Wednesday Night Rant – A Rant on Wednesdays

The title says it all. Each week I will rant about a different topic every Wednesday in an attempt to find someone in the mystical land of the internet that will give me some bloody money for doing this. Ever the optimist…

In fact this is what my rant is about this week. (it’s weekly… did I mention that?)
Money money money! Must be funny. In a rich man’s world. Or if you’re a tool. I hate money and all it stands for; i just don’t get it.

This is going to be a hard rant to write because usually whenever someone mentions something money-related that’s apparently important, it takes all of my mental strength to stop me from falling into a coma. I can’t think of anything more boring. Nope. Nothing.
By now, it’s been drilled into your head by every possible source that money is the most important thing in the world. Parents, teachers, television, friends, newspapers. Everything is in agreement.

You see, money buys nice things and makes everyone happy! You want that life, right? Of course you do! Who wouldn’t? Terrorists, that’s who! Imagine what you could do with all that money!! Go on, imagine! You would get a big house, in a lovely warm place right? Yeah, and it would have a swimming pool and you would lounge out there all day, while a suited butler would bring you that fancy alcoholic beverage you like.You know, that one you like but are too ashamed to admit you like; but hey that doesn’t matter any more, you’re bloody rich!

But NO!!! You can’t go to the pool looking like that?! Remember, appearance is number 2 on “Most Important Things In Life” List 2011 (Full list to be published next time). I would bet there is one thing about your physical appearance that just isn’t “TV beautiful”. I knew it! Which bit is it? Your flabby tummy? Wobbly bottom? Big ears? Is one of your hands actually a hook? It doesn’t matter what the problem is! Throw a pile of cash at a team of surgeons and it goes away! Ta Da! You’re fabulous now!

Now you can go hang with your entourage at the pool! Did i forget to mention your entourage? They are your new friends now! You don’t need those “other” friends you had, you know, the ones that were poor and had holes in their jean shorts? And wore jean shorts. Besides, those old friends are pissed off you didn’t help out their small business when it was in trouble and now have a picture of you taped to the dartboard in their local pub. But why worry about them when you have your new friends? No, they are hanging around with for you, not your large pile of cash! Don’t be so silly! Your new pals suggest putting a large sum of money into the stock market. Go ahead, sure, you know nothing of the stock market, but it doesn’t matter! You have more money! And don’t forget, not only are your new buddies helpful, they are just as aesthetically pleasing as you are! No receding hairlines within 5 miles!

And with good looks comes good looking members of the gender you desire! Remember that old squeeze you had? Oh no! What were you thinking? They had all that stuff wrong with them, remember? Like no money? (I assume you are getting the underlying theme here?) And that they looked pretty without make up? Or that they had a personality? You’re rich! You shouldn’t have to deal with any of that stuff! You can only be seen with the best of the best, and they have to be wearing gold. Lots of shiny gold that you have bought for them. If you can’t make them look like a Ferrero Rocher, then their isn’t any reason to hang around with them.

Doesn’t all that seem nice? No! Why are you worrying? Not all of your relationships are meaningless! The butler quite likes you! Of course all of your relationships aren’t based on money and material goods! Which is just as well. You know that stock you invested in? Well, I’m afraid it’s just gone tits up. I believe the stock was something to do with Desperate Scousewives, which might explain it, but that isn’t important right now. What is more important now is the fact that you have no money. And your sexy partner left. And your entourage are nowhere to be seen. And your old friends hate you, along with your ex. Don’t worry though. I’m here for you.

Oh. It seems your last check just bounced. You’re on your own.

Ok, stop imagining now. If it didn’t come across, I hate money. It ruins everything.  Right, I’m done. I’m going to go hang out with the OccupyNewcastle guys. #WeAreThe99Percent.

EDIT – Second thoughts, it’s nippy out. I’ll stick the tele on.
Hmmm, The E4 schedule reads -
Made In Chelsea followed by Sorority Girls, followed by Desperate Scousewives. Correct me if i’m wrong, but that is the same program 3 times.

Leave Games Designers Alone!

That is right, you read me correctly, I’m about to go Chris Crocker on your ass. Just like you, i sit at home and play games. I love games, but I am all too eager to point out every single flaw I can think of. And while I still enjoy doing it,  something I did recently made me realise that maybe I’m being a tad harsh.

I started designing and creating a game. For those of you who don’t know, i study games design at university. Apparently, friends and making any money at all weren’t high on my list of priorities, but i digress. For one of our modules, we have to create a game then provide a ‘demo’ of that game. Our group decided to do a ‘time-travel’ type platformer. This sounded great, until we thought about it. If there was anything Red Dwarf taught me, it’s that time travel is ridiculously complex. We set out with gay abandon however and came up with a few ideas. I decided it would be a good idea to create a few levels on a program called Zelda Classic (which is awesome btw), just to show the group some ideas i had.

That, lady and gentlemen, is where I made one of the worst decisions of my life. All of my time was consumed by this tiny selection of levels, i would lie awake at night thinking of the most obscure game-related problem I’d be having.

I had to make a cow that could be used to sneak past onlooking guards. This took me a full day of planning and implementing. And when it finally worked, i wasn’t happy. It worked well, but i couldn’t help but feel like it wasn’t worth it. I hadn’t seen my girlfriend in 2 days, and i live with her! Luckily, I’ve managed to convince her like being with a games designer is like being with a policeman. I’m married to the force, baby.

The simple fact is, games designers and producers are under an extraordinary amount of pressure to make dreams and visions come to life. How do I know this? Because when I was in my humble, little, rented student accommodation in Newcastle, and I was trying to make a wand that didn’t damage an enemy, but stunned it (or ‘froze it in time’), I was convinced I was under stress levels felt by fighter pilots.

What’s more, they are usually someone else’s dreams and visions. One of the biggest misconceptions about the games industry is that you sit in a room with a team of people and say “I want to make a game about an ostrich!”, then you make it. This rarely ever happens, and on top of that, factors beyond your control stop the lowly designer from putting any creative mark upon the game at all.

One example of this being the Marketing People! The world’s most evil and useless people have now forayed into Video Games. A story from one of our lecturers (who worked at Ubisoft as a creative director) revealed that marketing told him that the game he was overseeing NEEDED a dog in it, as the demographic responded well to them. (I’m pretty sure it was the new Driver he was on about too. I don’t drive but i know that distractions can’t help. I wouldn’t be able to resist swerving at them anyway.)

My point is, games designers probably can’t do a lot to change the outcome of a game, and as with most walks of life, the power lies in the hands of a handful of people who belive they know better than other people. It’s just generally those ‘other people’ have some pretty good ideas.

I mean, who wouldn’t want to play a game about an ostrich?

Queers Of War

Cliff Breznin, the man behind Marcus Fenix (you’ll laugh later) and the rest of the Gears of War franchise has claimed that future Gears games will be less ‘camp’. This revelation relates not only to the apparent ‘bromance’ that Marcus and Dom share throughout the series or the barrage of cheesy one liners, but to a scene in the second instalment of the series. Dom; Marcus’ buddy, finds his wife in an internment camp, after a game and a half of searching for her. When he finds her however, she is on the verge of death and has an emotional, heartfelt farewell to the love of his life before ‘putting her down’; and you genuinely feel for the guy. Until the next battle however, in which he is telling the locust horde to “suck it”, and shouting “hell yeah” when he scores a headshot. Just like nothing had happened.  Breznin defended the scene, but agreed that things could have been done differently, and that “Camp is something that I would love to continue to evolve the franchise away from”.

Now, for starters, I’m not sure i agree that Gears is ‘camp’. I am aware that people have different definitions of the word, but to me, ‘camp’ is Dale Winton, Graham Norton, Simon Cowell etc. It’s flamboyancy with a pinch of femininity, which I just don’t get from a game with burly men with massive guns. I will admit, there are some definite homosexual undertones; the aforementioned ‘bromance’ to give one example, which leads me to other examples. I’ve always found the gym a particularly harrowing place, as a male. Mainly because I am a man-child who can barely lift a helium-filled balloon, but also because it’s overbearingly macho; and you can’t help feeling that somehow these men are ‘acting out’ (not the best expression to use here) because they know they are going to all go shower together at the end of their workout. I sorta get that impression from Gears.  After they complete their objectives, they might all go for a soapy ‘mission’ together. This is fine. It’s just Dom, (until recently, poor thing) had a wife. And I hate being lied to. Is he gay? Is he not? I wouldn’t care if he had a ‘sexy time doll’ that he married and wants to have children with. As long as he told me and didn’t spend the afternoon looking at women, saying, “Wow, what a sexy woman, I would like to have sex with that woman” in his best ‘lad’ voice. In fact, he doesn’t even need to say it outright, Dom should just be himself. You’re your own man, and don’t you ever forget it!

I may have veered slightly off topic there, but my point is that homosexual undertones aren’t necessarily ‘camp’. In fact, if I had to choose a word to replace ‘camp’, it would be ‘lame’. Gears of War is ‘lame’. Don’t get me wrong, I love Gears Of War (not in that way!) and I seriously can’t wait to get my hands on the new one, but the characters are pretty lame. A bunch of dudes, smack talking already dead locust, using their really big, over the top guns with more cheesy one liners than a cheddar cocaine lab. (After some 2 minutes of research I found, much to my dismay, that cheddar cocaine labs don’t exist.) It’s like they’re having a mid –life crisis, the body armour a throwback to their youthful body; a physique lost over time due to pigging out with their wives/husbands/blow up dolls and ‘taking it easy’. Their massive chainsaw guns are as close to a penis metaphor you can get in a desolate world ravaged by war, (sport cars are hard to come by) , not to mention the fact they are all armed to the teeth with corny lines my dad would consider ‘comedy gold’.

If a mid-life crisis isn’t ‘lame’, then frankly I need to re-evaluate the world.

Grown Man Takes COD Justice Into Own Hands. Literally

In fact, as literally as possible. A 46 year old man from Plymouth tracked down and strangled a 13 year old boy; prompting the boy’s mother to restrain the man, all because said child had killed him on Call Of Duty, and proceeded to ‘smack talk’ him over Xbox Live.
                Now, while we calmly, sit here and wait for the mainstream media to catch wind of this and blow all of this out of all proportions (biblical or otherwise), I, surprisingly, have a few points I would like to make. Violence and Video Games have always had a somewhat ‘unique’ relationship. So unique in fact that, i have decided to base my 3^rd year project on the relationship they share. (I’m also halfway through an article on this subject, which should be done and posted soon, with any luck)

                So, when I read this story, i should have taken it seriously and thought of a way to incorporate it into my research, and seen if this point could help me complete any of the objectives I set for myself and my study. But, I couldn’t.

I thought it was bloody hilarious. In fact, I would go as far as to say it one of my favourite games news stories this year. This brings me back to my original points. There are so many gaps in this story, it could be used to drain pasta, but above all, they make this story insanely odd, but ridiculously funny. Let’s examine them shall we.

1. How did the man find out the child’s address? Did he just ask? What if this kid grows up to be a spy? Or Princess Leia? How different would ‘A New Hope’ have been?

Vader- “Where is the hidden rebel base?”

Leia – (shouting) “Well, i don’t know where the base is, but I’ll tell you where it isn’t and that’s the 4^th moon of the Yavin system!!” (Winks to camera)

Vader – “It’s there isn’t it?”

Leia – “No…”

The rest of the film would just be the Empire carpet bombing Yavin 4 in an odd photon-fuelled homage to ‘Apocalypse, Now’. (Which hadn’t been released yet.) And that would be shit, wouldn’t it. Let’s hope this kid gets a job as a Town Crier or a shouter for the hard of hearing, something like that. For his sake.

2 . A jobless man, down on his luck. The economy has got him in a hole and the government isn’t throwing him a rope. Then, just as things can’t get any worse, a 13 year old, whips his ass at COD and proceeds to call him a “beeyatch”. The man snaps. That little passage should be put next to ‘The Straw That Broke The Camel’s Back’ in the dictionary. Of course, in this stupid world, it isn’t in the dictionary. But in a perfect world, dictionaries would include clichés.

3 . A 13 year old (and a blabby one at that), playing a PEGI 18 rated game, on Xbox Live. What could possibly go wrong? #ILikeSarcasm

4 . This grown man, sat around and listened to a child rip the piss out of him. He must have sat there for about 2 minutes. That’s got to be how long it takes for a man to snap to the point of wanting to hunt down and strangle a particular person. He’s a bigger idiot than Reginald Denny. Google it, k?

5 . This story has a rather odd hidden message about life. It teaches us that the world has a funny way of working out; if you look, everyone involved in the story gets their just desserts.
The man from Plymouth will be looking at at least some kind of community service for being a massive nutjob, the mother who let her 13 year old play a game classified as ‘mature’ got what was coming to her; although, admittedly, watching her child get strangled is a bit much. Finally though, something tells me that the kid won’t be smack talking anyone for at least, 3o years.  Everyone has learnt something and feels emotionally rich from the experience. Aren’t games awesome?!

I guess the lesson here is, ‘Don’t hide behind the internet’. If you piss someone off enough, they will come and find you. Simple.

Except Nick Clegg. He’s a pussy.

What was your favourite games related news story this year? Leave a comment and go and read some of my other stuff at airstrikesofawesomeness.wordpress.com . I know you aren’t busy.

The Legend Of Zombie : The Cliched Scrolls

This is the game idea I had, and tweaked over the past couple of days. Originally, the idea was to use Zelda Classic and ZQuest to make a zombie version of the classic Zelda series. Like what Red Dead: Redemption did with its zombie remake. By the way, if at all you fancy yourself as a game designer, or any related role, check out Zelda Classic.  This sounded like a great idea, until someone at Uni pointed out to me that a “zombie outbreak” game is incredibly clichéd and overdone. That’s when the idea came to a head. It would be the same game, almost entirely, apart from the main storyline, which now branches into two separate stories. Let me explain.

Link, our esteemed ‘Hero Of Time’, has many accolades under his tunic’s belt. He has saved a couple of civilisations, including his native Hyrule, at least. So, our pointy eared friend decides to move to a sleepy village in the south of Hyrule, in order to escape the hassles of saving the world and settle as the villages security. Small town, shouldn’t be any trouble, right? WRONG! The day after Link moves into his very reasonably priced house, Zombies invade from a disused temple to the north, which then causes the village to get closed off by the government, in order to save the rest of the population. ”Typical!” Link thinks, as he rushes to his house to get his equipment and his scroll. But to his horror, his scroll is nowhere to be found. A little useless for a protagonist, but everyone has their off days. Even on days when zombies attack.

His scroll is his pride and joy. This is the scroll that was awarded to him by Princess Zelda for saving the world for the 14th time and is part of a very special and powerful scrolls known as, ‘The clichéd Scrolls’. These are the 9 scrolls which keep the world’s balance in check, allows good to overcome evil and is the basis for almost any Hollywood blockbuster, best-selling fiction, or game. Scrolls in the collection include - 

• The “More than he bargained for” Scroll – The ironic involvement in action; the fact that Link has gone out of his way in order to escape his past life of saving lives and slaughtering many, many nasty monsters makes it all the more funny when the zombie outbreak happens and forces him into battle mode once again. This plot point is used heavily in film and game; notable examples include all 4 films in the Die Hard series.
• The “Zombies… Really?” Scroll – The World’s favourite nameless, faceless (due to decomposition) enemy drone. Zombies have been really overused in recent popular culture for one, very simple reason. They work! The groaning, the slow shuffling about, the feasting on human flesh… they’ve got it all. And our antagonist decided that this was the best way to steal the scrolls from the unsuspecting Hyrulian public.
• The “Hero has a tragic, hidden back story” – For those that are familiar with the Zelda franchise, the fact that Link doesn’t seem to have any parents isn’t really a secret. But that’s what we are going with. Link is an orphan after his parents were murdered by Jack Nicholson in a back alley in Gotham City, so he started overcompensating by being all macho and saving the world. There’s some deep emotions there; which could explain why he’s a mute. Hmmm.

The most important of the scrolls however, is the “Hero saves the day, eventually” scroll. This is the most important of the scrolls because it is the premise on which almost any media is based; good will eventually overcome evil. Without these scrolls, the evil forces of Hyrule will ruin games and films for all eternity. Oh yeah, and rule the world, unless our retired hero can collect all 9 of them up and restore order to Hyrule. Again.

Well, that is the idea. I think it’s bulletproof. I’ll let you know how it goes because i’m gonna be making it over the next couple of days. That’s 2 franchises saved in as many days! First Halo, now this.

Why aren’t I rich?

Tom’s Weekly News Patch, Vol. 1

If you didn’t guess by the hilariously subtle title, TWNP (abbreviations are down with the kids) gives you an overview of all the stuff i found interesting in the world of games this week, and what i thought about them. Simple premise eh? I live my life by the theory known as Ocham’s Razor which states –

“It is often the simplest ideas that provide the most hits for your technology based blog.”
Fred Ocham

And the word ‘patch’ is vaguely games-related. It’s a perfect name in all honesty.

A quick note before we begin – Not only are these news items not in chronological order (I can’t do everything round here!), some of these stories are a week-ish old. It won’t be like this every week. I had these written and I wasn’t going to waste them. So if you already know this stuff, tough. But please read it and tell your friends! So let’sa begin!

Crysis 2 Developer sticks up for Crytek after allegations of ‘poor quality of life’.

Crytek has joined the long list of developers who have had allegations of poor staff treatment thrown at them by disgruntled employees. Avni Yerli (which took some spelling), the cofounder of Crytek no less; stated that “Crytek respects and values its employees very highly, and equally–that’s very important. Whether it’s an intern, whether it’s a director, it doesn’t change; everyone is important,”. Of course he would say that. You would if you were defending the company you cofounded from allegations like ‘staff members are treated “as disposable pieces of meat to be discarded at will.”. That’s pretty serious, but i have a problem with this. I study Games Design at university, (I’m in 3^rd year now, thanks for asking) and the number one point my lecturers seem to be drilling home, is the fact that jobs in the game industry are few and far between and the chance of my getting one is as likely as me sending out an obscene text message to a random combination of 11 numbers in the hope that it reaches Simon Cowell. Not a bookmaker but i assume the odds are rather slim on both. So if you get one, don’t just assume you’re going to be set for life! As with any industry, the games industry is always changing and younger, cheaper models will be brought in to maximise productivity and minimise cost. You have to be realistic, that’s just the world we live in. And who knows, i might actually get a games design job at this rate! It will only be for a week but it will go on the CV!

Halo 4 creative director jumps ship; sees iceberg on horizon

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but anyone who read an E3 summary i wrote earlier in the year will remember i had some ‘choice’ words for Halo 4. For those of you that didn’t do your homework (see me after class), I predicted that it would pretty much be a flop. In terms of innovative gameplay and story anyway; the franchise power alone will ensure that Halo sales are through the roof, even if the game resembled this-

I did the editing myself!! XD

Director Ryan Payton cited “wavering enthusiasm” as the reason for him leaving his position. Bungie must be showing little to no interest in making this game any good for the creative director’s enthusiasm for one of the biggest, most lucrative series in the history of games, to have disappeared.  That should be the best job in the world (besides being Scarlett Johansson’s clothing), and I imagine the pay isn’t bad either. I do feel, however, that Mr Payton just made the best decision of his life. Well done sir. His departure also means that i was right about Halo 4 just being a cash cow that is being milked to death. I am going to make lots more predictions now; I feel a treasure chest of possibilities has been opened.

In slightly related news, i have figured out how to save the Halo series from becoming a joke.

“HOW!?!?!” i hear you cry… It’s very easy. Kill off the Master Chief. For a start, it’s a goofy name; it needs a cool American police officer-style name added to the end of it, e.g. Master Chief Lorenzo or Master Chief Banano. The first game of the new trilogy features many attempts on Lorenzo’s life until there is a successful one. Then the next 2 games play out like a gigantic game of SPARTAN space Cluedo. And just for the hell of it, Colonel Mustard should be the main antagonist. (Idea is intellectual property of Tom Lowe. I’m not taking any chances.)

Square Enix stock price falls 11%, Tom’s limited knowledge of Stock Exchange exposed.

My knowledge of the Stock Exchange is very limited, (told you!) but i know this. The London Stock Exchange has an index listed called ‘FTSE 100’. This is widely used on news programmes as a measure of business prosperity and is generally seen as a way to get an overview of the state of the economy in Britain. If ‘FTSE 100’ dropped in the same capacity as Square Enix did, there would be widespread panic and chaos all over the UK. Looting would be rife, vandalism and general lawlessness would spread like wild fire (as would actual fires), people would stop saying hello to each other in the street, the government would make arms dealing legal in order to kick start the economy, everyone would own a gun and a surplus of ammunition, birthdays and meetings will be forgotten about, a shoot out would take place in a supermarket for the last pair of those weird khaki trousers that look like maternity pants that the ‘cool kids’ wear nowadays, Sky News would defy all the laws of time, space and nature and somehow become even more hysterical by turning into a religious network, urging everyone to repent and get on God’s good side before the ‘Rapture’ comes (again…) and finally, a mob would advance on 10 Downing Street and David Cameron would prove just how out of touch his Oxford-educated ass/head is by asking everyone “What is this ruckus all about then chaps?”.

So it doesn’t look good for Square Enix i what i’m trying to say. Maybe it’s because FF13 sucked.

(Author’s Note – Didn’t something like this just happen? Curious.)

He's 4 fingers away from joining the BNP.

(Author’s Note – I mistyped ‘He’s’ when writing the caption just then. The top spelling suggestion was ‘Hess’. Spooky!)

Wii U in ‘Development Hell’, Nintendo makes lame ‘big business’ decision

When the ‘Wii U’ was released earlier in the year, i was largely positive. Nintendo have always been a favourite of mine so when they released plans for an innovative new system involving lots of cool touch screen and movement tech, i was pretty excited and was sure it was going to be a hit. However, it seems that even the great Nintendo can fall into the incredibly boring and depressing trap of ‘maximising profits’. Complaints from developers have revealed that Nintendo’s ‘low cost policy’ is biting them on the backside as it seems the main chipset is inadequate and not powerful enough to take care of all the central functions required. This seems, well, stupid. Why are Nintendo making decisions a big corporation would make all of a sudden? Remember, this is the same company that based a whole franchise on a fat Italian plumber who whips a massive, spikey shelled turtle monsters ass on a consistent basis in order to win the affections of a woman who, frankly, is way out of his league. Complete lunacy; or so i thought. That was Nintendo’s X factor for me (Jedward to win btw), but if that disappears, then I have a feeling we are going to be seeing a whole host of boring games, made not for creativity’s sake (as it should be), but for money’s sake and for business’ sake.

Ah "CHiPs Set", yeah. I think I spot the issue here.

On a related note, Link will make an appearance on the ‘Wii U’ in ‘The Legend Of Zelda – The Quarterly Fiscal Scrolls’, in which the dastardly Gannondorf returns to Hyrule and steals the 4 quarterly fiscal scrolls from Hyrule Castle (now a bustling insurance and legal company. Not to take anything away from their business plan but success is probably due to the fact that they have the ‘Hero of Time’ working down in Admin.). Link must then infiltrate where Gannondorf is rumoured to be hiding; The ‘Gerudo Personal Injury Lawyers 4U’ HQ (they have also recently branched out into the recovery of Payment Protection Insurance). Link is rumoured to have some special new equipment and moves, including his new companion, a sleek new Blackberry Navi, which notifies him about new contract offers, when he receives an email, and where the location of the Boss Key could be. And if you find that someone down the office, in the dungeon or in the boardroom (which is a different kind of dungeon) isn’t taking you seriously, try changing into Link’s new “White tunic w/ black neck tie”. Appearances are everything, remember! One final new feature worth mentioning is the new shield that is made available to Link, the “Hyrule Castle Insurance and Legal Specialists” shield. Not only does this offer Link protection against the flames of the mighty Dodongo and the sword of the fearsome Stalfos, but protection against lesser insurance deals and poorly written contracts with misleading clauses. Link doesn’t want to waste money when he can put all of his rupees into a Cash ISA and reap the rewards instantly by playing ‘The Song Of Time’ on his ocarina.

Ok, I made most of that up. I was trying to make it sound like Nintendo are leaving their creativity behind in order to make more money, just like everything else seems to be doing nowadays. In trying to do so, however, I have inadvertently, just created the greatest concept for a game ever. That’s 2 awesome ideas this article!

Well, that’s all the news for this time. I thought it went well! Next week’s TWNP will be stories from that week, i swear. Until next time, I’m going to go make ‘The Quarterly Fiscal Scrolls’ on Zelda Classic.

EDIT – No, I’m not. I’m now making the demo of a zombie game for Uni, but still on Zelda Classic. Depending on how it goes, i might post it. If anyone fancies a go. Which is unlikely, I don’t even want to so far.

The Prodigal Blogger Returneth…

Ok, the eagle eyed among you may have noticed that it has been a while since my last real entry. The extremely advanced robotic eyed among you may also notice that i said i was back in my last proper entry. You mustn’t worry about this. I am back now. Sort of. If you’ll indulge me the time, i would like to tell you a little story.

I started this academic powerhouse of a blog a while ago now. And while i was uploading stuff pretty regularly, i wasn’t getting the readership i desired. This annoyed me a little, because I was quite proud of some of my writing so far; i thought it was going well. So after few weeks, i started to get impatient. I applied to write for a couple of games websites, and i was pleasantly surprised when i received some positive replies. I was also Senior Editor of a website for a brief time, (and while i still technically am senior editor, i believe the site is now defunct. Nothing to do with me, before you even start thinking of anything funny to say!) but after a long time of promises of progress and possible payment and getting a little disheartened by it all, i have decided i have had enough. Which leads me back to my blog, where all of this started.  I realised that i had to use my blog and get it noticed on my own (more on that later); that i was the captain of the S.S Airstrikes Of Awesomeness and its creative direction is my discretion! I’m planning on sailing the seas of the internet, searching for enchanted and undiscovered potential readers and claiming them in the name of the Airstrikes Of Awesomeness. I’m going to drop the boat metaphor now and tell you about some stuff that will be happening around these here parts.

Now, i’m going to be doing a weekly summary of my favourite news stories in the world of games. Contrary to popular belief, loads of interesting shit happens. All that remains is for me to think of a hilariously funny and clever name for it. If you’re interested, the frontrunner for this is ‘Tom’s Weekly Games News Summary’. Not as catchy as i’d hoped. Another update to expect is an opinion-y (almost typed onion-y) type piece every week or too. This will most likely be to do with a release or preview of a game, or again just something interesting I’ve found. Now, when i said i was going to do this on my own… that may have been a bit of a stretch. A site called ‘The Play Vault’ were kind enough to let me post my witless complaining on their website and after i got a little disheartened and put my pet lip on, i stopped posting with them. Thankfully however, i have managed to repair our relationship and all my games related entries will be on their website. So go on that and read some of the other stuff on there; they’re nice people and deserve more hits. Meanwhile, I’ll will be filling this place with a load of rants about things i find stupid and/or annoying. Poo. (My girlfriend typed that, i imagine she will get a post all to herself pretty soon… grrr!)

So, hang around. If you’re reading this already, I highly doubt you have anything important to do anyway. If you’re new here, go back and read the older posts. I promise you, you won’t regret it. You won’t consider it time well spent either, but that’s fine. I’m going to be trying to link all this stuff up, with a Twitter account and Digg and all that bollocks, so hopefully, things might actually start kicking off.

A bit scattered and not all that funny this time, but normal service will be resumed in a day or two. Also, might change the image at the top; it needs a little tweaking.

Bye Bye.