The State Of Modern Warfare Part 2 – “Phew, It’s Just A Dream”

“If you can dream it, you can do it.”

Walt Disney said that, but now it’s used as a glib quotation and as a concept motivational speakers & self help gurus use.

But to use it for another purpose, this is a good way to look at gaming: imagine you’re having a dream…

You can dream some really weird and random stuff and it’s not necessarily stuff you’ve experienced first (second or third) hand. It can be things you’ve merely imagined, seen in film or TV or it can be totally random things that come from seemingly no conscious memory or thought.

The brain is a powerful thing. It can trick you into believing things are real when they’re not. We’ve all been jumpy in the dark sometimes when there’s nothing there. We know there’s nothing there but it’s our imagination playing tricks on us.

During a dream our imagination is relatively unchecked by conscious thought and left to run wild. Where do the weird things that you dream of come from?

In your dreams you say & do things that:

1. you wish you could do in real life;
2. things you would never do in real life and;
3. are actually impossible in real life.

Dreaming of weird stuff isn’t an indication of personality defect or mental illness, just of an active & healthy imagination.

Rage WIN Christmas Number 1 Spot

‘Nuff said.

The State Of Modern Warfare Part 1 – It Started With A Vectrex

“Controversy Creates Cash”

Eric Bischoff said that, and it’s very true. Never more so in the case of the recently released game ‘Modern Warfare 2′. You may have heard about it.

It sold 4.7  million copies on the first day of release in the UK & US with a total sales revenue of $310 million. After five days it had made $550 million (over half a BILLION dollars!).

These figures make it not only a massive success financially but also the biggest entertainment launch in history, surpassing previous leader GTA IV, also a video game.

This is huge.

Again, this game, from a financial point of view, is more successful in it’s first week of release than any other entertainment related event in history (including movies). Funnily enough, both GTA IV and Modern Warfare 2 share three things in common:

• an 18 certificate,
• huge amounts of violence (with the option to kill/attack innocents) and, as a result;
• media controversy.

If you’re developer and want to create a game that would fly off the shelves then those three bullet points would be the first things on your ‘must have’ list. It seems in today’s market having those three things is the VIP pass into the exclusive  ‘2 Million+ Sales Club’.

In addition to the money, it’s also been met with critical acclaim for the most part and has it’s own TV ad campaign featuring many explosions, brick hard men performing feats of soldiering that are barely believable in their cinematic beauty and oh so shiny modern weapons to go a shootin’ Johnny Foreigner to bits with.

The original Call Of Duty games were based largely around well-known battles and locations from World War 2 and featured missions from many different fronts; occupied France (D-Day landings), Russia, Germany, Japan and Africa.

When, in 2007, Infinity Ward decided to bring their hugely successful franchise out of the 1940’s into the modern era it had gamers eagerly anticipating the result. That result was ‘Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare’ and, apart from being one of the best-selling games of the year, it was universally praised by critics, handed one award after another and went down in gaming history as a classic.

To guarantee another cash bonanza, Modern Warfare 2 picks up where that cash cow left off (figuratively, not literally) and happily the ‘4′ has been dropped from the ‘Call Of Duty’ preface, lest it confuse gamers into thinking it’s a war-themed maths game rather than what it actually is (a game where you snipe people in the face for fun then collect their nipples as trophies to use as helmet decorations on your fat decadent western head).

Rage Against The X-Factor; Fuck YOU Cowell, I Won’t Do What You Tell Me!

So, after years and years of The X-Factor being thrust down our throats and Simon Cowell relentlessly wearing one V-neck top after another we’re at a tipping point.

On one side we have Joe McElderry. I have no idea who this man/boy is as I absolutely do not watch X-Factor. I have no ill feeling toward him and I’m sure he’s a nice guy.

On the other side we have the mighty band Rage Against The Machine. They are legends in the music scene for innovating the Rap/Metal crossover, the guitar heroism of Tom Morello and for generally being one of the most important bands of the last 25 years.

So, which side of the fence are you on?

Forget Jeremy Kyle, Get Yourself Down To A Toby Carvery

I don’t complain often and when I do it’s not done frivolously.

Usually I’m of the slightly reserved (and very English) ” Let’s not cause a fuss” school of thought, but yesterday was different and irritating on so many levels that to not complain would be to let a grave injustice go without punishment.

Ok, maybe that’s overstating it a little but when eating in a restaurant if the person waiting on your table provides good professional service without long delays then they’ll usually earn themselves a tip, they deserve it.

If they don’t then no tip.

Tipping isn’t a given, despite what they say at the start of Reservoir Dogs.

“Mr. Pink: I don’t tip because society says I have to. All right, if someone deserves a tip, if they really put forth an effort, I’ll give them something a little something extra. But this tipping automatically, it’s for the birds. As far as I’m concerned, they’re just doing their job.
Mr. Blue: Hey, our girl was nice.
Mr. Pink: She was okay. She wasn’t anything special.
Mr. Blue: What’s special? Take you in the back and suck your dick?
Nice Guy Eddie: I’d go over twelve percent for that.”

Sorry, but I’m with Mr. Pink on this one.

The Wildhearts – Rock City 19/09/09

It’s quite simple; The Wildhearts are one of the best British rock bands of the last 20 years, and there’s definitely an argument to be made that Ginger is (and has been for a long time) one of the most important figures in modern British rock music.

A prolific songwriter and musician, he’s always bubbling away somewhere writing your new favourite riff, recording his latest project or playing a show that’s just as likely to be a secret acoustic set as a loud in your face national tour. 

People like Ginger were born to do these things. They do what they do because natural talent compels them, not because a careers officer interviewed him at age 15 and suggested he learn a few chords.

What Ginger does is play guitar, write songs, drink liquor, take a lot of drugs, go on wacky retreats to find inspiration (or disappear altogether) and enjoy life.

Good work if you can get it.

Somewhere amongst all that he finds time to get onstage with the band and blows audience’s heads clean off with a confidence and ability rarely seen. Fortunately there’s a wealth of world-class material to back up the swagger.

Cassette Boy Vs. Nick Griffin

This is twelve types of awesome.

 

You May Not Like It, But Democracy Includes Racism, The BNP, Nick Griffin, The BBC & Question Time.

So, famous racist and renowned village idiot Nick Griffin appeared on BBC’s ‘Question Time’ program last night.

Don’t know if you heard about that?

Of course you did.

And now here I am, casting my own tuppenny opinion into an already full well of lefty ‘outrage’. How predictably cliche’d.

The BBC did a masterful job of promotion for this show. They trumpeted it through all their news outlets and it made headlines in most of the places where news headlines are.

In fact, if you look at it is being purely a promotional move to increase the profile of Question Time and the BBC it would put boxing, wrestling and UFC in the shade. 8,000,000 viewers (myself included) tuned in to witness Jerry Springer-esque levels of outrage, audience riot and hijinx. Although sadly (in a way) we were denied such drama. I was hoping I’d witness an event worthy of a worldwide headline the following day. Considering all the good people who’ve been assassinated I thought maybe the universe would seek to balance that out (and how better to do it than live on air to an audience of 8 million)?

Instead, what I witnessed was a hugely divisive and cynically formatted show where talking about current issues was secondary to the theatre and spectacle of destroying a man live on TV while giving massive amounts of attention to the least able of the entire panel.

Before I come to Question Time itself though , something regarding the protests against the BBC…

A word used an awful lot in the past two days is ‘outrage’.

I’m getting weary of hearing it and am in danger of losing all comprehension of what it actually means anymore (try repeating a word to yourself over & over to see what I mean, it gradually loses all meaning). I will however, use it as needed in this piece and then promptly mothball it for a good few months R&R.

Many people were/are ‘outraged’ that the BBC would allow Griffin onto Question Time in the first place, arguing his politics are those of hate, fear, repression and (at worst) total fascism. While I don’t disagree with this (and I find the BNP just as repugnant, ignorant and retrogressive as the next ‘outraged’ lefty), I do have to say that anyone protesting against the BBC for allowing them a platform to speak has fundamentally ignored or missed the point of what a democracy is.

This Week You Should Be Afraid Of… Potato Salad~!

So much for my belief that food poisoning doesn’t actually exist and is, in fact, merely a fictionalised ailment designed for an easy day off work.

Although, to be honest, I’m still pretty sure 90-95% of all supposed cases of food poisoning absolutely are fictitious and designed for an easy day off work (way back when I was a student I used it as an excuse twice myself), but not this time.

My case came after 31 years of never having any kind of food poisoning. Indeed, I’ve always considered myself a person of quite sturdy constitution, having what I can only describe as an invincible dustbin for a stomach.

This dustbin has seen me through many a reheated plate of rice, cupboard-stored mayonnaise jar and two week old refrigerated christmas turkey. Sadly however, nothing is invincible and nothing is forever. In a turn of events that have clearly been cosmically designed to knock me down a peg or two I did, for the first time suffer from food poisoning and now not only emphatically believe it exists, but will have to take steps to avoid ever getting it again…

Anger at UK file-sharing policy

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