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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in awmperry's LiveJournal:

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    Saturday, July 12th, 2008
    10:50 pm
    Mass Effect - draft review
    (This is an early draft review, not complete; I'm just uploading it to easily show it to a few friends. Bear with me.)

    <blockquote>


    So, Mass Effect,
    then. A game that got so much right, and so much wrong.



    Oh, it’s a great game, no question about that. The graphics
    are unfailingly gorgeous, the story is engaging and well thought out, and of
    course the dialogue has the quality scripting and voice acting that we’ve come
    to expect from Bioware.



    In fact, if you only play the main story, there really is
    very little keeping the game from perfection; it is then perhaps a bit short,
    but there’s still a good ten or twelve hours’ play there. I could mention the
    phenomenal settings of the main story sites, particularly the inside of the
    Citadel; I could mention the fun mod system for weapons and armour, with
    effects that can actually be seen; in fact, I even enjoyed driving the Mako,
    but maybe that’s just me.



    But then they go and do a whole bunch of things very
    slightly wrong, which isn’t a problem in itself; lots of good games have done
    things very slightly wrong and got away with it. No, the problem is that
    they’ve done things wrong that we know from previous games they can do right.



    Take something as simple as the setting, for instance.
    Previous games, particularly the KOTOR series, have consisted of lots of
    worlds, each highly individual, with every area and subquest visually distinct.
    It’s great, it gives every single location a feel of its own, and adds to the
    believability of the universe.



    And in Mass Effect,
    they’ve continued that; the Prothean city on Feros, for instance, is little
    short of spectacular once you get out of the catacombs, and the planet which
    kicks off the endgame is a lush, overgrown ancient high-tech city that really
    wouldn’t look out of place in some sort of sci-fi Indiana Jones. Bioware really
    do know how to make spectacular settings.



    The problem is, the individual locations are limited to the
    main plot locations. All the other planets you can drive around on are
    basically the same craggy-mountains-with-flat-bits painted different colours
    and with different weather. Every time you land on a planet you can be fairly
    sure that you’ll find two ore deposits, one to three pieces of wreckage, and
    some form of habitation. About half the time they’ll throw in a bloody great
    Tyranid Graboid thing to liven things up.



    At least, though, the planets look different, if only thanks to the incredible sky textures. The
    real trouble starts when you go indoors.



    Indoors, you see, anywhere that’s not on the main plot
    thread, there are really only five interiors. Dank Mine, Big Warehouse, Spaceship,
    Big Room With Pillars and... er... okay, four interiors. They’re not even
    retextured; they’re just those same four interiors with different arrangements
    of the same props and furniture. They don’t even retexture them or change the
    layout to make them interesting.



    Which is fair enough, I suppose. It saves time and money in
    development, and after all, it’s not like anyone’s going to try to complete all
    the side quests, is it? Oh, hang on...



    The bottom line is that the side quests quickly become a
    case of going through the motions; go in, get the crate in the empty first
    room, kill all the enemies in the big second room, move on to the two back
    rooms and use the object there. Roll a D6; on a 5 or 6, spawn half a dozen
    extra enemies. Lather, rinse, repeat.



    And that’s a shame, really, since the actual stories on
    these side quests could be great with a bit more attention to setting. They’re
    varied and fun, with everything from hostage negotiations to a droid that’s
    gone round the twist. But they’re wasted on the identikit school of level
    design.



    The other major annoyance is the inventory system. First it
    imposes a maximum 150-item limit, then it concludes that if you reach that you
    have to discard items from the stuff
    you’re picking up     before it’ll let you in to the list of lower-level things
    that you’d prefer to throw out. It’s infuriating, particularly as you don’t get
    the option to “Well, I’ll put it down on the table here and pick it up when
    I’ve cleared my backpack”. You either cram it into your inventory or you break
    it down into “omni-gel”, some sort of magic goo that seems to work for
    everything from repairing a carburettor to decrypting a computer lockout.



    And that brings me to another thing. There’s a cute little
    hacking minigame – “cute”, of course, until you’ve done it three or four times,
    at which point it becomes a sort of mind-numbing frustration that you have to
    indulge in because you’ll never get enough omni-gel to crack open the crates. The
    problem is – showing a curious degree of laziness again, like the identical
    interior locations – that the same minigame is used for everything. Hacking a computer? OK, run the hacking minigame. Found
    a crashed probe? Hack into it to find, er, a medallion? Never mind. Found a BIG
    LUMP OF SODDING ROCK that you want to survey? Get a hammer and chi... no, wait,
    silly me. Run the hacking minigame. Obviously.



    It all works, but the little niggles add up to a sort of
    grating undertone of “this could be such a good game if” buzzing through your subconscious.



    It’s such a shame, too, because I really do love this game.
    The production design is great (I challenge anyone to not like the design of
    the Normandy, for instance, though
    the interior layout is clunky), the graphics are great if you’ve got the
    computer for them, the story and acting and most of the controls are great...
    So why did Bioware, of all people, let the game out with all those annoying
    little bits? They can do so much better – we’ve seen them do so much better! – but instead they let the kernel of a
    fantastic game out with rushed and irritating bits tacked on that do little but
    drag the immersion and enjoyment down.



    It’s rather like a Lamborghini with one of those dangling
    tree things on the rear-view mirror, or a town square Christmas tree decorated
    with bin bags and old shoes. Like Star
    Wars     with CGI, or a great bacon buttie that someone’s flung pickles into.



    Oh, it’s still great. It’s just not quite as good as it
    should have been.



    </blockquote>
    Friday, July 11th, 2008
    12:01 am
    "Next" - Film review
    Tesco DVD Rental, in their wisdom, sent me this dire Nicolas Cage film a few days back. Now, I really enjoy films that play around with time, perception and whatnot - but this is just atrocious.

    For a start, it commits the cardinal sin that sank Studio 60; it says one thing and shows another. On Studio 60, Matt Perry's character was supposed to be a genius writer, funnier than anyone in the business - but every sketch they every showed was as exciting as sawdust. It's the same here; Cage's greasy-haired card-guesser is described as charming and all sorts of things - but throughout the film he comes off as a whiny, self-obsessed nutjob. Pairing him up with Jessica Biel - of whom I should apparently have heard - is also particularly idiotic and unbelievable. There's the "old enough to be his daughter" thing, of course, that everyone's mentioned, but worse than that is the fact that there's absolutely no chemistry between them at all.

    There's one light at the end of this film's tunnel; Julianne Moore. She hasn't got much to work with, but she's at least the only character in the film who's neither unlikeable nor particularly stupid. Certainly she'd have made a more plausible love interest for Cage's character, with the added benefit of keeping the plot a bit more focussed. After all, what did Biel's character have to do with anything? Sod all, that's what.

    Anyway, the plot... bloke sees two minutes into the future, FBI thinks two minutes is enough to get a NEST team on-site to stop a NuDet, stuff happens, weak ending ensues. It really is a dire film.

    As for technical things... the CGI is overused and poorly executed (the landslide scene in particular is abysmal), a woman is described as having had her throat cut while there's not a scratch on her, Moore's body armour has no plates in it, the whole detonation issue is ludicrous.

    Oh, and the characters do things for no other reason than that the plot wants them to, which just makes me lose interest.

    It did have its good sides, though. A few of the time-scanning fights were fun (okay, one of them; the one in the diner), and Julianne Moore with a gun and a CIRAS (or whatever it was) is a Good Thing. But that's about it.

    Oh, and it's short. Which is also good.


    Thursday, May 22nd, 2008
    3:05 am
    Märken I Airsoft
    (This one's in Swedish. Sorry.)

    Det var en massa snack på AirsoftSverige om märken man inte förtjänat, och om det var rätt att använda dem i s k "impressions". Diskussionen blev tämligen hettad, och medan jag höll på att skriva mitt sista inlägg låstes tråden. Men det vore ju synd att slösa, så varsågod - mitt sista inlägg i diskussionen om förtjänstmärkens vara och icke vara.


    Opus skrev:
    hur ohyggligt dåligt självförtroende måste man inte ha för att bära massa saker som man inte på något sätt förtjänat ? Varför inte bara acceptera att man inte har vad som krävs ?


    Du får gärna förklara hur det har med självförtroende att göra. Jag simulerar RMP för att jag ser upp till dem. Jag bär de märken jag gör för att de reflekterar rollen jag spelar. Ja, det finns två sidor på mynt, men du pratar om helt olika mynt.


    Opus skrev:
    Torak skrev:
    Fast då undersöker ju jag ämnet rätt rejält innan, så jag vet att jag beter mig korrekt när jag representerar de förbanden


    så du representerar ett förband när du spelar airsoft ? :roll:


    Jag bär deras uniform i spel; medvetet eller undermedvetet förmedlar jag då en bild av det förbandet till andra. Jag är förstås inte en representant för det, jag för inte deras talan, men sättet jag beter mig i spel reflekterar på om än väldigt litet sätt på förbandet. Så ja, det är inte helt fel att säga att jag representerar förbandet i spel.


    Opus skrev:
    Alla har ju olika referenser att gå efter....ett skyttemärke kan ju betyda jätte mycket för en "malaj" samtidigt som det för en jägarsoldat, inte betyder ett skit. Med all respekt för ATC...men att förtjäna något där kanske inte kräver lika mycket jobb som att tex förtjäna något inom SAS ?


    Kraven är inte lika höga, nej; ATC Marksman (första skyttemärket) kräver t ex en tums gruppering på 25 m med .22 LR. Men det ska skjutas av fjortonåringar, med tunga fyrtiotalsgevär. Om SAS nu ens har nåt märke för skytte är kraven gissningsvis högre, men då är skytten också bra mycket skickligare. Tro mig, till och med tolv år senare betyder mitt Cadet First Class-märke väldigt mycket för mig.


    Whistler skrev:
    Absolut, och om det var jag som sjöng mitt på dagen och någon nattjobbande bad mig dämpa mig så skulle jag självklart gjort det, eftersom jag inte anser att han bör lida för något jag gör. Man ska inte förvänta sig något av andra som man inte kan leva upp till själv, därför anser jag att man till viss del kan förvänta sig en förståelse och respekt för det som man själv lever upp till.


    Men om det är enda tidpunkten du har att sjunga? Om du inte kan sjunga nån annanstans, vid nåt annat tillfälle? Och han sover dagtid för att han tycker det är trevligare att sitta uppe på natten.

    Det är jämförelsen här. Du behöver inte ta illa upp för att du ser nån bära ett förtjänsttecken, det är ditt val. Du är killen som sitter uppe på natten för att det är då Letterman är på. Ska jag då låta bli att sjunga under dagtid för att du inte ids banda Letterman?


    Whistler skrev:
    Vem har sagt att jag har planer på att få honom att må dåligt? Att jag säger att jag inte tycker det är okej, och därtill ger skäl till varför, bör vara tillräckligt för att han ska respektera detta och undvika att stöta sig med mig som medmänniska. Om han, som du säger att han full rätt till, bara skiter i min åsikt och väljer att ändå fortsätta med det som stöter mig, ja då anser jag att han har förbrukat min respekt och det är DÄR han gör fel. Har man gjort ett misstag och lärt sig av det och åtgärdat det så anser jag misstaget som försumligt, men att göra misstaget och skita i konsekvensen, det är som att förstora misstaget direkt i ansiktet på den det drabbar.


    Hypotetiskt exempel: Hans hobby är att göra impressions. Din är att springa i skogen och skjuta. Utan märken har han inget impression, han är bara ännu en kamonisse i skogen. Säger du att han inte bör/får/ska ha märkena så får du honom att må dåligt.

    Du säger dessutom "Att jag säger att jag inte tycker det är okej... bör vara tillräckligt för att han ska respektera detta och undvika att stöta sig med mig". Du har gjort det tydligt att "undvika att stöta sig" innebär att antingen avlägsna märkena eller hålla sig utom synhåll för dig. Ser du inte vilken dubbelmoral det är? "Allas åsikter är lika viktiga så länge de gör som jag säger."


    Whistler skrev:
    Återigen, jag är beredd att göra honom till viljes om han tar illa upp av något jag gör. Om jag fortsätter göra det även när jag upplysts om hur han känner om det, så tycker jag det är helt logiskt att jag tappar hans respekt. Därför anser jag mig kunna förvänta mig det omvända. "Behandla andra som du vill bli behandlad".


    Jag tar rejält illa upp om du säger att jag måste börja sprätta bara för att du tycker dig ha ensamrätt till mina märken. Slutar du då med det?


    Whistler skrev:
    Twist(?) skrev:
    Det kanske är jätteviktigt för honom att göra sin impression. Har du ens tänkt på det? Dessutom, att du tar illa upp och angriper honom när allt han har gjort är att försöka hedra ditt gamla förband, är det rättvist tycker du?


    Ja, det har jag tänkt på. Jag har till och med skrivit om det, nämligen i posten där jag skrev att det är enklare för honom att byta kläder/utrustning/symboler och göra impression av något som inte har lika stor chans att stöta sig med någon i hans närhet, än vad det är för mig att förneka betydelsen dessa symboler har för mig. Hur du än väger det, så kan du inte påstå att hans vilja att göra en impression faktiskt väger tyngre än mina minnen från när jag faktiskt tjänstgjorde och förtjänade rätten att bära symbolerna. För det är faktiskt så det omskrivs när man får ett förtjänsttecken, att man har rätt att bära det. Och åter igen så har jag inget som helst uppsåt att få honom att må dåligt, det enda negativa som kan drabba honom är som sagt att han tappar min respekt och vilja att spela med honom om han trots kännedom om mitt missnöje fortsätter med det.


    Om hans rollspelande är lika viktigt för honom som dina minnen är för dig, då? Sånt här är subjektivt; du kan inte säga att "det här är mycket svårare än det här", för så är det inte. Jag skulle aldrig klara en baskermarsch; du kanske inte kan spela en svängig groove på trummor. Vilket är svårare? Han kanske har ett riktigt uselt liv, där impressions är det enda glädjeämnet; vems rättigheter väger då tyngst?

    Ja, det verkar kanske som en ganska extrem sträckning, men det är inte helt omöjligt.


    Whistler skrev:
    Väljer de att förlora {respekten} så måste de göra ett medvetet val om detta, då jag inte anser att ett misstag som reparerats är skäl nog för att förlora den.


    Nu har du definierat impressions som "misstag"; bär man ett märke (där det dessutom är tydligt, som på scen eller i AS, att man inte utger sig för att ha förtjänat det) man inte blött för är det ett misstag? Där får nog du vara den som respekterar några andra åsikter.


    Whistler skrev:
    Förutom mig? Var står det? Jag har till och med skrivit att även jag skulle uppskatta en impression om den gjordes på avstånd, precis i samma anda som de som kontaktats av de i tråden som gjort impressions, t ex Torak. Jag tvivlar dock starkt på att desamma kontaktade individer skulle känna samma sak om de under utövande av sin egen hobby på sin egen fritid stötte på en sådan företeelse, för jag skulle inte göra det.


    Um... du får komma ihåg att för mig är inte RMP utomlands. Jag är engelsk; om jag nånsin hittar ett spel värt att gå på i närheten är det fullt möjligt att jag stöter på nån som är f d RMP. Jag kör en militär Land Rover; för ett par månader sen pratade jag med en RMP-soldat (de hade en vägpost i närheten under en stor övning), och han tyckte inte heller att det var nåt att känna sig kränkt över. Det var på åtta decimeters håll; jag hade bilder på min RMP-gear i min mediaspelare. Hans enda kritik var att "around here, you'd be wanting the Gore-tex jacket".

    Jag tar illa åt mig när nån sitter bredvid mig på tunnelbanan med hårdrock väldigt högt i hörlurar. Jag tar illa åt mig när nån kommer för nära och luktar illa (där sitter jag i o f s lite i glashus, men ändå). Jag tar illa åt mig när nån avbryter mig mitt i en mening.

    Men vet du, det håller jag för mig själv. Det är så civilisation funkar; man kompromissar, man får ibland tåla att andra gör saker man själv har svårt för. Nu för tiden är det tack och lov acceptabelt att be rökare flytta på sig om de står och blossar för nära, men ett märke?

    Man måste andas. Man måste inte stirra sig blind på en tygbit.


    Current Mood: pensive
    2:04 am
    Police To Lobby For Right To Strike
    So, the police here in the UK - or perhaps just in England, I can't quite remember - have voted in favour of lobbying the government to change the law to allow them to strike. They haven't voted to strike, but they're trying to get the legal option to do so.

    Which is fair, in one way; police officers are underpaid and underappreciated, and should get a hell of a lot more respect than they do. Indeed, I've given a lot of thought over the years to joining the constabulary.

    But here's why giving the police - or any of the emergency services, really - the right to strike is a bad thing:

    Their quarrel is with the government. Their "solution" - striking - affects the public, not the government.

    A civilised and ordered society relies for law enforcement on a sort of covenant between police and public; the public don't take the law into their own hands on the understanding that the police will be there to protect them should they need it. We agree not to carry weapons for self-defence, because the police are only a phone call away. In theory.

    But if the police decide to strike, then what? Okay, perhaps they decide to go on a limited strike so they'll still provide law enforcement but won't provide the peripheral services - festival crowd control, Clarkson Mk I Traffic Wombles, things like that. That's fine.

    But if the law doesn't distinguish between that and a full strike, then the first time perhaps it will be a full strike. But what's to say that it'll stay that way? What if they instead vote to go on a full strike? If every police officer in Britain were to go off duty tomorrow morning, what would you do? What would happen around you? With law enforcement absent, what happens?

    That's what annoys me. The police are being royally buggered over by the government, no question about it. The government have broken the deal between them and the police. But if they go on strike, the police are breaking the deal between them and us, the public.

    We don't allow weapons for self-defence in Britain, nor do we allow concealed carry. In theory, we don't need them.

    But if the police get the right to strike, I'm buying a gun.

    Should be easy, with no police to raid that white van on the corner.
    Monday, April 28th, 2008
    11:58 pm
    Script Frenzy, and why writing a hundred pages in a month is a pig of a job
    I'm writing a screenplay for Script Frenzy (www.scriptfrenzy.org), where the idea is to write a hundred-page script during April.

    I drew up a schedule; on the fifth, I wrote fourteen pages, putting me twelve pages ahead. And I stayed ahead for a while, until the eleventh, when I found myself a page behind.

    On the twenty-fifth I was due to finish - unfortunately, I'm still hovering at 55 pages. So I just need to write fifteen pages tonight and another fifteen tomorrow and Wednesday, and I'm done! Yay!

    Um.

    Wish me luck...
    Thursday, April 24th, 2008
    7:17 am
    Weather Or Not
    I like rain.

    I like the sound of rain, the smell of rain, the texture of rain. I like the clean taste it brings, that light, crisp, crunchy tang it gives the air. I like the optical properties of rain, the photogenic way it has of obscuring things just right, the way it'll make a sky overcast without being dark, the way it makes a warm day cool and a cold day warmish. I like the way it reduces visibility just enough to make a vista intimate, and the way even my car looks clean after a good shower.

    I particularly like rain when I'm properly dressed for it.

    But there are two kinds of rain I don't like. The first is the kind of aerosol rain we used to get in Brussels, that kind that feels more like you're walking in front of someone squirting water from a spray bottle, the kind with droplets small enough to find every bloody gap, no matter how minute, in even the best rain gear.

    The second is what we've got outside the window here in Scotland right now. The anaemic, half-arsed kind of rain that just can't be bothered. Oh, there's enough for a weak little dribble from the drainpipes, but everywhere else it's just a perfunctory drizzle. It's weather that's phoning it in.

    As they say here, "This isnae rain! It's a' comin' strecht doon!"
    Friday, March 14th, 2008
    8:03 am
    Role-Playing Games, And Why Gaming Sessions Never Start
    Just a little story that popped into my head an hour ago, based on memories of long-forgotten games clubs. Recognise any of them?

    ( Read more... )

    Any thoughts?

    Current Mood: giggly
    Current Music: Assassins NBC - Unworthy Of Your Love
    Monday, March 3rd, 2008
    2:47 am
    Oddities Of Facebook
    "You have new friend requests."

    Odd, isn't it?

    It's nice, certainly, to find old and half-forgotten friends from many years ago. Even nicer to find old and fondly remembered friends.

    But sometimes - mostly, it seems - you get requests from people you barely remember, people you vaguely suspect you should remember, and people who just make you go "Who the hell is that?"

    So what's the etiquette there? Do you click "Accept" and take a stab in the dark on the "Where do you know Joe Bloggs from" question, or do you click "Ignore" and get seen as a hideously rude boor?

    Anyway, whatever you do, you end up with a long friends list which can be more or less divided into three categories: those who check their account once a year whether there's activity or not, those who check when they get a notification in their email, and those who always seem to be logged in.

    And then, of course, there are those who've just joined, and are overwhelmed by all the shiny applications. These people can be annoying; every time you log in you'll find a stack of new invitations from them. Vampires, zombies, snowball fights, vampire hunters, invitations to join groups for every cause imaginable, endlessly forwarded jokes that were old when they first hit the internet in 1987...

    But they're bad enough when they're signing up for things and thinking "Wow, Andrew'd really get a kick out of this!" They get far, far worse when they find those applications.

    You know the ones.

    The quizzes. A harmless waste of time, a dozen silly little questions with the lure of an amusing outcome at the end. Most of us fill out the form, click Continue, find that the app requires that you forward it to twenty friends before giving you a result, and then we say "Sod it" and click out of it, deleting the application and reporting it to Facebook for being bloody annoying.

    But not the bright-eyed bunnies, oh no. They think "Okay!" and happily send invites to their entire friend list.

    Hm.

    I'm running out of things to say here - or at least things to chatter about without turning this into a rant. So I shall end it while I'm still pondering in bemused jollity.

    G'night, folks.

    Current Mood: bemused
    Current Music: Status Quo - The Wanderer
    Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
    12:34 pm
    Dilbert Comic 160x300
    Saturday, February 16th, 2008
    11:19 am
    Reviews - Flood and Ross Kemp In Afghanistan
    I'm sitting here watching Flood, that film where London gets a bit of a soaking, and... Well, it really is the quintessentially British disaster movie.

    Damp, soggy and vaguely crap.

    The story itself is good, and the effects - with a few exceptions - are good. But here and there the acting feels dodgy, and there's something odd going on with the accents. Still, well worth the rental, and I imagine it would have been spectacular in the cinema.

    On the other hand - a day or so after watching Flood - I've just watched the second episode of Ross Kemp's show on the British troops in Afghanistan. It's curious; going from Eastenders, which I'd avoid like the plague, to Ultimate Force and then all these phenomenal documentaries... That's quite a progression.

    Anyway, it's a terrific series, and Kemp gets into the thick of things along with the soldiers, narrating as he goes with a reassuring blend of curiousity, sympathy and - as the cliché goes - relentless good humour. The soldiers seem to take to him as well, and it has to be said, at moments it seems that the slightest hints of Henno Garvie start to emerge, which is amusing.

    It's really a great series, even better than his previous series on gangs. If you get the opportunity, watch it.

    Current Music: LeAnn Rimes - Me and Bobby McGee
    Thursday, January 31st, 2008
    12:38 pm
    Prelude To A Shower - HP Fanfic
    This is a short - very short - fic I wrote in about an hour, just for the fun of it. It's not terribly good, and this is the first draft, so there's a lot of work to do before it's postable, but I've had a couple of requests for it, so... Here you go.

    ( Read Prelude To A Shower... )

    Comments and feedback are always appreciated!

    Current Mood: silly
    Current Music: Dr John - Splish Splash
    Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008
    8:34 pm
    Religion, AFP, and the unfortunate interface between religious people and me
    That old religion debate came up on AFP again. I think I've just managed to offend everyone who's ever been religious... again.

    On Jan 22, 5:58 pm, [...]wrote:
    > On Sun, 20 Jan 2008 22:03:23 -0800 (PST), Torak
    > >On Jan 20, 8:26 pm, [...] wrote:
    > >> On Sat, 19 Jan 2008 21:15:06 -0800 (PST), Torak
    >
    > >> >You know what? At least without religion, they'd need to make up
    > >> >better excuses.
    ( More... )


    Current Mood: Philosophical
    Current Music: Dr John - 101 Dalmatians Cruella De Vil
    Thursday, January 17th, 2008
    6:55 pm
    Ethical Gaming Revisited
    In other news, I recently found myself pondering an issue I mentioned a month or two back; that of violence in gaming.

    I haven't changed my stance; I still find the dispassionate way we gamers view violence to be somewhat disturbing. I still support age ratings on games and hard policies on not selling games to people below those ages. I still strongly believe that it's up to parents to police what games their kids play. And I still find the thought of governments or special interest groups legislating what games may be made to be even more disturbing than the violence itself.

    We have laws against violence. People who commit acts of violence against others without lawful justification are criminals, and are treated as such. People who advocate bans on violence in games, or try to ban games outright because they object to their content... that's not trying to look out for society. That's trying to control how people think. And indulging that, no matter how noble the motives or how good an idea it seems at first, is and always will be a Bad Thing.

    Anyway, that's as far as I got on that train of thought. My main point is that... well, I don't really have one. But this is the internet, so it doesn't matter - I can dribble out any mind-numbing ramblings and someone will still find it worth reading.

    Anyway, once again my gaming enjoyment has been spoiled. This time it started with Flatout 2, a racing game where drivers can actually be thrown from their cars. There are game modes where the aim is to demolish all the other cars - if drivers are thrown out of theirs, does anyone make a point of avoiding them? Of course not. Unconscious driver lying on the tarmac between you and your target? Sod it, he's probably dead anyway, just run right over him. There aren't many things that disturb me on moral grounds, but that's one of them.

    Another casualty was Knights of the Old Republic 2, where I tried - once again - to play through as a Dark Side character. It didn't work. Every time I tried for Dark Side points, I ended up thinking "that would be mean" and saying "You know what, I was going to kill you and steal your stuff, but here, have a hundred credits" instead. I'll never get my black cape at this rate.

    And then there was the game adaptation of Pirates of the Caribbean: World's End, which was offensive for so many other reasons, mainly for being so bad. I'm just glad I got it for free with a magazine subscription rather than spending actual money on it. Heaven knows I won't be spending any time on it.

    Anyway, another thing that I've found curious on similar grounds has been the Violent Crime Reduction Act, which came into force in the UK in October last year. It prohibits the manufacture, sale and import of "realistic imitation firearms" - in other words, anything made to look like a gun, regardless of whether it can actually fire of whether it's a plank sawn to shape and painted black. So reenactment, amateur theatre, and particularly airsoft are in trouble. We can still keep the guns we have - though there's apparently talk of banning them too - but we're not allowed to buy any new ones. Unless...

    Yes. It's a government thing, thus there's a loophole. Of course.

    There's a specific defence for airsofters; you're allowed to buy more airsoft guns if you can prove you're a legitimate airsofter. Which is great - personally, I've lobbied for some sort of licensing scheme, rather like a driving licence for airsoft guns. But what annoys me is the definition of a legitimate airsofter. It's someone who is a member of "a legitimate skirmish site". And the guidelines say that a member has to actually play at that site regularly; I'm not sure how often, but before being offered membership you have to play two or three games over the course of a month or two... or something. I can't remember offhand.

    Now, this would seem like a fair system - indeed, without being fairly immersed in airsoft, it would be. But not all airsofters are skirmishers.

    I find skirmishes incredibly dull; run around in the woods shooting at people? Where's the fun in that? I enjoy milsim - military simulation - and I enjoy the LARP aspects of airsoft. I enjoy playing a character, getting the kit right, getting the accents and mannerisms and background right. I went to a four-day game in Sweden back in 2005, where I fired twelve shots in total.

    I enjoy playing the part. I'm as serious an airsofter as any other, I just prioritise other aspects of the hobby. But the government says that someone who plays for the talking - and thus attends a few major "event-type games" a year rather than skirmishing once a month - isn't a serious airsofter, and thus can't buy any airsoft guns. But someone who just runs around in the woods shooting at anything that moves... they''re safe and healthy and wouldn't hurt a fly. Does that seem ludicrous to anyone else?




    Anyway, on a more cheerful note, I thought I might plug a couple of incredibly funny web comics: DM Of The Rings (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?cat=14) which spoofs Lord of the Rings by working on the assumption that the whole thing's a roleplaying game, and Darths And Droids (http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/darthsanddroids/) which does much the same thing for Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. They're both hilarious, at least for anyone who's ever played an RPG.

    (Oh, and you may notice the "Current Music" listing for my last entry. The Not So Grand Funk Jam Band is a Finnish band I found after meeting two of their singers at a blues jam in Stockholm. They sent me some of their tunes, and, well, those guys are phenomenal. Pretty much the entire band are in their late teens, early twenties, and they play a great blend of proper old-school funk with hints of rap and modern stuff. A bit of Hancock here, a bit of JB there... Their pronunciation of the English language sometimes leaves a bit to be desired, but I tell you, those guys can groove. They've got some great trumpet licks, too. I'd suggest starting out with 21st-Century Funk, Groupies and Not So Grand Funk Jam Band Jam, but the main thing is that you have to hear these guys play.)

    (Also, as you may notice from the "Current Music" for this post, I've recently developed something of an addiction to two or three of Gretchen Wilson's songs. It's weird. Country isn't supposed to rock like this. It's great.)

    Current Music: Gretchen Wilson - All Jacked Up
    5:50 pm
    On Handouts
    I read a weekly email newsletter called This Is True (www.thisistrue.com) - which is well worth subscribing to, by the way, and tell them I sent you - and in this last issue was the tale of an IRS staffer called Bill who wanted a free upgrade to the $24-a-year Premium edition. He was rebuffed in no uncertain terms, and was called all sorts of things in the comment thread accompanying his letter when it was published. Maybe he deserved the humiliation, maybe not... probably not. I wouldn't beg for a freebie like that, but without knowing more specifics about his circumstances I'm not one to judge. Anyway, the thread's at http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-hook_a_man_up.html, and - in case you can't find my comment or if it was declined, here it is:

    It's curious to see the black-or-white division on this issue - but then, it seems that middle grounds are rare these days.

    Can Bill afford a subscription? I don't know. I don't particularly care - that's his business. But five sprogs can't be cheap to raise, and taking in foster kids and trying to give them the best childhood possible is a laudable thing.

    Anyway, there are two things I particularly wanted to comment on:

    Firstly, someone referred to Starbucks as selling "gourmet" coffee. Now, I'm Swedish - I know good coffee. And Starbucks isn't gourmet, not even close. Oh, it's good, but nowhere near great. The only way to get it anywhere near strong enough is to get an espresso (still too weak, though), and even then it's served in some sort of minuscule thimble arrangement.

    Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, one thing I've always wondered about is - and I'll happily cop to a degree of generalisation here - this curious thinking Americans seem to have that only those who serve in uniform are serving their country. Being ex-military myself, I'm an avid supporter of the armed forces, and I'm thinking of joining the police, but their are other jobs that do just as much for the general publics for far less recognition.

    Municipal services, for instance - the people who make sure our rubbish goes away, that there are stripes on the roads, that the lawns in the parks get mowed. They get sod all money, and to most of us, they're invisible.

    Telephone companies? Granted, in more and more countries they're becoming privatised, but imagine where we'd be without phones. People working for phone companies serve their countries as well.

    Even the IRS - or Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs as we call them - do their bit. Oh, we hate them - at least they don't take half your gross income, like in Sweden - and we pick on them, and so on, but they serve their countries. Without taxes, we'd have no roads, no health care, no schools... no money to pay the uniformed services...

    Most people who work in civil service don't get paid much. And saying that "they already get our money"... Well, no they don't. Does anyone seriously think the underpaid clerk who records delivery of your cheque gets to keep the cash? Your taxes go to the roads you drive on, not (usually) to keep filing clerks in Bentleys.

    Civil servants of all stripes serve their countries with just as much dedication as soldiers. Sometimes less money, sometimes more, and of course they're not usually shot at on a daily basis. But they serve their countries.

    Maybe Bill can afford premium True, maybe he can't. Maybe he deserves it, maybe he doesn't. But - speaking, remember, from an ex-military point of view - suggesting that only people who put their lives on the line are serving their countries and/or deserve help and charity is both wrong and, frankly, rather offensive.


    Any thoughts?

    Current Mood: pensive
    Current Music: Not So Grand Funk Jam Band - Not So Grand Funk Jam Band Jam
    Monday, December 31st, 2007
    11:49 pm
    Another year gone
    Another New Year's in Sweden. Another iteration of Tennyson's interminable poem. Another half-hearted clinking of glasses while the Swedish suburban version of Beirut erupts outside.

    Fortunately, I like cake, so the evening was partially a success.

    Happy new, folks.


    Powered by ScribeFire.

    Saturday, November 17th, 2007
    4:41 pm
    Muppets + Victor Borge = Sant
    The Muppet Show is genius. That is all.


    (Particularly the one with Victor Borge. If you haven't watched Borge play a duet of Hungarian Rhapsody with Fozzie Bear, you haven't lived.)
    Sunday, November 4th, 2007
    10:11 am
    Thoughts at 5:58 AM
    I should be asleep. But I'm not, as you may have gathered, knowing as you do that even I am not so attached to my computer as to be typing on a blog at six in the morning... in my sleep.

    Anyway, I've been thinking. Do you ever have qualms about your hobbies?
    I'm not so bothered about Warhammer, though it involves the wholesale slaughter of troops in their hundreds. Because it's all highly abstracted - and, of course, there aren't a great number of real Orks hanging about the place.

    No, what I'm really bothered about is computer games.

    Oh, don't worry. I'm not buying into the Guardian nonsense of "OMG LOL WTF Teh Gamez Is Killing Teh Kiddies!!!11!" Okay, violent games might make people more inclined to acts of violence, but only if they're violent and unstable nutjobs in the first case. That's not the point.

    What concerns me is the stuff that gets into games, and, more importantly, gamers' reactions to it. Take the furore over Manhunt 2, for instance. Fans have been decrying the developers' decision to blur the execution scenes (if it sounds like I don't know what I'm talking about, there's a good reason for that; speaking as someone who's played a whole bunch of SWAT 3 and 4 missions going through summarily executing suspects Judge Dredd-style, the Manhunt games are a couple of levels beyond even my violence threshold), which apparently makes the games not worth playing.

    Then there's the Soldier Of Fortune series (particularly SoF2), where a great deal was made of the GHOUL 2 system which allowed for dismembering bad guys. This had some justification; it gave a new level of consequence to in-game violence, where injuries and their effects were shown realistically (for certain values of "realistically") as opposed to adversaries simply dropping into nonexistence with a vague bullet hole decal on their texture. And sure, that's a fair point; sane people are less likely to commit violence if they know what the consequences really are (though it's arguable that sane, intelligent people should be able to figure out that bullet holes aren't a great idea in the best of cases). But a lot of people played through the game deliberately dismembering the corpses; perhaps because of the novelty of the feature, perhaps as a sort of "I'd never do this in real life, I wonder what it'd be like". But they enjoyed it, and that's the point.

    It's a recurring theme. In Bioshock, players are given the option to "harvest" the little girls that go around collecting Mystical Magic Goo from corpses, a process which would entail killing them to collect the MMG they've accumulated. In early builds (as far as I can tell from preview articles), this was shown fairly graphically, with the player breaking the girl's neck on-screen; in released builds, the game employs a fade-to-black technique so only the aftermath is seen. This move has been criticised by some, for various reasons. Some - like a writer in PC Gamer, IIRC - have argued that it stops the player from having to face the effects of their actions, making the choice between "harvest" and "save" a much more abstract one; others (thankfully few) have argued that "Aaw, I wanted to see that".

    In Company of Heroes, I send my infantry into battle, watching gleefully as airstrikes scatter the naughty Germans like... well, really scattered things. Up on the screen pops a message: "Medal objective completed: 250 kills!" And then I think "Well, hang on, what am I really celebrating here?" The game's rewarding me - and I'm letting it - for simulating the slaughter of, when you think about it, 250 conscripted, brainwashed propaganda zombies who probably didn't want to be there in the first place.

    Don't get me wrong; I think military service is a good thing. I think defending one's country is noble, and a good thing. I think wars sometimes have to be fought, and that some people are evil in absolute terms and have to be stopped. I'm a strong believer in the adage that "Every country has an army; its own, or somebody else's." I think that sometimes, it's acceptable to ask someone to die to protect others.

    But I don't think it's something to enjoy.

    That's why I get quite worried when I find myself enjoying it.

    I should point out that I don't usually; when I play SWAT I go in with the pepper-ball guns, aiming for a 100% clean arrest record. When I play Knights of the Old Republic I keep meaning to try to play as a Dark Side character, but never manage it - after all, that would mean being mean to people. In shooters I have the guns set to single-shot, I minimise casualties, I make sure of my backstop.

    Why, then, do I sometimes enjoy just shooting my way through a SWAT mission?

    Perhaps all of us, to some extent, have a primitive caveman bit at the back of the brain that enjoys inflicting pain and suffering on others. Or perhaps we've been indoctrinated that ego is all that matters; certainly it is an attitude that many people nowadays have - "I'm more important than anyone else, so I don't need to care about them". It's visible in society, on TV, on the roads, everywhere.

    There's a similar phenomenon in films. I can understand the validity of showing gore and violence in film; indeed, I have no major objection to it, when it fuels the plot. But in recent years (and in the past, of course, but it's only in recent years that such films have entered the mainstream), the violence has become the plot. Seven caused an uproar when it came out, but now - while still pretty nasty - it's relatively tame. Slasher films (You know the drill. College kids do stupid things and get gruesomely killed.) have lots of gore and minimal plot. And series like the SAW and Hostel films take the gore to new extremes for no apparent purpose.

    I don't usually buy into the stuff about people getting desensitised, but in this I have to say that it seems terribly plausible. We're getting more accustomed to seeing gore and violence, and with fewer of us experiencing it for real - no military service, no really big wars like previous generations faced, fewer of us living in the country and seeing where our food actually comes from - we seem to seek it out. I don't pretend to know why. Perhaps we as a species have evolved far enough to dislike real violence but still yearn to experience violence vicariously, perhaps we're just evil bastards who enjoy watching violence but don't dare take risks ourselves.

    But recently it's gone further, thanks in no small part to the internet, digital camcorders and filesharing. Fictional violence no longer hits the spot; people download videos of Russians shooting people in Chechnya, of hostages being decapitated in Afghanistan, of insurgents being mown down in Iraq. Some have legitimate reasons - news organisations, for instance, or intelligence agencies - while most "ordinary people" who watch them... I don't know, and I'm speculating wildly here, but I can't believe that it's out of anything but prurient interests. And that worries me.

    At this point I should clarify my own level of interest. I've watched the guncam videos; the Apache chaingunning people loading RPGs out of a tractor, the AC-130 shelling an insurgent stronghold. I could watch them with the detached, objective mindset of a soldier - "These guys are enemies, they're carrying weapons, they're preparing to kill my mates; they have to be taken out" - but I couldn't dehumanise them. I didn't (I was about to write "I couldn't", but then I wasn't trying to) enjoy watching the videos, which is one major difference. I've also watched that video shot from a Humvee in Iraq where an IED under the road goes off, making the road between the Hummer and the Bradley in front erupt, completely missing both; that I enjoyed, because nobody was harmed despite the intent. It's the same with the clip filmed by, as I understand it, an insurgent sniper's observer; the sniper shoots a US Army medic, whose body armour stops the round. The medic and his squadmates turn and return fire, neutralising the sniper and his observer. And then, to compound the irony, that same medic treats the sniper who just shot him. Again, I found that amusing, and reassuring in a way I can't quite explain.

    But I haven't watched the others. The executions, the decapitations, and so on. I have no particular wish to, and if I happened to see them I really can't imagine enjoying them. I've heard people giggling over them - "And then he sticks the knife in, and it's like squirting, and it's really cool..." - and that reaction scares me. Violence is a fact of life, an integral part of being human, and a part of human nature that I don't think is likely to disappear any time soon. But real violence is, and should be, always something abhorrent and insupportable. A last resort, an undesirable and unavoidable side effect of protecting oneself. It shouldn't be a source of entertainment (happyslappers, for instance, are just begging for a punch in the teeth), or something to exploit to get your face in the papers, or something deployed just to get something you want.

    Now, as people go, I'm fairly comfortable with violence. I enjoy shooting (at cardboard), and I'm confident that if I had no other choice I'd be able to shoot someone to protect myself or those I care about. I'm passably competent at deploying violence in self-defence, though it's competence that I've fortunately rarely had to use. And I play airsoft, a game which basically boils down to "Meet new people and shoot them". But there it's all voluntary; everyone's in on it, safety precautions are taken, and nobody is seriously injured, and rarely if ever even injured to a level sufficient to remove their enjoyment of the game.

    But there's one more aspect to be considered, and one which I've touched on in this column before. The disparity of taboos.

    Modern society has a lot of taboos; manners, drugs, toilet jokes, political incorrectness. And the big two: sex and violence. The curious thing is that violence has become accepted, commonplace, even making it into children's TV. In The Lion King, the murder of Simba's father is shown on screen - but beyond a bit of affectionate nuzzling, there's no reference at all to any sexual interest.

    Okay, so none of the characters are human. Bad example.

    But it's a pattern that crops up again and again. The Harry Potter books contain huge amounts of graphic violence, but apart from kissing, the closest potential reference to any sexual activity is "a particularly pleasant hour by the lake". I've even heard someone criticise CSI - you know, the show with lots and lots of violence, autopsies, and clinical discussion of sexual topics? - because "during the autopsy scene, a nipple was gratuitously shown for several seconds on two occasions". On the whole, it seems that you can pack a whole lot of violence into a "family film" and still keep the rating, but the merest hint of sex and up the ratings it climbs.

    But I've discussed that before. I don't think graphic accounts of sex are suitable for kids, but they're a damn sight more suitable than graphic depictions of violence. I don't think there's any good reason to put foul language in films, but I don't mind it as much as I mind the implications that precocious kids being snotty little delinquents are "cool".

    But that's the deal, it seems. Violence is fine. Disregard for other people and their property is fine. (Don't get me started on those "protesting" morons who vandalise things and justify it with "Things belonging to people is wrong, they should belong to the people". Guess what? It's not their opinion that matters.) But heaven forbid that it should be suggested that there are bits under those stupidly over-sexualised clothes that are apparently perfectly fine to promote in kids' programmes!

    Ah well. Guess I got sidetracked there... Ah well - can't say you don't get value for money!

    To quote someone clever, "Wouldn't it be nice if everyone was nice"?

    Current Mood: contemplative
    Current Music: Robbie Williams - That's Life
    Thursday, August 30th, 2007
    11:28 pm
    An Appeal On Behalf Of Serious Writing (or not)
    Back when I started writing fanfic, I mostly tried to write serious stuff. Granted, they usually had a comedic or satirical edge, but they were serious stories. The End of The World, for instance, is relatively grim.

    But of late, I seem to have got bored of being serious. My two latest works have been... well, I'd say "exceedingly silly", but that might be something of an understatement. Hollywood Or What? has Ginny kidnapped by a Death Eater who botches a spell, so Harry has to chase them through a bunch of films - it gets very silly. The Death Eater, as Darth Vader, accidentally chops a Stormtrooper in half...

    And then there's A Treatise On The Perils Of Excessive Involvement In The Reading Of Fiction, a crossover-themed challenge fic where the silliness is perhaps best illustrated by this simile:

    "the shadow attached itself to his foot with a sound much like that of a blue cheese omelette wrapped in a custard wig hitting a lightly annoyed bonobo monkey; it is perhaps not surprising that neither Ginny nor Harry recognised the sound."


    It's a very silly fic. But then, perhaps there's nothing really wrong with that. Perhaps, comedy is more important than profundity. (Come on, this is me talking - is there really any doubt which side I'll come down on?)

    Or, just perhaps, I'm just plugging my fics because I think they're funny. And I really like good, reasoned reviews...
    Tuesday, July 24th, 2007
    12:00 pm
    I Think I May Have Upset People Again...
    Once again, a potential sex reference in Potter turns into "OMG WTF That's like so bad for teh kiddies". But we're still okay with cutting people open, right?

    [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by amilas [/i]
    [B]I definately thought Ginny and Harry were going to get it on. I was wondering how on earth Jo could include this though, since she has such a HUGE fanbase which includes children.[/B][/QUOTE]

    What's that got to do with it?

    She's got a story that includes murder, suicide, mutilation, torture, kidnapping, child abuse, mind rape, executions, self-mutilation, drawing, and all sorts of violence, but the slightest hint of sex and people start screaming "Think of the kiddies!"

    Now, I don't think graphic sex scenes have any place in the HP books, nor do I particularly like them in other books. But certainly an allusion to it would have been appropriate at that juncture. So I'm going to echo my remarks in the "Almost Grown-Up Scenes" thread: Sex is healthier than violence. Sex creates life, violence ends life. I know which I'd rather have my hypothetical kids read about.

    So Rowling's fine with writing seven books filled with violence and cruelty, but she chickens out of letting two people - in what, after all, is established to be a thoroughly committed long-term relationship - have sex before they go off to, potentially, their deaths. That, to me, smacks of misguided prudery.

    Sex good. Violence bad. Easy.

    http://forums.fictionalley.org/park/showthread.php?s=&postid=1722605#post1722605

    Current Music: Dave Brubeck Trio & Gerry Mulligan - Basin Street blues
    Sunday, July 1st, 2007
    12:11 am
    Yet Another Posting Analysing Studio 60
    Yes, it's that time again. I've made another of my rare but incredibly deep, wise and meaningful contributions to the Studio 60 mailing list.

    Well, at least lengthy. But it's well written, too. Or at least perfectly spelled, which is a start.

    --- In SunsetTalk@yahoogroups.com, [NAME] wrote:
    >
    > When I say I didn't like the show, it's not because I didn't
    > get it or because I didn't understand the storylines. I can
    > do all three at the same time. So I sympathize with those who
    > loved the show, but I won't say I'm sorry to see it go.

    I did, and I am, so I will.

    That said, you're absolutely right; S60 was, in a purely commercial sense, fatally flawed from the start. Writing comedy about drama probably works better than drawing drama from comedy, and I have no idea what relevance that has; it's just a remark that popped into my head just now that will hopefully, some day, be remembered by someone and thought profound.

    Studio 60 had three main failings, in my view. Firstly, the melodrama. A lot of the drama during the first half of the season felt strained, as though they were forced to find the most trivial things dramatic. In contrast, the last few episodes, where the drama arguably escalated, still felt more plausible because the situations the drama came from were inherently more dramatic.

    Secondly, the comedy. Sorkin's great at writing funny scenes, comic drama, or just perfectly-judged injections of dry wit (cf Toby Ziegler). But he really can't write a sketch. Of all the sketches shown on the show, I can't remember a single one I found funny. And you know what? It's not because they were too "highbrow", as a number of American critics have said. It's because they were too *lowbrow*, too unsubtle, too obvious. Good heavens, if American networks consider comedy like those sketches "highbrow", no wonder they can't produce a decent show without Sorkin's help!

    Sorkin's usual comedy is highbrow, but accessible highbrow. Highbrow is *good*. Highbrow gives people something to aim for, something more to learn. Otherwise it's just chicken jokes and whoopee cushions. As Terry Pratchett once said, though about the publishing industry rather than TV: "English readers say 'I don't understand this, what's wrong with me'. American readers say 'I don't understand this, what's wrong with him'."

    Comedy *should* be subtle. It should be elegant, sharp, witty, like The West Wing and Studio 60 at their best. Quiet and understated gives the occasional slapstick more impact.

    Okay, so I may have digressed a tad there. Aaanyway...

    Thirdly... um... Ah yes. Thirdly, as usual, Sorkin injected his politics far too much into the stories. It became too much for me, and I agree with him - I can only imagine what it must have been like for those who don't share his views. (Speaking of which, I don't agree with him on grenade launchers. We have too many rabbits at home.) So that's half the country out right there.

    It was a great show while it lasted, but with those strikes against it it never really had a chance.

    Andrew


    (Oh, and someone on the list wanted wallpapers based on a certain photo, so I made one. And got, um, a bit carried away.)
    S60 Wallpaper, 1600x1200

    Current Mood: cheerful (but tired)
    Current Music: Harry Connick Jr - I Could Only Whisper Your Name
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