Perfect Dork

Nearly grafted through Perfect Dark Zero in an attempt to whore some achievements (none so far, even though I'm on level twelve out of thirteen!). So far, so not as good as the original or Goldeneye but bless it for being enjoyable enough to complete, despite everything. Until 'Escort Jonathan' comes along and saps my fundrenalin like a gothic girlfriend hell-bent on moving in.

He's probably the best in-game depiction of severe autism I've ever experienced. I'm to escort this 'Top Operative' to the peak of this temple, where a bridge waits for us. I get him to the top despite himself. Every time I break cover, he breaks cover because I've no means of directing him. Every time I get into zoom and squeeze rounds off against some enemy grunts, his head pops up in the way. If someones got a heavy weapon, he'll make a bee-line for any clear space in front of them.

Ten goes in now, there's no checkpoints by the way so there's a whole open space filled with snipers and grunts I've to wade through each time (fun!) and Rain Man still has a deathwish. At this point, we're looking at a gamebreaker. I'm putting it down though safe in the knowledge that in a fortnight when I come back to it, I'll breeze the level like it ain't no thing, because that's what always happens.

Give me back my licence fee, part 563

Every year a company called Capita take a hundred and fourty pounds off every TV-owning household in the UK that submits to its intimidation tactics. This is then given to the BBC. The BBC breaks down licence fee spending as follows (probably):

1% - Doctor Who
1% - Top Gear
1% - Radio 2
47% - Broadcasting complete and utter shite
25% - Management consultancy fees to outsourced thieves such as (hey!) Capita
25% - The BBC News, voice of correct in a world of Fox

Now normally I tend to be fine with this sort of thing but when the news resorts to this level of cockwittery, I lose my rag. First of all, the guy looks like Private Pyle from Full Metal Jacket, which is a dead giveaway - face like a mong? Keep 'em away from the firearms. Second of all, his parents put the game in a box with a GUN?!??!?!!?! Thirdly, Halo 3 is a 15 rated game in the UK, specifically to prevent children being exposed to the cartoon excesses it contains. I can only imagine the country that brought us the PRMC and the 'kcuf' in rap records will have a similar or more servere rating on it. If you have to confiscate a game from a seventeen year old, he's mentally not going to be his physical age, is he? So why let him play a game rated for older teens in the first place? Give him a Wii. Although the judge reckons it is premeditated - in which case if the kid can't think as far as where he's going to live once he's killed his parents,that again points to him being a bit of a mouth breather and I loop back to my how is he allowed a "grown-ups' game?" point.

Daniel Petric, yesterday

What really ticks me off though is the Beeb's quote here:

"they took away his violent computer game"

Not really they didn't, they took away Halo 3. Halo 3 is violent in the same way Tom & Jerry is violent. It is cartoonish - the physics, physicality of the 'human' characters, the places it is set, weapons used, dialogue, all exaggerated nonsense. It is more closely approximate to something one could do in real life to complain of the cow rolling in Katamari Damacy.

Won't somebody think of the children??!?!!?!?

But heck, 'violent game' is a headline, a seller, a clicker, whereas the truth is someone annoyed their retard offspring and sent him on a path which led to a firearm they knew he'd be able to get to. Furry muff, if you are Fox, but you aren't, BBC, you are there to inform, educate and entertain, as Reith prescribed, and peddling this fetid dross as news just does not qualify. If it were lazy journalism that would be one thing. Cynical journalism is another entirely. Violent my arse.

Beyond Good and Evil?

Well no, not that. Rather some more unresearched, ill advised Microsoft motivated mental meanderings. Because they are evil, aren't they? I was reading these comments just now and enjoying the complaints of Playstation 3 owners regarding the lack of DLC on their big games (GTA4, Fallout 3, Gears of.... no, they don't have that one. Um... Hal... no, nor that one. How about Mass Eff.. no. Crackdown, then - they must have Crackdown, surely? Or Dead Rising. What?).

First thing to cross my mind (other than the Valeria Bruni Tedeschi film I watched last night) was that Sony fanboys can surely come up with something better to hate Microsoft for? Sony are easy pickings these days - Lik-Sang, being happy to offend Christians but not Muslims, The Dreamcast lies, the PSP - I could go on, and probably might at some point. Nintendo were the big bad of the Eighties and early Nineties, bullies and monopolists and so on - my love for Nintendo really blossomed with the Gamecube and has wilted with the Gamecube 2: Sore Arm Edition and the reprehensible shovelware, fucked online system, storage drought, Stars theft and ludicrously overpriced Virtual Console faffery I've been mug enough to invest heavily in, believing that one day I'll suddenly become overwhelmed with happiness. Because Nintendo love me. Microsoft though... well, what are their sins?

She might not be everyone's cup of tea but she's my Moet & Chandon

Red ring of Death? I'll grant you, they rushed the console out, they cut corners - and they've done the decent thing and are making good on their mistakes in an efficient and honest manner so far as I can tell. Had they not been first out of the gate, they'd have been buried by PS3 and Wii despite the cumulative console experience being pound-for-pound better than the two alternatives. I'm willing to forgive them the almost inevitable RRoD my machine will one day suffer, because the two weeks I'll be waiting to get my machine back is still less time than I'd spend on mandatory hard-drive installs through the life of the alternative console.

People recently criticised Live Gold carrying a fee on the forums I frequent - but look at what you are paying for - the worlds' most reliable and popular online walled garden in which to play for 12p a day (I'd gladly pay that for the same on my Wii or PC, or DS for that matter. In fact no, I'd pay a pound a day to get rid of friend codes on my Wii). So that one doesn't wash with me either. I'm stumped here - the cash-for-DLC-exclusives deals are no worse than the HD disc format wars where Sony were more than happy to hold onto their exclusives. It won them the war and what's good for the goose...

I doubt the likes of Fallout 3 would have been quite the title we ended up with were it not for Redmond chucking a million or so at Bethesda while they were still spending on development. I cannot see how this is a valid reason for Microsoft or specifically XBox to be evil, so I'm throwing it open - surely there must be something, surely there must? The last time I had the hump with them it was for acquiring Rare, but would Perfect Dark Zero, Viva Pinata or Banjo Nuts & Bolts have been any better on Wii? Would Perfect Dark Zero have been good at all? Help me out here - give me your best shots at dissing the Beast of Redmond - because this is the games industry we're talking about here and I refuse to believe that everything is fine and dandy.

Of course we might have moved beyond this good/evil debate in the more sensible corners of the web. This isn't one of them though, so flame away.

Holocaust Season

There's Armageddons and there's Armageddons. At the Temple, there's been two recently - the one affecting my PCs and the nuclear one in the history books of Fallout 3. Both have conspired to prevent me from opening the Temple doors to readers for a very, very long time. When I built the Temple originally, I was all like
And shortly after September began, I was all like


And now I'm feeling better. Only I can't talk, because I'm 137 hours into Fallout 3 and I really really want to get it finished. In the meantime, you can read some proper writing about games over at Snappy Gamer, and pick them up cheap, like if you follow the links from SavyGamer.

This post was brought to you thanks to Cyberpower Systems, whose machines are substantially less prone to breaking than those of Acer.