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Archive for June, 2006

PSPDS

Tuesday, June 13th, 2006

I had my DS for a year. It’s dead now. I sold it on Ebay. We did have fun together but it was time to move on. The moment of clarity was during Mario 64 DS – good, if uncontrollable, version of the 64 classic. I suddenly wondered why I was playing a portable N64 game. It was for nostalgic reasons and although Nintendo did try their best to add more features it was a 10 year old game. There are many games for the DS that are great but all are largely rendered unimpressive due to the ickle screen. Metroid looked good but what is the point when the screen is too small for the game. When the DS was launched it was going to change the way games were designed due of the Dual Screens. It didn’t of course. Developers put all the action in one screen and then shoved a map or other peripherical feature on the other. I gave it a chance and willed Zoo Tycoon to be a game to get my teeth into but I found it to be so bad as to be played once. So I flogged the whole thing and went with the PSP. It couldn’t be any worse could it?

The PSP is better than a DS. Better graphics, sound, screen and games. Yes games. Of course you can’t get a dog simulation on a PSP but then it depends which demographic you are. I’m not in the 12 year-old-girl camp. There is one simple marker to judge a console – a decent footy game. DS had none. PSP has two and one of which is Pro Evolution Soccer. I don’t care if I can’t shout into a microphone or draw a cock on the screen but I do wish to lead England to victory against the Hun. The PSP won’t bark at another PSP but it does let me manage Southend United. I can’t collect coins or mushrooms but I can shoot terrorists in Iraq. I can even be a John courtesy of GTA.

The PSP does have a number of faults of course – 6 hour battery life, memory cards and loading times but all are worth it and are exaggerated in most reviews I have read. I do miss the instant feel of the DS and I wish I could sling the PSP in a bag but these are minor points. I have experimented with my two lovers and I’ll take my gobby, over-reaching Sony over the safe but boring DS. That’s Essex for you.

Posted in Games | 1 Comment »

V for Very Very Wrong On So Many Levels

Monday, June 12th, 2006

Why bother? Why get a book that is brilliant is everyway and butcher the life out of it? How can one group of professionals get it so horribly, horribly wrong? I mean it was so wrong as to be almost unintelligible. I didn’t understand what I was watching. I don’t this know man. You are not my real parents.

The graphic novel, V for Vendetta, was so perfect as to require no real input from director or script writer or producer. You see how page one looks? Shoot it just like that. Page 2? Ditto. See how the camera angle works in this frame? Shoot it like that. See what V says here? Write those words in your script book. Simple. I could of done it, you could of done it, Michael Winner could of done it – it is painting by numbers. So how did they make so bad? The whole book is completely gutted and whole sections of important information are just tossed aside, ripped up and stamped on. None of the spirit was there. V was a Guy Fawkes ninja and dear Evey got the Starbucks for those crazy gals she worked with in the office. I could stand only 36 minutes. If I had paid to see it I would of been even more gutted.

I mean it was so wrong as to be almost deliberate. The themes Moore explores in the book are subversive and, like all thought that isn’t “normal”, could be a danger to our fragile societies. The ideas of anarchy are not widely played out or depicted in our media save for a few crusties having a pop at plod every May Day. The Man doesn’t want us to think about what we do any more than he wants us to find entertainment in anything beyond the trivial or superficial. How was Hollywood really going to make a film that could seed the minds of millions of people in not having to settle for this supposed reality? No way. Sit down, eat your popcorn and watch Big Momma’s House 5.

So was the butchering of this film down to the inept individuals charged with transferring this masterpiece to the silver screen or was it a deliberate attempt by the American film industry to rubbish and humiliate the ideas and dreams that many of us cherish? If you read the book you may find out. Hollywood Prevails.

Posted in Film | 3 Comments »

Aeroplan or Airplane?

Saturday, June 10th, 2006

It’s an historic moment. My first blog entry. This is my space to write and say exactly what is that I want to share with you all. By the way A JingJok is the name of a tiny, transparent lizard in Thailand that lives its futile life on walls hiding behind clocks and pictures only breaking cover to eat the odd fly. The Jingjok is probably related to of any of those things that you see stuck to walls in warmer climbs. They spend their lives watching, waiting and then killing. I hope this blog can do that without the killing part, I’d rather more emphasis on pithy observations than bloodshed. As its day one I thought I’d post my first photograph to see how this thing works and, seeing as I have just flown into Thailand, I’d though I’d post the wing of the 777 aeroplane (or airplane?) that brought me here less than 24 hours ago.Try and contain yourselves.