DishonOred

My first impression of this game was soured by the fact that whenever I searched for it on the net I would get a message telling me “The game Dishonoured does not exist” which I found annoying for two reasons.  Firstly because I was certain that the game DID exist – or at least about as certain as I was that anything in this world exists, and secondly because it highlighted my inability to retain crucial information in my brain for longer than 5 seconds.

It wasn’t a good start.

DishonOred professes to be a ‘stealth / action’ game but in truth does neither satisfactorily.  The stealth system has no easy way to work out whether you can be spotted or not and instead relies on rather shaky guesswork.  The combat is frankly so easy that, even on the hardest setting, every level can be cleared by just getting your gun out and shooting the handful of guards that run straight at you from some distance to attack one at a time with their swords.  Having a gun would be fine if ammo was scarce enough to make it feel like a treat but the fact ammo is relatively plentiful just makes the game feel unbalanced.  Throw into the mix the fact that you also have magical ‘powers’ enabling you to teleport, stop time, conjure up rats to gnaw enemies to death, blow enemies away with a wind and so on and it all smacks of the developers desperately trying to jazz up a stealth game they realised half way through production just wasn’t going to work.

Well you can’t have it both ways.

Without challenging combat the stealth system becomes redundant as combat carries no fear or reason to be avoided.  Once combat is initiated every guard in your area runs to your location to line up to be shot (or gnawed to death by rats, or eviscerated or whatever) leaving you to walk casually around an empty level to the exit lamenting the numerous, now redundant, hiding places you’ll pass on the way.

In the end I had to role play this game as a master assassin who has a crippling fear of blood and human interaction – crushing guards like ants only when I absolutely had to and then running away like a girl to hide from the next human punchbag that came running after me.

And while this allowed me to fully appreciate the interesting level design (which is pretty great) it made the whole experience feel slightly pointless.

The game is filled with potential that just doesn’t pay off.  Early on you pick up a device which allows you to hear secrets and background information about each character you meet in the game, from lowdown thugs to allies to bosses.  This is a great idea, and if I was immersed in the world it would be a really interesting additional layer of depth.  Unfortunately the characters and world are so bland and uninspiring that any attempt to fully engage yourself in the story or the world is about as enjoyably immersive as joining your dog in running after sticks and chasing down cars.

In the end DishonOred doesn’t deal with stealth as well as a game like Splinter Cell or Thief.   It doesn't handle combat as well as a game like Condemned or even Skyrim.  And it doesn't handle magic as well as pretty much any Ultima game you’d care to mention.  Add to that a bland world and confused storyline and frankly in hindsight my first impression that this game didn’t exist perhaps represents the zenith of my opinions.

If they made the combat harder, constructed a more original and interesting world, gave the characters greater depth and focused on improving the stealth system then the next DishonOred game could be really great.  Indeed the last level of this game almost serves to represent what could have been.  The guards are plentiful enough to make for a bit more of a challenge and your only goal is to get to the top of a small island, leaving you to discover the numerous routes to get there and choose different combinations of your powers along the way.

The ingredients are right – they just need to work out how to put it all together properly to make a LOVELY PIE.

Skyrim

Skyrim

For all its faults I had a pretty big soft spot for Morrowind, the game that was the precursor to Skyrim and recently celebrated its 10 year anniversary, presumably with some Nords over a bottle of mead and a Mudcrab pie.

The combat might have been about as satisfying as wanking yourself off to an episode of Footballers Wives but at its heart it gave a masterclass in immersive gameplay.

You begin the game with no memory or past and are thrust into the middle of a large imaginative world and left alone to discover the creatures, the peaceful fishing villages and the plague ravaged towns.

Skyrim by comparison has a dramatically improved combat system but fails to be anything like the same immersive experience.  While technically an open-world game you are never really taken off the leash and allowed to explore it.

First of all you spend the entire game being told to go somewhere which makes your character feel like something of a gimp.

To make things slightly more annoying while you are 'exploring' you will see several hundred little indicators appear on your compass all clamouring for your attention and shouting:

“Walk this way!  There’s something of minor interest over here!”

It’s rather tiring.

In fact the game more accurately replicates the subtle stresses of doing the Christmas shopping as opposed to the wonder of discovering an imaginative fantasy world.

And once the gameplay becomes established as walking to your destination knowing that little else of interest is going to appear because your compass isn’t telling you anything then the game becomes largely about staring at your compass.

See that interesting looking abandoned hut up on the hill over there?  Yes.  Is it marked on the compass?  No.  Well in that case it’s empty.  Move on.

And just remind me how in a fantasy world my compass is telling me all this anyway?  Is it hooked up to my I-phone or something?

Why am I carrying this wooden shield and club again?

To top it all off the quests in Skyrim are just fucking tedious.

You will for example, be expected to travel to the other side of the map to drop off a pie for someone to eat for their dinner.  I can’t remember if that specific quest was in there but it is a measure of the game’s blandness that I suspect nobody who’s played the game would either.

If I wanted to simulatenously experience mundanity and altruism then I could just ring my friends and ask if they want anything from the supermarket.   (You don’t have any friends yes I do shut up).

Playing Morrowind I spent the entire game trying to work out who I was and what the hell was going on.  As this mirrors my attitude towards reality I rather came to empathise with my on screen avatar.

Skyrim by comparison constantly waves its disjointed, dull and uninspired storylines in your face like they’re manuscripts from Dostoevsky, initially by thrusting you into the execution of a rebel leader, a civil war between two slightly different types of cunts and a returning race of dragons before you’ve even picked up the gamepad.

What’s wrong with a bit of foreplay?  Maybe I want to build up to my orgasm rather than just do an orgasm right now.

You know?

Now hold me as I play this.  Do I go right or left here?  It doesn’t matter.  Oh that’s nice.  Wow what’s that up there?  It’s a church!  I wonder what’s in there? 

Yes okay Morrowind that’s lovely thanks but I’ve got to try Skyrim now – its jumping up and down shouting about how it’s got 200 churches I can see at any one time.  

Aliens Colonial Marines

Aliens Colonial Marines

Well yes if I paid £70 for it I’d be unhappy too, but frankly if you were stupid enough to pay the absurd pre order price for this game then you should just look upon this as a valuable life experience on the value of money.  As a 10 year old I spent the £10 I’d been saving for what felt like my entire life on The Wrong Trousers VHS and I imagine the crushing sense of disappointment I felt when I finished a barely 30 minute long video is something those of you who pre-ordered this game can relate to.

However as you might now be able to tell I didn’t buy this for £70, I bought it for £10, which is more or less now the maximum price I’m prepared to pay for anything since 'The Wallace and Gromit Incident’.

And I liked Aliens Colonial Marines.  I liked the fact it wasn’t trying to be anything more than a pick up and play alien annihilation fest.

Don’t get me wrong I like Half Life 2 as much as the next sociophobic recluse but frankly I could do without every shooter since trying to mimic it.  As far as I’m concerned there is still a market for mindless ‘shoot anything that moves’ games like Doom – even if that market does just consist of myself and other like-minded desensitized chimpanzees prone to bouts of aggression.

So where is this review (ha!) going?  Are all the poor reviews this game received simply down to its style being out of fashion and therefore not considered cool by today’s media who can’t stop banging on about how much they love anything that Valve has dripped long lines of hot spunk over?

Well not quite.  Even I can’t honestly say the graphics at times aren’t far off early PS2 level.  We’re talking flamethrowers that fire 4 increasingly large orange oblongs and explosions in space that wouldn’t look out of place on an early Wing Commander game.

And then there was that bit where I had to punch a large alien to death with a powerloader, only this proved impossible because the large alien had the ability to hide from my punches by clipping in and out of a wall.  And the times my squad mates would stare directly at me without so much as batting an eyelid as I mowed down the horde of aliens that swarmed in from behind them.

Apparently the story was also shit, but then again I wasn’t paying it any more notice than I might pay an attention seeking 3 year old child.   And since 99% of video games contain shit stories I honestly can’t mark down Aliens Colonial Marines on that account.  Frankly it’s a GAME and if I wanted a good story I’d read a BOOK.  If I was expecting to get any insight about the human condition from an Aliens video game then I’d probably be the same kind of idiot who’d expect to get meaningful insight from watching an animated cartoon about a plasticine man and a sarcastic dog.

Operation Rhododendron Bush (continued)

The sex scandal engulfing the BBC reached fever pitch yesterday as BBC bosses were forced to deny that Fred Flintstone had made a series of indecent demands of his best friend’s wife.

The news comes just days after several prominent Wombles were taken into custody having been charged with organising sordid sex parties on Wimbledon common and taking part in a variety of sado masochistic bondage games during which at least one member of the Teletubbies is believed to have openly weeped.

Following on from a multitude of high profile arrests the BBC has now declared that anyone found having sex, thinking about sex or wanting sex while employed by the news corporation will be locked in a stationary cupboard and shouted at by Gok Wan until they lose all confidence in their ability to engage with anyone they might consider sexually appealing.

The BBC has also refused to comment on reports that a staggering 95% of its employees are sexually active and capable of committing sexual acts, with about 20% of this number thought to have actually carried out lewd sexual practices on a co-worker.

In a move that has been welcomed by interns the corporation is now facing calls to ensure new applicants wanting to work at the BBC are subjected to increasingly intense sexual stimuli as part of the interview process.  Early reports suggest the BBC has already approached Fearne Cotton and David Tennant with regards to their lapdancing skills.

It is believed that anyone capable of being sexually aroused by either Ms Cotton or Mr Tennant would be a depraved individual capable of committing the grossest acts of indecency.

The investigation continues.

Operation Rhododendron Bush

The Metropolitan Police have confirmed that they have arrested every male television personality who appeared on the BBC television network in the 1970s.  Following the arrests of Jim Davidson, Freddie Starr and Rolf Harris a police spokesperson confirmed the Metropolitan Police had decided this action was ‘in the best interests of public safety and a necessity in light of recent police spending cuts’.

"Quite frankly there are only thirty police officers currently operating in the London area at the moment," Mr Potts said.  "And twenty of those are actually prisoners wearing police hats serving community sentences".

Experts now believe that child sex offences were so endemic at the corporation that it is highly unlikely that anyone who entered Television Centre in the 1970s could have avoided being affected.

Pyschoanalyst Georgina Weave explains.  "Abuse at this level travels much like the common cold.  It seems very unlikely that someone could have been present at the BBC in the 1970s and not have been infected by this disease."

Police arrests began last night as part of what is now being dubbed Operation Rhododendron Bush with Gonzo, the Honey Monster, Bungle and Uncle Bulgaria believed to be amongst those taken into custody.  A warrant has also been issued for the arrest of Lassie, whose whereabouts are currently unknown but is considered a serious menace to the public.

“Lassie is of particular concern to us,” Mr Potts said, “it is now clear to us that her seemingly noble aid relating to the rescue of young people who had found themselves in unfortunate situations was merely an intricate series of fabrications.  Quite frankly with hindsight it now appears an obvious pattern of abuse.  We just thought she was a good dog.”

ANOTHER BLOG

"What happened to your Blog?"

"Are you doing another Blog?" 

"Why aren't you doing another Blog?"

All these are genuine questions that have been directed towards me by people in the past few weeks.  Mainly my mother.  There are four answers to these questions which I will now give in order of least importance first so as to build up an air of suspense and the illusion of tension.  This is a common writing technique evident in many books and films, though strangely absent in the autobiography of Kevin Keegan which peaks somewhere around page 100 when he is heckled by a tramp.

1)  And pay attention because we're going to come back to this and if you've followed the theme of the Blog so far you will remember that this is important, although at the same time it is also the least significant reason of all: Nobody is paying me for this.

2)  And as a direct result of point one, I am therefore in the fortunate position of not having to squeeze out some contrived rubbish where I have to pretend to care about something passionately to justify my existence before one day realising I have no idea what I actually believe anymore and my own character has become so merged with the alter ego I have created for myself that I no longer have a soul.  I am happy to let Jeremy Clarkson carry on his impressive unwavering commitment towards this goal.

3)  I needed to make sure that I am comfortable with anything I write being read and attributed to me by friends, family, lovers, employees’, enemies, strangers and future variants of all of the above.

4) About a month ago I was told I was suffering from depression and whisked off to therapy sessions (which essentially consist of a man trying to encourage another man to talk through the medium of silence) and the like and have been trying to juggle getting better with trying to get a job and trying to keep an even keel.  Frankly writing a Blog nobody's paying me for (see point one) was the easiest thing to let slide.

Depression is a difficult thing to write about for a number of reasons.  In my opinion if you've never experienced it you won't understand it.  I also believe unless you are currently experiencing it you won't fully understand it either.  In the same way someone who is experiencing it won't understand what it's like to be okay someone who isn’t experiencing it won’t understand what it’s like to not be okay.

It is easy and overly simplistic to explain this shift in mood as being due to a situation or event.  The truth is that a bad situation could be a potential catalyst but is rarely the cause.

For example you might catch a cold if you don’t wear a jumper but it is neither the lack of a jumper that is the illness nor indeed the jumper that is the cure.  And it is not simply a matter of fighting the cold that will enable you to avoid the illness.  You can fight a cold with all your energy but still get sick.

In my case it honestly hadn’t even crossed my mind there was anything wrong until my doctor and another health practitioner told me they had concerns.  This is perhaps part of the problem.  It is not a sudden mood swing.  Instead it envelops you so gradually that you don’t notice it.  In my case I had just accepted it was now normal for me to stand in the middle of a street staring at people and wondering if I could provoke them into a fight.  I had accepted that I now became panic stricken at the thought of even the most basic aspects of human interaction, had lost all confidence in nearly every area of my life and was growing increasingly paranoid and anxious.  This was just who I was now.  Indeed remembering dimly that perhaps I used to be able to function rather more fluidly was more of a sorry reminder as to how I had changed, rather like a syphilitic old man might look back on his younger years with a mixture of envy, guilt and regret.

I should point out before I receive any messages saying “I read your blog.  Are you okay?” or more likely “I had no idea you were so mental” that I’m feeling better and hence able to write about it, hopefully relatively objectively and hopefully without coming over as sounding too self piteous.  If I don’t write another Blog for a while then it is more likely to be for reasons 1, 2 or 3 listed above than it is for reason 4 and it doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m sitting in a dark room somewhere eating Toblerone and masturbating indiscriminately. 

Well it probably does but I’m probably quite happy doing that.

Because depression is sitting in a dark room, eating Toblerone, masturbating indiscriminately and being unhappy.  Whereas happiness is sitting in a dark room, eating Toblerone, masturbating indiscriminately and being fine with it.

...

There is no emotion

Love simply does not be

I am not your species

I do not relate

There is no new beginning

This is not health

I am alive

I do not speak

Do not let go