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Tuesday 31 August 2010

Worms Reloaded Review

My original text for this asked no forgiveness for being crude, and used "wank" instead of "you-know-what", but I guess if you start a review with a masturbation simile then you can't be surprised if your editor feels the need to fiddle.

Damn, must get out of innuendo mode.

Here's my first piece for BeefJack.

Sunday 22 August 2010

Fire Action! - Fiasco


Despite shoving it down the throat of most people I've ever met for the past few weeks, I somehow failed to post about this here. Fire Action! made an EP. You should totally buy it. Yes, YOU. From either iTunes or Amazon.

Saturday 21 August 2010

20 Years of American TV Videogame Reports

Then



Now


SIGH.

(Both vids shamelessly stolen from UK-Resistance.)

Tuesday 17 August 2010

Games?

Do do do please check out this hip new online magazine I've somehow blagged my way into becoming a staff writer for. It's all about videogames that perhaps shouldn't really be called games, and it cuts a jib I very much like. I've only got one short piece on Psychosomnium in this issue, but I'm looking forward to getting more seriously involved in forthcoming ones (the publication of which hopefully won't clash so much with my musical commitments).


Anyway, here's a snippet from Ashton Raze's editorial to whet your appetite:

"Sure, gaming narrative may not have reached the sophistication of Shakespeare, and we may not have found our Citizen Kane, but that extra level of interaction, that control we have, the resonance with our avatars and their fates, it's really something else. Games can do almost anything, they can allow us to be almost anyone, they can provide virtually any experience and in time, as the medium grows and matures even further, they will. Games can be anything they want to be, or the player wants them to be, and with GAMES? we intend to show this."

Tuesday 10 August 2010

Fire Action! Tour - Day Three (Monday)

Bristol - 12:00


The sun is out again, although not with quite the same force as we felt it in Oxford. I'd have liked to use the next few hours to explore - I hear Isambard Brunel built an impressive suspension bridge nearby - but the cheap shoes I bought yesterday are fighting against my unusually shaped feet and, at the moment, winning, leaving the heels and tops of my feet feeling something like good carpaccio: raw and tender. So instead I'm sitting on a bench just off the High Street, outside a Methodist church that lays claim to some kind of historical significance, while some cheery whistling workmen paint the wall behind me a not completely repulsive shade of lime green.

Monday 9 August 2010

Fire Action! Tour - Day Two (Sunday)

Oxford - 16:00


Day two of the tour and there's time to kill in Oxford before we drive to Bristol. In an attempt to blend in with the natives I've bought a pretentious Moleskine notebook and taken refuge from the day's scorching heat under a tree in Christ Church meadow. It would probably be sensible to find a more secluded spot than I have - tourists pour down the wide pebble dashed path almost constantly, eager to gawp at the university's golden monuments to intellectualism or the cows in the field ahead of me - but the poser in me quite enjoys imagining I might be a source of fascination to passersby with my furrowed brow and look of intense concentration. Besides, it's not long before the repetitive crunch of footsteps on gravel becomes faintly reassuring- like the sound of rain on a pane of glass.