wanted super soldiers killing everyone despite being outnumbered three to one, you'd play as Space Marines. If you wanted weak-ace humans who's only real bonus is numbers and tanks, you'd go Imperial Guard. Orks provided the comic relief.

Then about the beginning of 3rd edition, everything changed. The focus shifted from providing entertaining stuff for the players, to milking the gamers. The rules now required you to have a large number of troops, even in your basic Space Marine force (the "only a few troopers but each of them highly powerful" army). If you wanted your force to be competitive, you had to buy more basic troopers. Oh, and all the rules. And the codex for your chosen race. And sometimes you were unlucky and they released a revised codex.

The charm and light-heartedness of some of it (namely the Orks) all vanished under a wave of grim, gritty and darkity McDarkdark. I'm not stupid, even at the young age I was reading about all this in 2nd edition I realised how dark the universe was. But it wasn't all dark. The aforementioned Orks were mostly lighthearted, with stories about the docs nailing pieces of metal to an Ork in the shape of an arm, and it working (when the Ork just wanted the wax cleaned out from his ear). Now the 'Docs' of the Orks are grim and threatening evil doers, despite the entire race still retaining their originally comical method of speach and terms. It's as much of a strange contradiction as the latter Harry Potter book's grim setting being populated with "muggles".

I have to admit, having browsed through the 3rd edition rulebook (I believe they're up to 5th, now), I don't mind some of the modifications they made to the rules (such as the changes to the way saving throws work). But it would be willful ignorance to believe Games Workshop altered the rules to focus more on large scale 'army' conflicts over small scale skirmishes (as it was originally designed to be) out of anything other then an interest in forcing you to spend more money.

"Of course they want more money!" you cry, annoyed at me, "they're a business!". I direct your attention to the wikipedia page for "Andy Chambers" (I'm not gonna get the link, you can do that yourself mates). It states that he was the individual who tilted the company away from being gamer orientated (in other words, looking out for the gamers first) to being business orientated. Read up on how he did that.

Flat out withdrawing support for games that didn't provide regular income (Blood Bowl, etc, despite the fact they're now making a computer game about that particular board game).
No longer focusing on their previous loyal customers and providing for them, instead turning their focus onto the younger kids with more disposable income (I.E. Their parents).

Any company that changes it's intended audience like that gets no sympathy from me. Yes, I understand company's are in it to make money, that doesn't mean I have to like their decisions.

Where is the fun?

A long time ago, I managed to win a copy of Painkiller (which I still haven't installed) by sending a letter to a PC gaming magazine proposing one entirely radical idea.

(Note: I often make an attempt to keep this blog child-friendly on the off chance my mother stumbles across it, but in this case I'll make an exception since I'm angry and thus allowed to say naughty words).

That idea was: Games should be fucking fun.

Obviously I didn't use that precise language, but the emphasis was there.

It came when I read in an article one of their contributors defending a games developer who uttered the line "It's not about having fun".

Yes, yes it is you twonk, it is all about having fun. Having fun is the entire purpose of the exercise. These are GAMES, not work, not torture, not an arduous trial. Were games not about having fun, then Microsoft Word can be assured it will reign supreme as the most interactive sandbox game since cavemen started scrawling on walls.

Games, even the ones that aren't bright, cheerful and colourful, even the ones about tough grizzled generic badarse soldiers in armour so heavy it has it's own in-flight movies, should be about FUN.

Let's look at some of the many methods in which a game can be fun

1. "Ha ha! Running over that octegenarian was great" fun: Random hilarious mayhem, bringing a disbelieving grin and laugh to the faces of many a person as they see the pedestrians they hit go careening off into the sunset.

2. "Man, I am so smart" fun: The pleasure of outwitting the computer or another opponent, battling hard and coming out on top.

3. "Dude, that was awesome, good game" fun: The enjoyment from battling (not necessarily defeating) an opponent in a test of skill (rather then merely random numbers), utilising all the tricks and tactics you know.

4. "Holy crap, that was amazing" fun: Watching something so amazing happen in the game that you're almost awestruck.

5. "Oh my god, I cannot believe we did that" fun: The feeling of accomplishment for having done what feels like the impossible, even if everyone else who plays the game manages it as well. It still FEELS awesome.


The moment you bastards start making a game a chore is the moment I will switch off. I have enough chores in real life, I don't need a game to add more. So please, developers, publishers, beta testers, bug fixers, programmers, all people involved in making games, pay attention to this.

1. MMOs, make the fighting feel epic, rather then hack slash click.

2. RTS', make the fight feel like a true battle rather then a skirmish (or in some cases, a pub brawl with wizards. Yes, I'm looking at YOU Blizzard.)

3. RPGs, if I'm playing an RPG, I want to feel like something epic is happening. If getting from one point to another feels like I'm picking up a second job, then I will resign.

4. Everyone, instant unstoppable death is never good gameplay.

5. Bug fixers, find out about all the bugs and FIX them. If I'm playing an RPG and my super mega axe of cut'off'ur-arse vanishes from my inventory, your game is rapidly being uninstalled.

6. Publishers, if a game development company says they need more time to finish the game, give it to them. You'll make more money in the long run if the company has a reputation for putting out quality software at a slower rate (looking at you, Valve) then you will if you force out buggy shit that doesn't have half the

7. Obsidian Entertainment: Fall in a pit you can't climb out of and die from a yeast infection.

Why Storms of Zehir is a poor game

Since I always assumed the entirity of my life was leading up to the point where I'm randomly bestowed with superpowers and thus need not your petty 'life skills' I never really made an enormous effort to do something with myself. This leaves me now at 22 with the beginnings of a life of alcohol fueled remorse ahead of me, and completely useless skills such as "dissecting the flaws of a computer game so complex I wouldn't even be able to guess how it was made." Neverwinter Nights 2: Storms of Zehir is one such complex game. The part that was probably most complex in its design process is probably how they managed to make it through the entire game missing the entire point of what a Roleplaying Campaign should be.

Neverwinter Nights 2: Storms of Zehir (henceforth NNSOZ, phonetically Nsuz) is the 6th game in the Neverwinter Night series, if you count all the expansions, and the third one made by Obsidian entertainment, a company I have slagged out so much in my blog that should I meet someone who works there in person I will proudly proclaim I don't know what an RPG is, and suggest they've got the wrong guy. After this many games using the Dungeons and Dragons license and ruleset, surely they would have worked out one of the main parts of the game are the aforementioned 'Dungeons'. Granted, the definition of Dungeon in DnD is as stretched as 'Tomb' in Tomb Raider, but the point remains that the normal Dungeons and Dragons campaign will, at some point, involve entering an enclosed location surrounded by the hordes of the evil villain, engaging them in mortal combat in an effort to get to the final boss fight.

In Storms of Zehir I'm currently approximately halfway through the game and I just came to a realisation while loading up an area it randomly booted me out of (more on that later). The group of adventurers I proudly lead aren't "adventurers", we're just glorified Caravan guards who occasionally take time off to thwart some obscure plot against our boss and occasionally beat up Kobolds.

Don't get me wrong, there are some things I love about the game. The fact the four main characters are all user made means you get to create a party to your suiting, and since the game can't work on the basis of certain annoying characters being in your party, it can't subject you to pointlessly annoying NPC sideplots like Obsidian are want to do. But this doesn't change the fact that my glorious warrior band are just caravan guards.

Part of the appeal of being an adventurer is going into the unknown, saving the local populace from a grave threat of the monster menace we're vanquishing, and making oodles of cash in the process which you spend on shiney bling that gives +4 to armour class.

In Storms of Zehir you're not even running the merchant company (although with all the work you're doing, it feels like you are). You work for someone else in establishing their merchant company, and are given part of the profits. Upon receiving my first paycheck I instantly turned around and said "wait a minute, this can't be right". I made more in an honest job then I had from looting the rapidly cooling corpses of a group of Orcs I'd come across while they slept, who presumably were up to some no-good or other. Were this the case, I had to wonder, why the hell did anyone adventure at all?

Alright, so I wasn't making any real money in killing monsters (unless they were attacking my trade caravans), so obviously I was doing it to help the surrounding countryside, right? Er, well, not really. Aside from some roaming monster groups which would be homing in on my group like a missile (except my leader was a slippery bastard who could hide like an elite SAS soldier afraid of the bogeyman in a blanket factory), the only monsters I ever found were in their own homes. Occasionally a quest would spring up talking about how they were causing trouble, but most of the time I saw the place on the map, barged in and killed everyone before they could say "No, stop, we're not bad guys".

So I was making no money in adventuring, and randomly killing dudes who'd done no harm just because they looked different from the races in my party. Two strikes against Storms of Zehir. Surely it would deliver in the third, the arching plot.

Er, again, not really. Like I said I'm halfway through the game and basically it just seems to be "sneaky snake people are sneaky, trying to infiltrate the surface world". I'm sure there's some big plot twist coming up (there always is) like you've been working for a Snake person the whole way through or something, but as far as arching plots go "go here, starting trading empire, make enough money to buy god status and make your portfolio 'Breasts'" doesn't really strike me as inspired.

Maybe I'm just being picky, surely if the gameplay is fun there should be plenty to forgive in the story arc department, right? And sure your noble warriors of justice and good turn out to just be rather shiney home invaders and muggers running innocent traders out of business by undercutting prices on everything, but if the combat is entertaining that's all the matters.

Err, about that...

Having enemies NOT scale to the abilities of your troupe sounds like a great idea, giving a greater sense of immersion (the alternative being that every county in the world is colour coded for difficulty for YOUR convenience and you're deliberately visiting them all in order), but it does make things a little less fun when you're run down by a band of enormous ogres so large their puny cousin would be able to beat up your entire party. Generally non-scaling encounters can be fun, but only if it is relatively easy to avoid the enormous pains in the arse, which is difficult when you're attempting to escort a trade caravan that moves with all the quickness of me trying to decide what pizza topping I want.

Even in the fights you're forced to have, sometimes you cruise through the encounter so rapidly you wonder why you even bothered to bring a sword, when surely a rolled up newspaper would have sufficed. Other times you have no choice but to smile politely as the enemy beat you up and steal your maths homework, with the only variable in the fight being "do I reload now or wait to see if I can take out one of these seven bastards?"

Storms of Zehir had all the promise of a good roleplaying game. There was genuine potential when I first heard the announcement that you could cut out annoying NPCs by creating your own party, but then they went and made it solely about creating a trading empire. Adventurer's aren't there to create trading empires, they're there to get paid by a local authority/wizard to walk into monsters homes and beat the crap out of them, in the process finding out the beginnings of a major plot to destroy civilisation by cancelling lunch.

Oh, and if a game's so buggy that opening a treasure chest has a random chance to boot you to the world map, something's gone horribly wrong.


And now, since I just realised I've written over one thousand words about a computer game based on Dungeons and Dragons, in order to restablish my manliness I'm going to discuss sports.

...

Bugger. I don't know anything about sports.

Reasons to be cynical

I've had a few comments from people I know in real life who read my blog that a number of my posts in a row seemed quite cynical. There are two explanations for this, choose whichever one you prefer.

One, I'm a quite impressionable young stallion who has recently enjoyed watching alot of the Zero Punctuation reviews, which has inadvertently resulted in me leaping to the conclusion that cynicism is what all the cool kids are doing these days.

Two, I'm genuinely disappointed with alot of gaming. Surely among the multitude of games, PC, console and 'other', there would be one that would appeal to me and, upon playing it, would engross me so much I wouldn't stop playing it until I realised that unholy smell intruding upon my game experience was me.

Some may say I'm being too cynical, that the games industry has released many gems and I'm just too picky to see it. Well I like to think my pickiness makes me a more disconcerning gamer, and in an industry where Neverwinter Nights 2 did well enough to warrent 2 expansion packs I think this cynicism is well earned.

To use a philosophical metaphor (in a literal sense, not "It's like the man in the room in the chinese room thought experiment", ho ho, academic humour) we're currently in the medieval age of gaming. In the grand experience of Philosophy, it all started with a bunch of Greeks who started asking annoying questions and wouldn't shut up about it, to the point where most mainstream greeks were really annoyed with them. These Greeks established a vast number of the still-used-modern ideas of philosophy, most of them just adapted by the basic principle still in use.

The Romans came along next, and while there were some original ideas, alot of what they were doing was building up upon the original Greek philosophies, pretending it was their own (like they did with alot of things Greek).

Following this period of Greek (and Roman) philosophical shouting came the Dark Ages. This is a period where no one much cared about philosophy, but it was followed by the Medieval period. All philosophy in this period revolved around "How can we apply Aristotle and Socretes to the bible?" in which there WERE no original ideas beyond their masterful ability to put their hands over their ears and shout "la la la, I can't hear you saying Aristotle wasn't even a christian, la la la". In essence they ignored a vast majority of ideas that existed, and those they liked they tried to shoehorn into an idea they were comfortable with.

It wasn't until some guy named Descartes came along during the renaissance and asked a few new questions was philosophy really reinvented. Ok, he was completely wrong on nearly all accounts, but the fact he tried something new was bloody amazing. From him sprung whole bunches of new philosophers and philosophies, all written in other languages so that students who only speak english need to make do with translations that often go as word-for-word as they can, resulting in phrases like "an individuals being-in-experience-without-influence-of-their-being-in-pants" and other awkwardities.

Hang on, this is supposed to be a post about computer games, and I just spent the last four paragraphs summarising down the history of philosophy so much I've probably become completely wrong. But that is where it gets ingenius.

Look back at the 'Old' days. Yes, you remember those. The heady days of the NES, SNES, Mega Drive and original gameboy. The days in which if you wanted to use something motion sensitive it meant you were playing baseball outside. Games of such weirdness in storytelling and gameplay, where the immense variety of games was made possible because, let's face it, making one required nothing more then you to be a nerd, have a computer, and be able to make pixel art (sometimes).

From that period to about a dozen years ago, roughly, was the Greek era of gaming. Alot of new and interesting ideas, experimental thoughts being tried out and abandoned if they didn't stand up to scrutiny. About 12 to 8 years ago was the Roman period, where there were some new ideas but mostly it was just improvements upon the genre's already in place. The FPS was continually advanced, polygons got so impressive they could give Lara Croft pointy nipples (that word isn't going to stop my google-porn-results problem*) and Starcraft had ruined the lives of hundreds of nerds as they had their egos crushed by massed hordes of pixels screaming "kekekeke".

What happened eight years ago to ruin it all? This may be the cynical side of me talking, but to me if feels as though the computer games factory suddenly all packed up and went home, but forgot to turn the machines off, pumping out hordes of similar games in which the only difference is if you're a Space Marine, a normal Marine, or a Viking. It's like the games industry said "Well that's it boys, we've perfected the games, no need to strain yourselves now. Just clone Halo/Starcraft/World of Warcraft/GTA, and reskin."

I understand the limitations of time and money, resulting in games being difficult to find funding unless they're based on a tried and true concept which the publisher feels is highly likely to work. But come on, surely there's room for a few enterprising ideas. On a brief trip back through memory lane, the only big games I can think of in recent years that weren't either sequels or retreads of incredibly familiar gameplay mechanics are Spore (which I disliked) and Mirror's Edge (which I've never played). Everything else is either the eleventibillionth in a series that should have finished at 2, maximum 3, a game using such similar mechanics to other stuff it might as well be a sequel, or a reasonably shallow 'merge' of two different game genres that can proclaim originality but really is still in the shallow end of the pool.

Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed alot of games over the years. Knights of the Old Republic, the Total War series, Mass Effect, Chaos League, the Armoured Core series, City of Heroes and the original Homeworld all kept me going for ages. But few of them drag me in for extended periods of time.

I think it's why I get so enthusiastic about single player RPGs (ones that AREN'T solely shoot and slacks. If there are genuine options in the dialogue that do more then give you good ending or bad ending, I get excited in my pantaloons), since if you discount the MMOs there aren't many that are so successful they inspire direct clones with reskins. And even the ones that could argueably be like this (Morrowind/Oblivion, Neverwinter Nights, etc) the mechanics are either so unique or outright copyrighted, making copying them pointless. This means that aside from a simple staple of RPGs (agility is avoid hits, strength is carrying crap, etc) they all have to be somewhat unique. I love relearning rules and working out how to manipulate them for my benefit with a characterful... character. It's like learning the ins and outs of sex with your girlfriend in all her disgusting kinks, then breaking up with her for someone with a better body and lower inhibitions. Repeat ten times, then go back to your first girlfriend and find out it's still FUN.



Note to self: Upcoming post, do "Why Neverwinter Nights 2 expansion pack 'Storms of Zehir' went wrong/sucks."

THERE IS NO **** HERE

Edit: 25/05/2009I am censoring this page, in the hopes you weirdos STOP COMING TO MY BLOG.


Ok, at first this was kinda funny. Yesterday on google analytics I noticed my blog suddenly received a larger number of hits then normal. Then I checked where they came from.

To people google searching "Nerdgasm *****", "Nerdgasm ****", "Nerdgasm+****" or "Nerdgasm.org", I have NO idea what the hell you're looking for, but it is not here. The picture of me naked is on another site, there is no ***** content here.

I just did a quick check, my site doesn't even come up in the Google top ten hits if you search ANY of those! Please, stop coming to my blog looking for nerdy ****. It was funny at first, but now it's full of squick. Bad squick.


Oh ho, look at me, I learnt how to link.

Aren't I clever.

P.S. Blazing Saddles is AWESOME.

P.P.S. Wall-E is just as AWESOME.


Edit: Additional:

Since posting this, the **** people continue to show up, and they're now jumping straight to this page.

Seriously, no porn. Can one of you tell me WHY so many of you are googling "Nerdgasm" plus many words indicating ***** entertainment?

Since this phenomena started, I have had numerous google hits on some truely horrific things. Seriously, somehow a couple of people even managed to get here looking for German ***** entertainment. My personal favourite, my absolute top of the peak favourite creepy search term that somehow got to my blog?

"aeris kotor ****"

Yes, I know writing it will result in more hits from people looking for it. But seriously, if you're looking for Knights of the Old Republic/Final Fantasy 7 ****, you DESERVE to come here so I can mock you.

The Internet is for ****, we all know that, but why do you have to look up some weird-arse shit? Who honestly thinks "man, this crossover would be so hot", and then goes looking for it. Honestly, are normal ******* not enough for you people?

I seriously hope rule 34 fails for you.

Spiderman's webbing makes no sense

World of Warcraft and Zombies are probably two of my least favourite things. To that end, someone sent me this video today. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjMiDZIY1bM&eurl=http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=logo

• 92. I am ashamed I am so geeky that this even qualifies as a post for me. That is a genuine fact about myself.

Warning, this post is going to get very, VERY nerdy. Like, REALLY nerdy. We're talking "If Wolverine fought Spiderman who would win?" nerdy. I know, I'm ashamed of myself. I find myself questioning science facts, I should repeat to myself it's just a comic, I should really just relax (double points to people who get the reference) but this just has been bothering me. Maybe someone can explain it.

Spiderman's webshooting annoys me.

I'm no physicist, I don't know the precise characteristics of proportionally sized spider-web, but something about Spiderman's webbing around town has just annoyed me. Consider this, replent with badly designed diagrams.

This is an out-of-scale Spiderman swinging through a strangely sparce New York City street, from behind. We see him swinging away from the camera, towards the horizon. He has found himself in the middle of the road swinging off into the distance.

In his swinging, he does what he often does and attaches a strand of web to a building off to his right, in front of him. The approximate dimensions of the line are 64x50 (generic length measurement units), so it's 62^2 x 50^2 = (Square root). Roughly rounded, it's 80 (generic length measurements) long. The point his line is attached to is 275 (approx) GLM's off the ground.

Now I want you all to do something for me.

Now consider this. Take a line of anything (string, whatever) and hold one end against the wall, pull the other end away from the wall so it's at a diagonal angle to it, then pull it in one direction parralel to the wall, then release it. The line will fall straight towards the wall. Even if you provide it with some thrust along the parrallel of the wall, it will only move a short distance before physics pulls it down towards the wall it's held to.

But then surely before Spiderman hits the wall, he'll web onto the street opposite, right? That's what I thought at first, then I realised something. On our inferior-two-dimensional-attempted-representational-of-a-three-dimensional-problem (which I'll trademark as ITDAROATDP, or It 'da ro at DP, if you want it phoenetically) I want you to look at something. In being drawn down to the ground, Spiderman is now FURTHER away from the street opposite, and a longer strand of webbing (probably 120 GLM) is needed to attach, which means he'll just drop closer to the ground.

The trouble with Spiderman's "swinging" is that it ignores one of the primary factors in swinging. When you swing, you hit a lowest point, and then go up. In this going up, you can swing from the point you end at, onto another arc. But the lowest point on Spiderman's webbing arcs are, in fact, a brick wall. Literally. So he needs to swing before he's gone past the lowest point up onto a high point again, meaning he's constantly "re-swinging" from a lower point each time he does it.

There are only two ways I can see it even vaguely working.

1. If Spiderman manages to maintain his vertical height by swinging in a horizontal manner, where he does not approach the ground at the furthest point of his swinging, but to maintain this in a manner countering gravity he would have to swing so fast it would be... quite scary.

2. If the web shooters Spiderman used manages to keep him on a vaguely normal vertical height by 'retracting' the web as it's used. That way he just has to keep swinging before what would be the apex to avoid the buildings, but otherwise his distance from the ground is secure. Never heard any mention of this anywhere. The webbing is meant to be elastic-like, but even then that'd just dip it further to the ground as it stretched, rather then pulling him up.

Holy shit, I cannot believe how nerdy I have been.

I need to go watch some sports, drink beer, and optically fondle attractive women just to be allowed to retain my testosterone.

Why are the stupid people on MY Interwebs?

"I'm going to become rich and famous when I invent a way to stab people in the face over the internet"
Anonymous - www.bash.org

While typing in my friend Anson's name in my phone, predictive text gave me two options before going to the name I had to program in myself. "Bosom" and "Cosmo". That is the GREATEST PORN NAME EVER.

• 90. The reason I enjoy RPGs so much over other games is the potential for customisation. Character customisation is a must. I need to be able to alter nearly everything about the character, so I can play as many different possible characters as I am able. The more I can customise about the game world, the better.

Ladies and gentlemen, I wish to complain about something.

"You!?" I hear your Socratic-dialogue-equivilent (AKA potentially imaginary person used in a literary form to take the position of the Devil's Advocate in the arguement, for the purpose of being outwitted verbally and arguementatively and so to make the reader think an arguement must be irrefutable) cry out in shock and surprise, "but you're always so level headed and uncomplainative!"

After I point out that 'uncomplainative' isn't a word (thus increasing your opinion of me, thinking how clever and intelligent I must be) I then go on to say that yes, I must indeed complain.

I have long held to the theory that as a given population (of any group, nations, social clubs, internet forums, etc) grows, the visible moron population grows exponentially. Note I say VISIBLE, in all likelihood the moron population grows in a linear fashion, but among morons there is a higher chance of them making themselves visible. This results in the morons of the world being a more vocal group, and being more likely to speak up when the option to speak up is present, while intelligent people are more likely to choose to remain quiet. I believe this is the reason many foreign countries have a negative view of America. Have a population of 200 million, and there will be ALOT of visible morons. But I digress.

This problem is at its most evident in the medium you indulge in now (I mean the Internet, not blogging. Hopefully I am not one of those verbose morons). On the internet the fool speaks up and asks stupid questions where the normal person reads and enjoys. Among smaller communities the fool is less likely to be welcomed and so will move on, restricting the growth of that particular group in that community. But among larger communities their growth is unrestricted, and the inability to effectively chastise them for being idiots (Gabe's internet anonymity theory plays out here) results in their moronitude flourishing.

("But Steve" the Socratic Dialogue personification cries, "moronitude isn't a word, and you chastised use for using incorrect linguistics!" I ignore you, making you feel like your complaint is petty. You all bow down and worship how awesome I and my arguements are.)

Let us look at where I personally encounter this most. Youtube.

Go to Random Youtube videos, and sooner or later you will encounter them. They spout contradictory messages such as "this suks ive done beter videos chek em out but hey this is pretty good", or asking ridiculously obvious questions such as "what song is this" when the song is named in the description, in the video, and several times in the comments.

And then there are the ever popular insult posts. These continue in a self perpetuating cycle of two people who disagree accusing each other of being homosexual in a derrogatory manner (if you're really lucky, they're even accusing each other of being African American in a derrogatory manner). These continue on for a while before one party loses interest (possibly distracted by a shiney object, or dragged away from the computer to return to learning basic spelling and social skills), but usually by that point someone else has waded in telling them both to shut up and commiting the same stupid insult attempts as both of them did.

Thank you for letting me vent on this subject.

Starship Troopers vs Starship Troopers.

So there I was, the movie director and crew watching as deviant sex acts are performed in the bed, all the while I'm watching on impassionately. This continued for five minutes before the Director shouted "Alright, enough of that, let's start filming this movie. Let's shoot the scene we introduce Mr Darcy in."

• 85. If someone is getting genuinely angry about something, I will just back off, back down. Even if they are so ridiculously wrong it is plain even to the eyes of a four year old, I will just back down. I'm sorry if this is an attitude people dislike, but I have a limited number of years on this green and blue wonderful planet, and I do not intend to waste them on trying to convince someone of something by shouting at them. Volume does not equal correct.

I am about to insult Starship Troopers (the book) in the most serious manner ever.

Are you ready?

The movie was better.

The movie was a bunch of late-20's-early-30's actors pretending they were 18-19, joining a pseudo-nazi regime ruled by the millitary, and going through a coming of age ritual while their friends get systematically killed by giant alien insects in a series of pointless action sequences notable at the time for the amazing special effects showing the deaths of many'a redshirt.

And the movie was better.

The book is basically the socratic dialogues written by someone who's grasp of logic was slightly below their grasp of the concept of 'plot'.

This book has no plot. There is no "Introduction", "Complication" or "Conclusion" or even the semblance of things occuring in some kind of sequence that makes sense. For those intended to read the book, look away for the following list, summarising the plot.

1. Johnnie is your normal all American boy in a utopian future world ruled by the millitary.
2. Johnnie decides to undertake national service so he can earn the right to vote (by the way, people who haven't served aren't allowed to vote), and impress a girl (who is mentioned three times later in the book), and because his slightly slow good friend is doing it.
3. Johnnie's mother and father cut him off out of anger.
4. Johnnie meets the tough but fair instructors at his boot camp, and is slowly (excrutiatingly slowly) turned into the ultimate soldier who is immensely superior to any soldier the world has ever seen before, because he's a volunteer doing it all out of love for his country, because his country is amazingly awesome.
5. At some point, a war starts between humans and arachnids (that have space ships, laser beams, and landmines), because the Bugs destroyed an Earth City. Johnnie narrates that this doesn't affect him much, except causing him to have his first drop.
6. Johnnie and his fellow soldiers are amazingly awesome because they're great soldiers and awesome.
7. By the way, Johnnie's mother turns out to have been in the city that was destroyed. Surprise! Despite him saying it didn't matter, his mother was, actually, killed.
8. Johnnie decides to go career and is sent to officer training, in which he becomes amazingly awesomely educated on everything, because he's a millitary officer, and all Millitary Officers are great people who're only ever hard on you for your own benefit, and out of the goodness of their heart.
9. Surprise! Johnnie's father is still alive and has joined the army out of respect for his son, and because it's what he's always felt he should do.
10. Johnnie finishes his training and is in another mission, this time as a commander of a Platoon. And because his Platoon is great, they lose only a few people while succeeding where everyone else failed.
11. Johnnie gets his own company, with his father as the sergeant.

Throw in a few chapters detailing how awesome (future millitary doctrine/future millitary technology/future millitary soldiers/future millitary run society) is, and you've got the book.

The movie is NOT a good movie. But it is god-damned FUN.

The book is NOT a good book. The book was not fun. The book actively angered me at times. Did you know society would be MUCH better if crimes were punished through public lashings rather then jail sentences? Ahh, what a better world that would be. At least according to the book.

And the movie has another major bonus over the book. The movie only takes 100 minutes of my life.