New Idea - Computer Games!

I've been thinking about diversifying my blog for some time now. I'd quite like to blog about some of the computer games I'm playing recently, but I know I expose myself to a narrow range of genres and so there'd be limited use in me dedicating an entire blog to the subject.

So I think I might allow myself the occasional post about what I'm playing at the moment. Unlike my film reviews, I'll seldom be writing about anything that I genuinely don't like. I'm quite picky about the games I play and often wait for several months after they come out before playing them (cos they're cheaper and you can read lots of reviews), so I generally know I'm going to enjoy what I'm playing.

Platform is the first big issue for any gamer. PC or console? Mouse and keyboard & controller? Personally I can't be bothered trying to keep up with advances in PC technology and so I play almost all my games on my Xbox 360. My first console was an N64, but I migrated to Xbox when it came out because a) I couldn't take the GameCube seriously and b) Halo. I do have a PC which was something of a mid-range spec 4 years ago. It's apparently capable of playing a surprising amount of what's coming out these days if you turn all the graphics settings down to minimum. These days the only gaming it sees is the occasional game of Civ 4. Thankfully I am going to be able to play The Old Republic when it's finally released in late December.

I have an Xbox 360 out of partial brand loyalty (I had an Xbox & Xbox Live accounts), but mainly because I don't get along with PlayStation controllers. There are very few games these days that aren't multi-platform - and so I rarely feel like I'm missing out.

To kick this new section of the blog off then, I thought I'd put my cards on the table and rattle off my favourite 10 computer games of all time. Not *the best* 10 games of all time (got to be Tetris), just the ones I've enjoyed the most. You can probably work out my age by reading through this list...

Civilisation 2

If I had decided to put these games in order, Civ 2 would easily have gone in at the top. I shudder to think about the amount of time I spent at university playing this absorbing turn-based strategy game. When I finally worked out how to beat the AI on Deity level I think I reached the height of my nerd nirvana.

Goldeneye

Though probably not the greatest FPS of all time, Goldeneye is up there with the most innovative of the genre. The first game in which enemies reacted differently if they'd been shot in the head or the foot, and one of the first in which it was entirely possible to complete a level by stealth or all guns blazing - Goldeneye blazes a trail. Plus all those drunken evenings playing multiplayer. There's a certain generation of people to whom the phrase 'one shot kill slaps' will trigger a fusillade of memories.

Knights of the Old Republic

With the greatest twist in the history (well at least my personal history) of computer gaming and the first of several games that overlaid the Star Wars universe onto a D&D rules set - KOTOR was a game I played from start to finish a number of times. This was Bioware getting it right.

Halo

The Xbox's killer app was a good 50% of the reason for me buying Microsoft's console 9 years ago. Endless LAN gaming (Blood Gulch has entered the gaming lexicon as a byword for classic & simple 'capture the flag' level design) and one of the best single player FPS games ever, it's a classic. The final level of the single player game is an astonishing countdown-to-zero car chase through alien hordes, I might go and play it this evening...

Mario Kart 64

Endless hours playing this with housemates at university (can you see a theme running through this list) mean it would be remiss of me not to include it here. I will concede that it probably wasn't as good as the SNES version, but I played this the most and so it gets the nod.

Mass Effect

The most modern game on my list, Mass Effect (parts 1 and 2) has taken the Role Playing genre to a new realm. By introducing cinematic dialogue for the player's character, Bioware have given players a whole new level of investment in their character's story. I can't remember being more emotionally attached to the plot of a computer game that when playing through the final battles of Mass Effect 2. It's probably worrying that I got such an endorphin rush out of
navigating Sheppard's team safety through their encounter with the Collectors. Roll on ME3!

Rock Band

I'm sure my housemates would attest that I would be lying if I left this off my list. The various incarnations of Rock Band have formed the basis of a number of social events and wasted evenings in mine and friends' houses.

Planescape Torment

Despite all that's come since, this isometric RPG remains unique in its dedication to character and philosophy as the driving force behind its story. The central premise is a character whom cannot be killed and his response to the question "What can change the nature of a man?". With pages of dialogue to work your way through, the D&D combat system often took a distant back seat as the 'Nameless One' wandered through the multiverse in search of his destiny. It was my first exposure to RPGs, still one of my favourite.

Shogun Total War

RTS battles + turn-based resource acquisition = brilliant game. The original might look dated now, but it's simple paper / scissors / stone battle system gives it something of a charm that I think the later versions have lost a little of.

John Tiller's Campiagn Series

Possibly the most obscure of my choices, this little-known hex-based platoon-level war simulation game from the late-90s has been something I've regularly gone back to over the years. You can play a variety of historically-accurate scenarios and campaigns from several theatres of the second world war. It helped keep me sane when I was working out in Botswana by myself 4 years ago.

So there you have it. Yet more evidence that I'm a huge nerd to add to the mounting pile.

Britain's two best actors...

This is a trailer for 'Shame', a new film directed by Steve McQueen (not him, him) starring Britain's two best actors of the moment*.

I'm excited, you should be too.

* I'm claiming Fassbender for Britain in case that wasn't clear btw.

Attack the Block

An incredibly silly piece of trash film straight out of the heart of the comedy horror genre, Joe Cornish's (that's Joe from the Adam and Joe show to you and me) 'Attack the Block' follows one South London estate's close encounter with an alien invasion. On a single night we see a gang of gangster-talkin' wannabe Avon Barksdales go from petty criminals to alien killers. After robbing their neighbour at knife-point, the gang chase down what they think is a dog - only to discover that they've stabbed something other-worldly.

'Attack the Block' is a cheeky film; part send up of the genre and part straight horror comedy, it makes a lot of mileage out of South London's rich street dialect and saves a lot of money on special effects. The aliens are not much more than black felt-tip pen scribbles on the screen, with green luminous teeth added to give them menace. One wonders if the original idea for the aliens was a budget-saving black patch, with the teeth being added after screen testing. Of particular enjoyment for me was the liberal use of South London's West Indian inflected street slang (though my housemate who is from South London was less responsive to it - he had to put up with it growing up).

Nick Frost is perhaps the most recognisable actor in the film (though Jodie Whittaker has been in a pile of stuff with small rolls). He plays a slacker dope dealer living on the top floor of the estate and lording over the block like some kind of scuzzy drug Baron. The other young actors are kind of OK, but I suspect not all of them will end up pursuing full time careers in Holywood. This is a film that isn't going to win any prizes for acting or directing - or script or effects or anything really. But there's no reason for that getting in the way of enjoying this smart comedy horror. I recommend it to one and all.

Drive - not what I was expecting

Despite a number of friends and reviews telling me otherwise, I still went into the cinema this Sunday assuming 'Drive' was going to be a car chase thriller. By all accounts a very well-made and polished car chase film, but still very much inside the Hollywood mainstream. How wrong I turned out to be. 'Drive' is more of an indie heist film in which the main character - un-named in the film, simply 'The Driver' on IMDB - is an enigmatic stunt driver with shadowy connections to LA's criminal underworld.

Ryan Gosling plays our mysterious lead, a stunt driver who sells his driving skills to anyone in the criminal underworld willing to pay him. He will turn up for a 5 minute window at a given time, and if you need a get away driver in that time then he's your man. He lives alone in a flat next to a woman (Irene - played by my current favourite actress Carey Mulligan) and her kid. When Irene's husband is released from jail and extorted by his former prison-mates, The Driver offers to help.

And that's when the film gets violent. When the violence happens, it's quick, to the point and extreme. With an 18 rating despite having no sex or drugs, it's not really a surprise. At no point does the director get his cameraman to linger on a gruesome shot, preferring instead to use quick flashes of horrific carnage. It's an effective technique that had me wondering "Did I really just see that..." as the action moved on. Much better than the mindless bloodletting you get in the average horror flick these days, and easily enough to warrant the 18 rating.

It is not only the violence that's well-handled. The whole film has a good pace and manages to get through a lot of ideas in 100 minutes. To describe Reynolds' character as enigmatic is to understate his behaviour. The whole plot is shrouded with a noirish 80s styling that gives it a dreamlike quality. I wasn't really a fan of the 80s electronic music or the GTA Vice City-like bright pink italicised writing, but I assume someone thinks the 1980s are cool again. Much better was the slow burn of a story that feels well-layered despite being reasonably short by modern standards.

When I first came out of the cinema I wasn't sure what I thought as I'd been expecting something utterly different. Then just like the slow and satisfying burn of the film's plot, I felt a slow and satisfying aftertaste as I digested what I'd seen. A pleasant surprise of a film.

Depressing Films

Watched a couple of really depressing films last week. The first was 'Neds', that follows the upbringing of a bunch of going-nowhere teenagers in 1970s Glasgow, and the second was 'Exhibit-A', which presents 'found footage' of an English family slowly falling apart. Both are almost relentless in their depiction of ordinary people locked into a downwards spiral of their own doing. Only 'Neds' offers any comedy relief, and then it's very brief.

'Neds' follows the upbringing of John McGill, a bright young kid growing up on a working class Glaswegian housing estate in the 1970s where - as John Lennon said - they hate you if you're clever and despise a fool. He graduates from primary school and is immediately threatened by kids who say they're going to make his life hell at secondary school. I'm sure everyone can relate to that fear of the unknown every child has when changing schools. John moves school though and is put in the second class down, after trying to be moved into the upper class (and getting beaten for failing) he knuckles down and after a term proves himself with his grades. Fast forward several years and John is sitting at the top of his class with his bright future ahead.

How is it then that during the summer months John manages to get in with the wrong people and become something of a lunatic feared by local street gangs? It's a question that the film poses but offers few answers. Perhaps the influence of a drunken father has inevitably driven him here? Perhaps the stress of trying to be the intellectual in a world that hates intelligence finally gets to him? Maybe it's just bad luck. Whatever the answer, the events of the last 2 thirds of the film are so unrealistic and unbelievable that they undermine the film's social realism. By the end I was depressed and confused in equal measure.

Second up was 'Exhibit A'. The opening shot of the film is a police information slide explaining that 'the following footage...' was found at the scene of the murder. So right away we know that someone's going to die. The film follows several months in the lives of a Yorkshire family, the father of which struggles to hold his life together as a number of small things pan out against him.

This is a mercifully short film (85 minutes) given its psychologically tortuous content. It's a film whose main point seems to be that secrets are a good thing, no matter how much we might think openness is a good idea. If you knew what everyone thought of you then the world wouldn't be much fun for anyone. Interesting enough but fairly obvious stuff really and hardly breaking new ground in the found footage genre.

God those films were depressing. You can tell I don't have a Love Film account to be happy, my next film was 'American - The Bill Hicks Story', a documentary about Bill Hicks. Hicks was an anti-establishment comedian who was prone to launching vicious verbal attacks on the government and religious conservatism of the nation of his birth. Sadly Hicks died of pancreatic cancer in the early 90s, yet somehow Jim Davidson lives on.

Again, depressing. What's next...