My first impression of Bioshock 2 wasn’t great. Turns out my first impression was completely wrong. I ended up agreeing with this chap [spoiler alert].
This game had a profoundly moving effect on me. The ending – my ending, the one that reflected my values – resonated deeply. As the father of a 2-year-old daughter, my journey through Rapture touched on my fears and aspirations for her in ways I never expected from a game. That experience lingers, and I’m grateful for it.
A fun wee piece I wrote for PC Plus has ventured online:
Back in the good old days, Microsoft did desktops, Google stuck to search and Apple made toys for people in polo necks. No more.
The superpowers of the technology world are at war, and like real wars, the battle is happening on several fronts. They’re fighting on the desktop, they’re fighting on mobile phones, they’re fighting in the browser and they’re fighting in your front room.
Who will prevail, and who will end up in a bunker?
As you might have heard, Modern Warfare 2 – which comes out today – includes a bit where you’re doing terrorist things. It’s causing a bit of controversy, and of course I have an opinion on that.
What we’re seeing here is something much more interesting than mere headline chasing: it’s a dramatic example of how videogames are trying to grow up.
If we want our games to grow up with us, we need to be grown up in the way we react to them – and that includes dumping the “we must protect the children” crap when games come with an 18 certificate specifically saying they’re not suitable for kids.
Today’s Guardian reports that Lily Allen’s blog had been removed due to online abuse, but neglects to mention that the abuse was over her own copyright infringement.
Earlier in the day Lily Allen, one of the few younger artists to speak out against online piracy, said she was dropping her public campaign against copyright theft because “the abuse was getting too much”. She had set up a blog “It’s Not Alright” – in reference to her first album Alright, Still – collating artists’ views after her comments that “filesharing is a disaster” for new talent. In its statement last night the FAC, expressed support for Allen and condemned “the vitriol that has been directed at her in recent days”.
Anyone else spot the irony of artists criticising the vitriol directed at, er, copyright thieves? It’s hard to disagree with my esteemed colleague Karl Hodge on this one:
http://bit.ly/4xE2qg – Lily’s blog down, comments gone, her wolf-cry of abuse taken at face value, discussion ends, revisionism begins.
The link he’s included is to The Word magazine, which shouts “misogyny” – even though the abuse was largely on other sites, not Allen’s; the abuse only became intense when she ignored reasonable comments; and the abuse is a fraction of the shit heaped on Lars Ulrich over Napster. As far as I’m aware, Mr Ulrich is not a lady.
It’s pathetic, really: the official story is already that brave copyright fighter Lily Allen had to take down her blog after the nasty internet people called her names, when the real story is that confused copyright infringer Lily Allen deleted her blog in a fit of pique after internet people caught her “stealing” other people’s content.
Fuck’s sake.
Meanwhile, the turkeys have overwhelmingly voted in favour of Christmas. Or rather, the artists have voted in favour of three-strikes against file sharers. This will, of course, mean the end of illegal file sharing and the return of bloated musical profits, and is in no way a Canute-esque stand that won’t change a bloody thing. At least Canute was trying to prove that he *couldn’t* stop the tide.
On a completely different note, Halo 3 ODST is an interesting (flawed) experiment. I don’t think I’ve played a first-person shooter inspired by Rashomon before, and it’s an interesting way of telling a story in an action game. But by god, it’s a short story. If someone as crap at gaming as me can get through it in a few hours, l33t players will no doubt get through it in ten minutes. As Mupwangle has rightly pointed out, that’s because it was originally a Halo 3 expansion pack; unfortunately it hasn’t been priced accordingly.
It’s still fun though, if you like wandering around in the dark listening to jazz.
According to a new study, anyway:
…gamers were more likely to be couch potatoes and that they had “a greater number of poor mental health days” than non-gamers.
We’re not surprised, because gaming can be a pretty depressing business. Just think: thousands of people have spent nearly fifty quid on things such as Transformers 2 or bought those Wii games that you only ever see in supermarkets. They’re enough to send anybody over the edge.
I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but one of my pet theories is that you can tell the shape of consumer technology by going to the supermarket. Supermarkets care very much about making money, so they don’t stock what they don’t think they can sell – so for example Blu-Ray is still conspicuous by its absence, and films on Sony’s UMD format barely appeared before disappearing again. So it’s interesting (to me, at least) to see what the three big supermarkets in my area are up to with videogames.
In the last couple of weeks, all three big chains – Tesco, Asda and Morrison’s – have changed their games aisles. Previously you’d find three equal sections: Wii/DS, Xbox/PC and PS3/PS2. Now, all three supermarkets have reshuffled things. The winner? Nintendo’s Wii. In my local Tesco it has two sections to itself, with a third section shared between the Xbox, PS3 and DS titles. PS2 and PC are relegated to the bargain buckets.
The reason is obvious: supermarkets make money from Wii games in a way they don’t from more serious consoles. Maybe it’s because Xbox and PS3 gamers buy online, or go the preowned route (I do the latter, which is why I’m currently being irritated by Army of Two before turning to Mirror’s Edge). Or maybe it’s because the Wii market dovetails nicely with the typical supermarket buyer, who doesn’t read Edge and who hasn’t heard of Metacritic. Whatever the reason, it’s proof that Nintendo has cleverly carved itself a whole new niche in gaming: games for people who aren’t gamers.
While we’re on the subject of supermarkets, my printer needed a pair of ink cartridges last week. It worked out £2 cheaper to buy a new, better printer with ink in it than to replace the cartridges in my existing one. If you had any doubt that the money’s in the ink and that printer firms sell hardware like Gillette sells razors…
First up, a feature: seven reasons why Apple should make a netbook (and a few reasons why it shouldn’t). Here’s one of the reasons why it shouldn’t:
An HD Touch would be more compelling
Take one iPod Touch, make it twice the size, give it some desktop-style apps and you’ve got something that no other computer firm can deliver (or, we suspect, even imagine). You’d have all the things you expect from an iPhone, plus decent e-book reading and document editing. How great would that be? Bluetooth support for an external keyboard, 3G modem as an option, best computer ever.
Then, a column: if Confessions of a Shopaholic was about tech instead of handbags, we’d think it was great. Tech Firms! You’re doing it wrong!
…the tech industry is just like the fashion industry. It sells you stuff and tells you you’ll look like Audrey Hepburn or Brad Pitt; six weeks later it’s shouting “You look like your gran!” and telling you to buy something else or kill yourself. An overpowered laptop is no different to a £1,000 It Bag: it’s just more crap that helps fuel credit crunches and contributes to climate change. When we’re eating each other for food and having fist-fights with polar bears in the High Street, we’re going to regret it.
The column isn’t up yet. I’ll post the link when it is.
Update
Here’s the link: why netbooks prove that the tech industry’s gone nuts.
The days run away like horses over the hill…
Is Half-Life 2 the future of indie movie-making?
The potential is mind-boggling, but let’s be honest: we’re not quite there yet. The constant fast-cutting in Escape from City 17 can’t disguise the fact that some of the in-game footage doesn’t quite gel with the real footage, the Combine Citadel looks like it’s been glued into the background with Pritt Stick and we’re pretty sure that none of the $500 budget was spent on the script.
Overall, though, it works – and to our eyes it’s no worse than the CGI in the most recent Hulk movie, which cost $150 million to make and still looked like it had been thrown together on a ZX Spectrum by an angry toddler.
Six companies Microsoft should buy:
Microsoft isn’t short of cash, and it recently – and unsuccessfully – offered to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion.
The idea was to catch up with Google, but the big G isn’t the only firm doing well in areas where Microsoft isn’t. So perhaps Microsoft should widen its net.
From video and music to shopping and social networks, we think these six firms should be on Microsoft’s shopping list.
I know I’m late to this – it happened in October – but I hadn’t seen this story until I read a reader’s letter in the new issue of GamesTM magazine. The gist: Sainsbury’s was flogging consoles at a loss, and a significant proportion of those consoles were bought not by punters, but by managers of games shops. According to MCV:
The latest round of price slashing kicked off at Sainsbury’s over the weekend, with the retailer cutting £30 off the price of Xbox 360 and Wii hardware – an offer which meant the 360 was available for under £100. Armies of staff from GAME, Gamestation, CHIPS and numerous independents then swooped to snap up the cut-price consoles.
“With 360 and Wii on sale at these prices we allowed our store managers to supplement their stock by buying consoles from their local Sainsbury’s,” explained GAME Group CEO Lisa Morgan.
“Availability was very inconsistent, but on the whole it was a worthwhile exercise. Our strategy is centred on giving our customers choice, good value and having the best possible availability going into the Christmas period.”
That’s “good value” in the sense of “ensuring nobody can get it cheaper than we sell it for”, I presume. The Telegraph wrote:
Lisa Morgan, the chief executive of Game, confirmed that the retailer’s store managers had bought almost 1,000 of the estimated 2,000 consoles sold by Sainsbury’s. The consoles were later resold in Game stores.
What do you think? I’m sure such behaviour is legal, but is it ethical?
And they’re available publicly at http://avatar.xboxlive.com/avatar/gamertag/avatar-body.png (replace “gamertag” with – yes! – your gamertag).
I’m gutted that you can’t put your avatar in a kilt – at least, not unless you want your avatar to have (a) a mini-kilt and (b) tits. Anti-Scots discrimination, or something.
[Via PlasticbagUK]
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