Alice: Madness Returns comes with free Alice 1 game

[Title extension] "...on the console version"

Video Games Blogger tells me that the console version of Alice: Madness Returns will come with the first Alice game to play through as well. Shweeeeeet. All the more knife-weilding blood fueled card-person frenzies for me then!

This was revealed by American McGee himself in an interview with CVG in which he spoke about the developer’s plans for DLC content (the game will include downloadable dresses with special abilities that you can purchase).

He followed that up by mentioning the Alice 1 deal.



To quote:


“There will be DLC in the form of dresses that the player can download and Alice can wear. Those dresses come with special abilities and enhance how you play through the game. There’s also going to be a pretty significant release which is the original Alice brought over to the consoles so that a person who’s purchased Madness Returns gets a download code and is able to bring Alice 1 onto their console and play through the entire original game alongside playing Madness Returns.”

The game hits the stores (and my PS3) in June.

Here's the article at Video Games Blogger.

Alice: Madness Returns - 14th July 2011

I said a while back that American McGee's Alice was one of my favourite games of the past decade, and the sequal looks like its serving up the same steaming dollop of madness as the first. The first game was deliciously twitsted; I would not like to have been a pothead when this game was on the circuit. With demented children, evil flowers and armies of playing cards - it was a nightmare, and oh so seductively demented. The sequal seems to be following the same vein; a relatively simple platform shooter with a gothic overtone.

The graphics on the last game were alright for their time, but it looks as if the teasm at EA have really utilised the modern day engine to create the twisted (and sometimes hauntingly beautiful) Wonderland. I'm hoping Alice: Madness Returns will be just as brixx shittingly freaky as the first.

The Omen 4: Unibrow of Despair

Hey, this looks like an interesting article...

Yes, very insightful - had better scroll down.

Interesting! So if I put my relationship status on facebook it is likely that when the Girl finally chooses her moment to crush my feeble heart, it will be played out in glorious technoco... wait, whats that?

Oh sweet Jesus...

HE CAN SEE INTO MY MIND, HE CAN SEE INTO MY SOUL.

The Wisdom of Seananners

Despite the fact that Seananners mercilessly destroys a group of players during this video - this is the most Zen six minutes I've experienced in a long while.

Enjoy.

ArenaNet Norn Week: Gargantu-norn!

And so the time of the norn is upon us. Unlike with human week, ANet haven't posted a schedule for the next few days - I suppose hoping we will tackle each coming blog post as if it were a wild boar shooting out of the frigid undergrowth. We'll wrestle those words to the ground, drive our eyes-daggers deep into the metaphorical neck of the article, sever the semantic jugular and sup the lore-blood that flows forth.

Bards shall sing of our conquest!

Oh, the daring audience
Had waited for norn week in silence
And when the great beast was 'pon us
They conquered the words with their mind-lance

Marble Hornets #34/35 - Aka - Why I need new Trousers

I haven't done a Marble Hornets post in a while, so I thought I'd update because things just hit the effin' roof.
Entry #34 sees us follow Jay to the return address for the package he received at the end of Season one. It seems to lead him to an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere - other than some rubble and bad graffiti, theres absolutely nothing to see. Until of course, you reach Entry #35.

Entry.Freaking.Thirty.Five. Watch it now. I demand it!


Now, without spoiling it for those not already clued up on what happened - what are the implications of this? How will Jay react to this news? Also, where the hell is Jay at the moment anyway?!

I'm still reeling, and so is the Marble Hornets community. Less than a day the thread on unFiction has almost 500 posts and is nearing 30 pages as I type this. As Jay says at the end of the video. This changes... everything.


ps. oh yeah and theres the TTA video "Fragments" with a cut up picture of Alex - but I guess we won't be seeing many of them anymore, right? WRONG! You forget, the contents of #35 are in the past. We have 2 options: TTA is someone else is still posting (and Tim is dead - although I suppose he could still be alive) or TTA was Tim all along and he somehow survived Alex's rock of doom.

Top 5 Black Ops Commentators

Usually, when I get in after a hard days work, I like to sit down on my arse and blow peoples heads off with high powered assault rifles. Its therapeutic, I suggest you try it. NO not in real life you 'nana, in Black Ops. Foo'!
When I'm not doing the blowing myself (steady...) I like to watch other people doing the blowing (now really, steady on - stop laughing). What I'm trying to say is that I like to watch Black Ops commentary videos. One of the reasons I spend so much time on YouTube browsing around for Black Ops gameplay is because I'm looking for tips on how to improve my game - I can't tell you how much I've learned by watching superior players play through their games. Although I do it partially for tips; I guess the main reason is because its very satisfying to watch the game played like a pro. I'd never be able to get a 67-1 gameplay in real life, so its nice to see that some people can still absolutely go batshit bonkers with Black Ops.

So, what I thought I'd do is share my Top 5 Black Ops Commentators for your approval and hopefully I can share some real gems with ya'll (there's a lot of embedded videos so follow after the jump for the top 3!)

Ok, slipping in at number 5 is:

Scotty Johnson

If you're new to Black Ops game commentaries, Scotty's videos probably aren't where you want to be starting off. Lets just say things get a little bit... odd. Scotty is usually accompanied (assuming Scotty is the player and not the chimp), by another dude with an overactive noise-gland. What is created is this almost schizophrenic dialogue between the player and the observer - every kill is accompanied by (and this is censored for ya'll sensitive folks out there) "WOOOO YEAH F**K HIM, MAN!" whilst the player laughs in the background. Some people find it a bit too much, but I think its hilarious.

At number 4 we have:

IXI sweat IXI Aka Marine Sweat

Marine Sweat is a commentator I came across about a month ago on the codops247 channel. He seems like a genuinely nice guy and has a good relationship with his viewers and subscribers. In addition to his personality, I think the main thing which brings people to his videos is the information he has on his life in the Marine corps. More often than not his commentaries include a story from his days at boot camp, or a discussion about what it takes to be a Marine.
He is enthusiastic and confident in his abilities as both a player and as a real life amphibious land/sea, no sleep, eat otter poo to live, sleep for fortnights in the swamp, killing machine. I enjoy every one of his videos; but find below the latest one I saw - he includes the footage of the latest map pack, a shiny golden AK and more stories from Boot Camp:

Werewolf: A Family game of Betrayal, Deception and Murder

Early last year I came across the following article on wired.co.uk: Werewolf: How a parlour game became a tech phenomenon by Margaret Robertson.

Robertson introduced me to a game which, since then, I've played with my friends whenever we've got enough people together in a room. If you have the chance, give the article a read, but I'll describe the rules to you here and hope you can spread the word. The game is called Werewolf.

Now, I understand if you've stumbled across this you might have already heard of the game under a different name, perhaps Mafia (as one of my friends had heard) but I'm lead to believe there are a number of subtle differences and nuances which arise if you play the game correctly, so it might be worth following on regardless. Robertson describes the rules simply as:

Its core premise is simple -- a room is split between villagers and werewolves, and the former aren't aware who are their enemies, determined to eat them. Can the werewolves eat their prey before the villagers identify and lynch the werewolves?

Here's a bit more detail:

1) First off, you'll need a decent number of people. The minimum is probably 5, but more is preferable. Each player is assigned a category, in the simplest version either you are a villager or a werewolf. With a group of 5-7 you'd need 1 werewolf, 7-10 probably 2 and more than 11 you'll probably want 3 werewolves. No one other than the person themselves must know who is a villager and who is a werewolf (this is easily done with cue cards for each player - telling them their character). You will also need one narrator who knows everything.

2) The game is split into 2 stages; night and day. During the night, everyone closes their eyes and "sleeps", the narrator asks the werewolves to open their eyes and silently agree on one villager to horribly maul and leave bleeding and spluttering in their fields to die a slow and agonising death before the sun rises. When the deed is done, the narrator asks the werewolves to close their eyes and then announces the morning has arrived and everyone wakes up. The narrator informs the villagers who has been killed and they must sit the remainder of the game out.

3) The entire group must then agree on one person out of them to lynch. The trick is that the werewolves are also allowed to vote, but obviously no one knows who they are, so they must try to convince the villagers that one of their feeble peasants is the bloodthirsty killer. So, with their lynching target agreed upon, the accused is strung up and the narrator informs the group whether they killed a fellow villager or successfully targeted a werewolf. Night falls again and the werewolves are free to choose another to kill.

4) The game continues as such until either all the werewolves are dead (and the villagers win), or the werewolves outnumber the villagers (and the werewolves win).

Sounds simple enough, right? Right, it is! The rules in and of themselves are simple and straightforward, you can't go too far wrong. However, what happens when you begin to play is something else entirely. You might play one or two day/night cycles before it happens; but it will happen. You will go into "Werewolf Mode" - a state of consciousness where everything is relevant and nothing is irrelevant.

"Why are you so adamant that Josh is a werewolf? What are you hiding?"

"You've voted for Sarah three rounds in a row!"

"Why so quiet? Come on, perk up - afraid you'll say something you regret?!"

"Honest to God, I'm not! I don't know what to say, I'm not! AAARRRGGGHHH!"

The times I've played with friends I have learnt more about them than I had for the past 5 years. Robertson puts it aptly when she says:

It's your best bet of finding the most interesting people and of emerging the next morning with a couple of intriguing job offers. Rather than spend a fortune on funky business cards or hours memorising people's blog posts, the most effective way to connect in the tech industry may instead be to kill and eat them.

What I love about this game is it exercises your brain muscles. You can try to read every player's expressions throughout the game, see how they react to lynching their friends and allies, see whether they are particularly vocal about a particular suspect, or quiet when the blame is thrown at them. You can attempt to remember who each person votes for as a werewolf, try to remember who votes together and who never votes at all. Or you can keep schtum and hope no one notices the blood dripping from your fangs.
Whilst, on the surface the game is so simple; underneath there lies an undercurrent of real visceral investigative work - real brainboxing and mind-fu'ing. Above the simple villager/werewolf dynamic, there are further twists you can introduce once you get the hang of the basic rules. There are numerous characters you can assign to people, here's just a short list:

No Res Shrines: Gaming and the Real World

On the surface, the gaming world is murky and dank. Its dark and cold and confusing, populated by overzealous fourteen year olds slapping their "ep33n" around on FPSs and thirty somethings hunched over keyboards in the basement of their Mother's house in the suburbs and roleplaying busty Night Elves. This is the image of gaming which we have grown to accept; one of mindless escapism, a disconnected self which is controllable in a totally different and disconnected Universe.

Increasingly, however, this restrictive and short sighted vision of gaming is being challenged. Governmental analysts are beginning to confirm something that, deep down inside our heart of hearts, we've always known; gaming makes us better people. This assertion is two fold - on the one hand, there is the exciting prospect that gaming physically and mentally trains us for certain situations. A couple of weeks ago, The Onion jokingly suggested that games such as Gears of War and Fallout 3 are training our children to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?

I know I've learned that surreptitiously slipping a live grenade into the pockets of unsuspecting bandits can be a laugh riot, and iguana bits are no substitute for vast amounts of synthetic Nuka-Cola. Today wired.co.uk (my faithful friend) published an article by Noah Schachtman on how American analysts are using videogames to weed out bias in their operatives.

The agency is looking to axe everything from "anchoring bias" (relying too much on a single piece of evidence) to "confirmation bias" (only accepting facts that back up your pre-made case) to "fundamental attribution error" (attributing too much in an incident to personality, instead of circumstance).

I have to admit there is a place in my gut which leaps at the thought that playing Black Ops might make me into a one man killing machine, a real life 007; utilising my twitch reactions to mow down a camp-full of bogies in seconds and then zip lining into my chalet in Switzerland with my sultry femme fatale; Olga. In actuality I think the only thing I'll end up with is bad eyesight, a bit of a belly and the thumbs of a 65 year old.



On the other hand, there is the implementation of gaming in the effort to stimulate real social change. On a more Alternative Reality Gaming slant; Jane McGonigal's book "Reality is Broken: Why Games make us Better and how they can Change the World" focuses on the attempts at using games to raise awareness and encourage "off the wall" thinking when it comes to national and international social problems. McGonigal states that reality is broken because games act as "happiness hacks" and so are more productive at producing happiness than real life situations. This is why gaming is so often used as an escapist pastime.

McGonigal goes on to state that instead of lamenting this change, perhaps the strengths that can be found in gaming strategies could be harnessed to affect social change. Alternative Reality Games could be used as vehicles to increase awareness of particularly critical subjects or even stimulate players to actively improve their lives through giving real world targets to attain.

Michael Andersen at ARGNet did a sterling job reviewing and summarising McGonigal's latest book, although he is skeptical of the application of gamification tactics to real world problems stating that he does not wholly believe that gaming strategies can be applied to "complex problems that are resistant to game designer attempts to reduce goals to concrete action steps". I've already stated that ARG gaming has affected me in a very real way, increasing my ability to make connections, widening my knowledge of cryptography and deduction and giving me a wide variety of skills which I have already been able to apply to my life.

I'm quite enthusiastic about gaming being a vehicle for change in real life, but I believe we need a big push; something to really carry gamification into the media eye and advertise it as a powerful vehicle for social revolution. Alternative Reality Games need the equivalent of what Facebook was for social networks.

Black Ops News 26/01/11

Recently received a glimpse of the game play involved in the new map pack for Black Ops. Pretty excited, even though I'm not a sniper myself I'm hoping the maps will give more scope (*snigger*) for long range combat to keep the whiny snipers happy. I'm also hoping that the darkness in the Kowloon map will give a greater viability to infrared scopes, which have seen little to no play since the game was released (compared to Modern Warfare 2, where they were relatively common for snipers).

I have to say I was hoping that the "stadium" map would include the ability to fight across the large plain of the hockey rink. There are no maps with large open plains (again, unlike Wasteland and Derail in MW2) in Black Ops - the closest, in my opinion, being the central street in Havana and the Snow field on Grid. Still, can't wait to get to grips with the new features such as the zip line and the collapsible bridge.

Other Black Ops news: the 1.06 patch came out last night.
Notable changes:

• When you down an opponent into Last Stand, if your team mate finishes them off you will be credited with the kill and they will get an assist, this was sorely needed. It doesn't remove the pain in the arse that is Last Stand from the game, but it does at least make it less frustrating.
• Adjustments to the AK74u and RCXD - both sorely needed, although I'm not sure which changes have actually taken place.
• Changes to PSG1 sniper attachments.
• Tweaking the Silenced Sniper rifles.
• Numerous fixes to connectivity problems - although I believe I still crashed a number of times last night...

Full list can be found here: Gamrfeed on Black Ops 1.06

Finally, Wired.co.uk tells me that Gamers' Voice are reporting CoD to trading standards for not delivering a stable online gaming platform for PS3 and PC gamers. I have to agree, it is incredibly frustrating being kicked out of a game when you are doing well, and probably even more frustrating being kicked out when you are doing badly and so are given no chance to redeem your K/D ratio.

From wired.co.uk: http://cdni.wired.co.uk/620x413/a_c/bloppy.jpg

Whilst I'm hoping the latest patch will fix most of the problems; I don't believe the problems are game breaking. For the most part I can play full games and get a decent connection; but that won't stop me trying to twist my controller into a turkey twizzler if I d/c in front of 3 angry enemy players.

I'm still thoroughly enjoying the game and am improving my play style with every day. I'm at 5th prestige now! Wooo!
Next weekend I have some friends coming over and we will be partaking of some "Buzz! Music Quiz!" action, I'm quite looking forward to it. Seeing as, with the exception of Becky and possibly Sam, they are all completely clueless about popular culture - I'm quietly confident.

Anyone tried Buzz? What do you think of it?

Guest Post: The Experience of Evil by time2pwnu

Distilled: This is the first ARG Report for the New Year - penned by time2pwnu (E. Richardson) from the unFiction boards, it concerns the YouYube series: Experience of Evil.

Eric; in the Introduction, looks tired and scared: Introduction.

The Experience of Evil ARG series on YouTube started on December 18th, 2010. It started out like any other ARG; but with a surprising twist. Most viewers believed we were being giving another video series about Slenderman; but that was not the case. The story begins with the main character; Eric Hanes, talking about how his two friends have recently been killed in the past few months. Eric and his two friends; Justin Jones and Grant Compton, started a paranormal documentary in January of 2010. Eric believes a demon killed his friends and is now after him as well. The story starts out fast, as Eric starts posting all the videos from the past year in order, in Episode #2 we get a first-hand look at the demon and the horrors don’t end there. The story begins to make sense in the next few episodes, as Eric tries (in the current time) to run from the evil that has been chasing him and trying to kill him.



The trio of friends are being followed by what they believe to be a man. In Episode #9, the team was doing an investigation of one of Eric’s friend’s home; the man (or demon) says a few choice words to the camera. No one has been able to figure out what was said, but it is defiantly another language. As Eric continues his research into his friend’s deaths, he comes across a demon named “Mush” on the internet. Right now this is the best lead he has to finding the killer.

In Episode #13, they finally seem to make contact with their attacker. Grant is pulled through the house by an unknown force and they are attacked by the demon. Then in the continuation of that video (Episode #15) we see that the demon is definitely more than human when it makes them run off the road. We are left with a cliffhanger; the police do not believe Eric and Justin’s plea that their friends has been kidnapped by this thing, and at the end of Episode #16 it seems that Eric is not alone in his house. The next episode, #17, is sure to be one not to miss. More answers are soon to be revealed and rest assured, the longer this series goes, the more terrifying it will become. Will Eric survive long enough to post their entire story? Guess you will have to subscribe like the rest of us and find out.

See Episode 16 below:

Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheExperienceofEvil
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#%21/ExpofEvil
unFiction thread: http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=31163


Distilled: time2pwnu is an active member of the unFiction boards, and I want to thank him for taking the time to write this article for me. As always, if you are interested in writing a guest post regarding an Alternative Reality Game (or ARG subject) just drop me a mail or post a comment. Full details can be found here: Looking for Guest Writers!

Pokemon: Blasting off Again

I think this is a perfectly normal compulsion that a guy around my age must have upon realising that the rest of his life will be spent working 9-5; Monday to Friday; on a job they don't necessarily enjoy. We yearn for a simpler life, one where pseudo blood-sports are played out by animals imprisoned in tiny red and white balls and only brought out when we are scouring the tall grass (careful, it's dangerous) for more unsuspecting creatures to lock up in my torrid world of badges and battlescars. What I'm trying to tell you is; lately, I've really wanted to play Pokemon.

Personally, I blame GW over at Geekologie for posting the chart of 493 Pokemon drawn as anime girls; finding that I could name all of the first 151 with ease, and at a push, at least recognise the first 250, really brought home how important this game was for me as a kid. Whilst I played Pokemon Red when it first hit the shelves here in England, in my mind the archetypal Pokemon game is Silver (I say Red and Silver as my brother would always buy the other version so we could trade, so he had Blue and Gold).
I bought Pokemon Silver in Singapore airport for a pittance, I believe it was before it came out here in England. We were on our way to Australia for a month long family holiday (during which I would burn myself to a cinder on Bondi Beach, climb the Sydney Harbour bridge, dodge a swarm of jelly fish and swim with dolphins on Christmas day), and our stop over was in Singapore for a couple of days. We'd spent the time there seeing all that was gaudy and bright to see in Singapore; we went on a tour which took us to some magnificent temples, saw some breathtaking scenery and also went to a factory where they took exquisite Singaporean artwork depicting beautiful birds with bright feathers and shimmering claws, and put blinking LEDs in their eyes.
On the way through the airport to catch our flight to Sydney I spied an electronics store with large advertisements for the latest anime comics and games, and there standing proud and feathered was Ho-Oh squawking at me: "Buy me, Will! Spend your holiday money here! Squuaar!!"; and I did.

I played that game for the entire flight from Singapore - Sydney, and every spare moment I had whilst I was in the big city, then on the Sydney-Perth connection flight, and then all the way back to England again. When I got home I bought the guide and me and my brother set about attempting "catchemall!" as the phrase goes. The land was far larger than that of Red/Blue, it was easy to get lost, and even after playing for that inordinate amount of time, months later I was still finding new places to explore. I loved that game with every fibre of my being, hurtling down the cycle path, being mobbed by Zubats in the caves (like the Cliff Racers of Johto), trying (by pure change) to work out that freaking trap door gym, training my Furret up to be a killing machine. Good.blemming.times.

I don't think I ever did catch every Pokemon, even with my brother's help (trading to evolve certain Pokemon, doing the mystery prize infrared thing every day) I certainly never got Mew - I mean, I'd have had to go to a Nintendo conference... and I just don't roll that way. Now, with my gaming experience and the confidence with which my life has imbued me, I feel it is time to return to Johto and get the job done. Maybe I'll wear shorts, because if I remember correctly, wearing shorts means you have to battle...

PS. come to think of it, I also blame the guy on Black Ops last night who sang the entire Pokemon cartoon theme tune from beginning to end. Kudos BO guy... kudos.

Pokemon! our hearts so truuuuue, our courage will pull us through! You teach me and I'll teach you. Pokeeeemoooon, Pokemon!

Modern Warfare 3: November 2011!

What? But I've only just got to grips with Black Ops - I'm good at it! Yesterday I went 38-3! Now you want to bring out MW3? The sequel to a game I was unequivocally terrible at? Why do you hate me so; Activision? Grrr....

from wired.co.uk http://cdni.wired.co.uk/620x413/k_n/modern-warfare.png

Came across this on Wired.co.uk this morning. Apparently undeterred by the collapse of Infinity Ward, Activision are forging ahead in alliance with Sledgehammer Games (for the single player) and Raven Software (for the multiplayer) in order to get Modern Warfare 3 out before the end of the year. That only gives me another 11 months to prestige another 10 times!

Who am I kidding, I've been playing so much I'll probably be there before next Tuesday. Curse my obsessive personality...

ps. lets hope they listen to the fanbase - noobtubes are still annoying and take no skill and second chance is a terrible perk and makes me want to twist the controller into nothingness...

ArenaNet Retrospective Trailer - Oh, freakin', baby...

Ooooh baby... you need to watch this. My fanboy gland is squelching out juices at a previously unheard of rate.

I think its admirable the work that goes into making a decent community around the Guild Wars franchise. Whatever people may say about the guys over there, they work really really hard to listen to all of our suggestions and to provide top quality content on the back of them.

Also - anyone else think that Ree Soesby is disturbingly hot when shes pretending to tear someone's head off?

ANet Blog is the best place to keep up with GW2 news: link to the article on this here.

Independant Gaming - Torch or Lantern?

Do not let them tell you that you shouldn't post after giving blood - they are wrong, whoever these naysayers may be. I defy them! Wooziness aside...

Ever wanted to be stuck inside a cave, with nothing but a pickaxe made of diamond and some wool? Me neither. Or at least, if you asked me a few weeks ago - I'd have agreed with you. I mean, haven't you played Minecraft? What about cowering in a cupboard whilst Princess Flappyjaw snorts and growls its way around the room lusting after your skin, which would make a perfect balaclava? Never wanted that? Why the hell not? You're weird...

I see from this article over at Wired.co.uk that the Independant Gaming Festival is coming up, and Minecraft and Amnesia: The Dark Descent are both in the running for Indie game of the year. I'm torn about who I would go for - on the one hand Amnesia is pants-wettingly terrifying, there is nothing quite like the fear when your lantern runs out of oil in a dark corridor, and in the dim distance you see an leg disappear into a doorway. Of course, you turn to leave, but as you do so great fleshy tumours burst out of the walls, stringy cartilidge bars the door - you crap yourself, hit alt-f4 and go to bed to sit wide-eyed in the dark.
On the other hand, Minecraft is quite the opposite, I cannot stop playing, perhaps tomorrow I will spend an hour flattening ground to build my cathedral - bit by bit, from the ground up. Perhaps the day after that I will dig straight down, in the hopes of finding a dungeon, so that I can get wheat to start my farm. Maybe after that I'll gather 100 blocks of wool and build a woolen tower as high as I can. Its so freaking expansive, my mind boggles!

I think in the end Minecraft wins this one for me, because whilst Amnesia is innovative in removing the player's ability to fight back, it forces me not to play because it is so terrifying! I laud this as a great acheivement by the developers, but if we are going off fun-factor - then Minecraft has it beat.

Ultimately, I think both games have been revolutionary - Minecraft in its wide appeal and commitment to sandbox gameplay, and Amnesia with its shedding of the power of the weapon in survival horror gaming, and the way it forces the player to come up with other ways of making it through the twisted corridors of the castle.

I'm really glad I'm not withing range of a computer with Amnesia on it right now - in my blood deprived state I fear that the sheer terror would throw me into some kind of shock... maybe its time I just put my head on the desk...

Misfits: Best thing on the Telly

[WARNING MISFITS SPOILERS AHEAD]

There, I said it, I firmly believe that the E4 series Misfits is the best thing on the telly in the UK at the moment.
Its a very Brit-pop show to rival the epicness of the US hits Lost and Heroes, but it retains it's UK grit and tongue in cheek sense of humour - there aren't many shows that would have a character scream "I want to piss on your tits!" in the first episode. Short story synopsis: 5 youths are sent to do community service, crazy storm hits and they are all struct by lightning - they all gain superpowers: anyone who touches Alisha will immediately fall into a lust filled frenzy, Kurtis can turn back (and, as we discovered in recent episodes, forward) time, Simon can turn invisible, Nathan is immortal (omg Season1 ending spoiler) and Kelly can read minds.

What is so good about this series is that they don't go to flashy locations, there aren't a tonne of big explosions or expensive special effects - its all about the characters. At first they seem to be exactly what everyone thinks they are, just gobby youths who don't give a shit, but as the series progresses you realise each character is far deeper than that. Alisha (played by Antonia Thomas) is beautiful but struggling with a deep seated insecurity which she fills with sex and parties, Kurtis is riddled with guilt because he's thrown away a bright athletics career, Simon has issues with social situations, Nathan uses humour and insults to keep people away and Kelly has serious anger issues (so much so that she stamps her probation worker to death in the first hour).

All I can say is that the first series is AWESOME! If you haven't seen it I would highly recommend hopping over to 4od and taking a look. Even though if you've reached this far in the post then you've learned most of the twists for the end, but its worth doing anyway! The comedy is dry, often blue to the bluest degree (Nathan in particular) and hilarious. Similarly, it deals with some very dark issues such as sexual aggression, murder, drug abuse, religion, race and age.

If you've seen season one and you've missed the past few weeks of the new season, then you HAVE to head over to 4od to watch them. I have just watched the lastest episode and HOT DAMN is it good, lets just say that our masked man has just blown my tiny little mind.

Mad Situation for JB

Look at that face. Stiffest of stiff upper lips, casually open t-shirt as if to say "hey guys, I'm not that port out starboard home", tousled Hugh Grant hair. Now, look into the eyes of the man who stopped WW III.

This story is odd, I knew James Blunt was in the army, there's a clip of him on Blue Peter or something and he's wearing a very smart red uniform and showing some people round a castle. But I didn't know he saw combat. I've never liked his music, his singing voice is quite annoying, and he was cursed with a cockney rhyming slang name, but this story has at least bumped his respect level up to "normal person", from "annoying person".

Blunt refused to fire on Russian troops who had taken an airfield, even disobeying a direct order from a US General (reminds me of Hugh Grant in Love Actually). From the BBC:

In an interview with BBC Radio 5 live, broadcast on Sunday, he said: "I was given the direct command to overpower the 200 or so Russians who were there.
"I was the lead officer with my troop of men behind us...

"The soldiers directly behind me were from the Parachute Regiment, so they're obviously game for the fight.

"The direct command [that] came in from Gen Wesley Clark was to overpower them. Various words were used that seemed unusual to us. Words such as 'destroy' came down the radio."

Blunt goes on to say:
"Fortunately, up on the radio came Gen Mike Jackson, whose exact words at the time were, 'I'm not going to have my soldiers be responsible for starting World War III', and told us why don't we sugar off down the road, you know, encircle the airfield instead...
"There are things that you do along the way that you know are right, and those that you absolutely feel are wrong, that I think it's morally important to stand up against, and that sense of moral judgement is drilled into us as soldiers in the British army."

Makes you bloody proud.

Still, I don't like "You're Beautiful". Sorry.

Petulant Children Ruining a Good Cause

With whats recently been happening in the capitol over the past few days, I thought I'd try and deconstruct how I feel about the whole student protest debacle. I say deconstruct because as I set out in this post I actually don't know for definate how I feel about it, my feelings are mixed for a number of reasons and I'm hoping that going through them will help me work out how I feel:

1) I did a three year Sociology degree followed by a one year postgraduate Masters in Social Research Methodology. Although I received a loan for the first three years, I funded myself for my postgraduate studies - this was before the rise in tuition fees of a couple of years ago, and way before this proposal of a £9000 limit on the fees. I struggled to raise the funds to study for that extra year. I worked over my summer, scraped and saved, and then still had to borrow £5000 from family members. Knowing how much I struggled, I can't even comprehend how it must feel to be 17 years old with the prospect of possibly having to pay £9000 each year to study. I have come out of University with £20 000 worth of debt to the Government and £5000 loan to be paid back to the family, students going to one of the 9k Universities can expect upwards of £30 000+ worth of debt when they start their working lives.

2) On the other hand, I have friends who work in London. One of my University friends works in a building which overlooks one of the epicenters of the violence. Having spoken to her over the past couple of days, she told me how scared she was, how the violence erupting below was so unlike what she thought the protest was supposed to be like and how she has "no sympathy for students after the way they acted...".

3) The general pretention which surrounds even the most well meaning student protest kinda grinds on me. It ground on me in the years at Uni and it grinds on me now. My job takes me to the local University for a number of days each week, and one of the main things I notice each day (aside from the seething jealousy I feel that they are living the life I was naught but 12 months ago) is the idea that somehow being in the University environment empowers these people with knowledge the lay man just doesn't understand. At the protests on Wednesday, apparently one student was quoted comparing their plight to the anti-war protests of the 60s and 70s! No. Just no.

In general, I think the students have shot themselves in the foot. The protests won't be remembered for the cause, but for the actions of those few teens who took it too far. The UK press have slaughtered them (and, now the lecturers who support them) - whilst I wouldn't think twice about wiping certain parts of my body on the Daily Mail, I believe there are a great number of people who put a lot of stock with the rag. If there were fence sitters before these protests I believe now they may be lost to the Conservative garden. I think now I realise that whilst I support the cause, I believe it may now be lost, and without the cause there can be no effect, the protests were for nothing. Violence for violence sake.

Tactical Header!

So, Black Ops. I went into Tesco yesterday on my way back from work fully expecting to find empty shelves, lathered with the grease from Doritos bags and the cold dew which forms on new cans of coke. To be honest, thats exactly what I found - a great black display with nothing but a few copies of the Wii version and a rather sorry PC version, not a PS3 one in sight.

Its probably for the best, I've mentally invested the next few months into maxing out my Hall of Monuments for Guild Wars. That won't stop me checking again on my way home today.

Lo' and behold the oldest of old video game chestnuts was wheeled out this morning on BBC news. Do video games make children violent? And, furthermore, are they addictive? Now, I must tell myself that these are the kinds of stories which are rolled out every once in a while and that they rarely hold any purchase amongst those with half a brain. But still, theres the niggling little bit in my mind which goes: HOLD UP!

These arguements see gamers as braindead slaves to colourful objects, twitching in the corner of a darkened room with a can of red bull in one hand, and a strangled kitten in the other. Now, I'm not saying this isn't the case for some - but what I am saying is that isn't it rather patronising to assume that people cannot make the fundamental separation between what is real and what is virtual? Between what is right and what is wrong?

For the most part, I believe that games are escapism, they allow you to live lives which you would never be able to live in the real world. It is behind this veil of anonymity that a lot of people find the release they would not in real life and it is something they enjoy. So, having escaped from the real world - why on earth would we want to drag our pure online lives into real life for them to be tainted and spoiled by "reality"?

You do not see Mario fans going out and jumping on turtles, or getting themselves lodged into drainage pipes. Admittedly, often gamers will grow facial hair like Mario, but more often than not it will migrate south of the chin rather than forming a manly mo'. Video games are an easy target for people who do not understand that it takes more than a few pixels exploding in red to make a person into a killer - it takes social degradation, alienation, emotional distress and neglect. If we find a rise in violent crime, perhaps there is something more fundamental to examine in society, rather than the games we play?

One of the most infuriating of all the statements made against video games is that kids "waste their life away in front of the machine" - I say, if you enjoy something, then do it, and who are these people to tell their children what they should and shouldn't enjoy?

But yes, I must remind myself again of the hacknied nature of this arguement. The dead horse is well over-flogged, chestnut well old, etc. Just a quote for your interest:

"Dancing, is, for the most part, attended with many amorous smiles, wanton compliments, unchaste kisses, scurrilous songs and sonnets, effeminate music, lust provoking attire, ridiculous love pranks, all which savor only of sensuality, of raging fleshly lusts. Therefore, it is wholly to be abandoned of all good Christians.

Dancing serves no necessary use, no profitable, laudable, or pious end at all. It is only from the imbred pravity, vanity, wantonness, incontenency, pride, profaneness, or madness of man's depraved nature. Therefore, it must needs be unlawful unto Christians.
 
The way to heaven is too steep, too narrow for men to dance in and keep revel rout. No way is large or smooth enough for capering rousters, for jumping, skipping, dancing dames but that broad, beaten, pleasant road that leads to HELL. The gate of heaven is too narrow for whole rounds, whole troops of dancers to march in together."

Histriomastix (1632), Puritan William Prynne