I’m shite at sports, it’s a personal tragedy and one that I’ll never overcome, I’ve not played every sport (just how do you get into pole vaulting) but I’m pretty sure I’ll be terrible at all of them. I might never get to sleep with a team-mate’s wife or swear into a camera and I’ve made peace with that, because I can do it all on an Xbox.
In reality I don’t care much for sports but boy do I love them in video game form. It doesn’t even matter which sport it is, I used to play the likes of Fifa 96, Troy Aikman NFL Football, NBA Jam and NHL 96 for hours as a kid, and while my interest in sports has waned somewhat, I’m still playing their virtual incarnations like a zombie.
As opposed to most other games, there’s always a new version every single year, promising to be better than the last. The squads will be updated, as will the shiny new kits, there might be NEW ANIMATIONS! And that’s all you really get, and for most Fifa fans, that’s all they want, change is bad. Wayne Rooney has graced the cover since 2007 and the only difference is that he’s got progressively uglier.
EA Sports love to throw a gimmick at the rest of us, if David Beckham’s new haircut didn’t persuade us to buy the new game then 360 dribbling will! Or 360 passing! Next year it will 360 heading, like the shitting Exorcist, NEW PROJECTILE VOMITING! When you do eventually buy the latest version you’re left disappointed that they’ve removed all the things you liked about last year’s game.
I like to think I’m better than this, I won’t be fooled by the promise of a brand new game every year, only to hold a near identical copy of the game I only bought 12 months ago, so what I do, I buy them every 48 months, in which I hold a near identical copy of the game I only bought 48 months ago.
Having bought Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 on the *gulp* Nintendo Wii, it was time to buy the latest version, and this time on a console where I didn’t have to swing my arms like a mentalist. Because Tiger Woods “did all that sex” a few years ago, EA Sports have chosen not to have his face on the cover, instead choosing to have The Masters emblazoned all over it, with the tiny words Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 underneath.
Unsurprisingly, this year’s version is all up in the air over The Masters, which for people uninterested in golf (me included) is a golf tournament, and as I have gathered, quite a fancy one. It’s extremely refreshing to have a different menu screen to the one EA Sports has stuck with for all of its games for the past five years.
I like golf games because they’re hypnotically addictive, which is strange because I’m just doing the same thing over and over. I’m definitely not going to have to gun down a terrorist or jump in a helicopter, I’m not even going to get in a golf cart, I’m just going to hit a ball down a field. It shouldn’t be fun, shooting Nazi’s in the face is fun, murdering in renaissance Italy is fun, golf? Fun? Why yes it is.
Sinking a long putt to get an eagle is incredibly satisfying, and for a guy who craves a false sense of achievement, it will be dangerous when I finally get a hole in one, “you coming to work today?”, “Fuck your job, I got a hole in one!”. Tiger Woods will (probably) appeal to any gamers who are “completionists“ because there’s a lot to do. Pretty much everything is unlocked through challenges, you complete a challenge and you have another more difficult one to complete, which is a much more entertaining way of getting Xbox achievements than collecting feathers.
Despite all the fun and japes, there is something substantially annoying about Tiger Woods 12, and it’s not the lack of sex. There are a total of 34 courses, though you only get 16 of these when you buy the game, the rest being available to purchase online. This might be acceptable if it didn’t interfere with the game, but you are constantly reminded that there are events you cannot play until you buy the courses. It might be acceptable if the courses were reasonably priced, but they’re not. It might be acceptable if these courses were produced after the release, but they weren’t. They could have been in the game, but EA Cunts have cynically decided to make us pay for part of a game we have already paid for.
This is nothing new, but it’s a trend that is becoming more and more common as publishers know they can withhold content from a game, sell it separately, and millions of morons will buy it. The publishers are dicks for doing for it, but the people out there enabling them are the real cunts. Tiger Woods 12 may be fun but it’s an insight into the terrible dystopia of video games that has yet to come.
Saturday, 16 April 2011
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Jake 2.Whoah!
In my “early years” I was into the whole PC gaming malarkey, it offered something different to consoles, mainly clicking. Click, click, shitting click. You’d go out and buy a N64 or Playstation game, go home and immediately play it. If you were to go out and buy a PC game, you’d go home and spend half a day installing the game, find out you can’t run it, and wait two years until you can afford an upgrade. Two years later a sequel for that game is released and the cycle repeats.
This offers an unrivalled level of anticipation, but it also costs a hell of a lot money. I gave up long before Crysis came out. Crysis was infamous for its system requirements, roughly seven people in the world were able to play it. So it was strange not only that its sequel (aptly named Crysis 2) was released on consoles, but I also bought it.
It’s a first person shooter, and having played it for a few hours, that’s really the only way I can describe it because I haven’t got a fucking clue to what else is going on. Now the developer must know that no one could play it because there’s an achievement which references the very fact, so why did they make the story so impossible to follow. It’s like watching Manga backwards on mute with your eyes closed.
The story starts straightforward enough, you’re a marine, in a submarine. Then it gets complicated. You find out that you’re called Alcatraz, why have I got the same name as a famous prison? I’m already confused, then the submarine blows up! I’m in the Hudson river, there’s some sort of aircraft shooting lasers and scene. I wake up and I’m told I’ve been put in a nanosuit by a man who is dead. Before I can ask what a nanosuit is I’m being told by this dead man to run about and shoot some people. I don’t even know who these dudes are, but they’re shooting at me so I’m all too happy to oblige. Then the dead man stops talking to me and this other guy starts giving me instructions, and out of nowhere aliens appear and start attacking me. I had a 3D puzzle of the Millennium Falcon which was less confusing than this (note to self: must see if I still have this).
Nanosuit. Nano as in extremely small, suit as in a gentleman’s garment. So it’s a very tiny suit then? No, because playing as a microscopic man shooting the shit out of bacteria would be far too cool. Instead nanosuit just means a really cool suit which does some really cool shit. It’s all too easy to explain something technical by using the word nano, and in this case it’s just a bit like the hit TV show Jake 2.0 (remember that?).
As I’m shouting at the TV “WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!” I’m wondering why Alcatraz isn’t shouting the same thing. He’s just doing what the strangers are telling him, unfazed that he has a magical suit on, and there’s aliens running about. Maybe he knows something that I don’t, maybe he played the first game, if he has a nanosuit he probably has quite a good PC.
I’m still only a few hours in so maybe the plot will unfold and eventually make sense like Akira did after the third viewing. If I miss anything it’s not a game I want to play twice because despite the critical acclaim it’s not very fun. Sure it’s pretty and you can go invisible and that, but it all feels a little sterile. Without a comprehensible plot it all seems pointless, maybe those who understand what’s going on love the game, but for me it’s a bit too much like Halo in the sense that I’m only playing it because everyone else says it’s good.
All good FPS’s must have a good multiplayer, and 9 ranks in and I’m almost not bored yet. It has copied elements from COD but has made a few inspired changes. What makes it different is the nanosuits, it requires a different style of play which encourages players to avoid the dreaded art of camping. Not that it’ll stop nerdy morons developing their own styles to make it as fun as putting your dick in a toaster, which I sometimes do after playing COD.
Like almost every other FPS this is another example of how not to write a story, it’s over complicated and boring, and meandering through the pretty streets of New York might be a bit more impressive if I knew why I was doing it. I may never know though because if I trade it in with five English pounds on Friday, I can have the new Tiger Woods game, and you can’t argue with sex and golf.
This offers an unrivalled level of anticipation, but it also costs a hell of a lot money. I gave up long before Crysis came out. Crysis was infamous for its system requirements, roughly seven people in the world were able to play it. So it was strange not only that its sequel (aptly named Crysis 2) was released on consoles, but I also bought it.
It’s a first person shooter, and having played it for a few hours, that’s really the only way I can describe it because I haven’t got a fucking clue to what else is going on. Now the developer must know that no one could play it because there’s an achievement which references the very fact, so why did they make the story so impossible to follow. It’s like watching Manga backwards on mute with your eyes closed.
The story starts straightforward enough, you’re a marine, in a submarine. Then it gets complicated. You find out that you’re called Alcatraz, why have I got the same name as a famous prison? I’m already confused, then the submarine blows up! I’m in the Hudson river, there’s some sort of aircraft shooting lasers and scene. I wake up and I’m told I’ve been put in a nanosuit by a man who is dead. Before I can ask what a nanosuit is I’m being told by this dead man to run about and shoot some people. I don’t even know who these dudes are, but they’re shooting at me so I’m all too happy to oblige. Then the dead man stops talking to me and this other guy starts giving me instructions, and out of nowhere aliens appear and start attacking me. I had a 3D puzzle of the Millennium Falcon which was less confusing than this (note to self: must see if I still have this).
Nanosuit. Nano as in extremely small, suit as in a gentleman’s garment. So it’s a very tiny suit then? No, because playing as a microscopic man shooting the shit out of bacteria would be far too cool. Instead nanosuit just means a really cool suit which does some really cool shit. It’s all too easy to explain something technical by using the word nano, and in this case it’s just a bit like the hit TV show Jake 2.0 (remember that?).
As I’m shouting at the TV “WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!” I’m wondering why Alcatraz isn’t shouting the same thing. He’s just doing what the strangers are telling him, unfazed that he has a magical suit on, and there’s aliens running about. Maybe he knows something that I don’t, maybe he played the first game, if he has a nanosuit he probably has quite a good PC.
I’m still only a few hours in so maybe the plot will unfold and eventually make sense like Akira did after the third viewing. If I miss anything it’s not a game I want to play twice because despite the critical acclaim it’s not very fun. Sure it’s pretty and you can go invisible and that, but it all feels a little sterile. Without a comprehensible plot it all seems pointless, maybe those who understand what’s going on love the game, but for me it’s a bit too much like Halo in the sense that I’m only playing it because everyone else says it’s good.
All good FPS’s must have a good multiplayer, and 9 ranks in and I’m almost not bored yet. It has copied elements from COD but has made a few inspired changes. What makes it different is the nanosuits, it requires a different style of play which encourages players to avoid the dreaded art of camping. Not that it’ll stop nerdy morons developing their own styles to make it as fun as putting your dick in a toaster, which I sometimes do after playing COD.
Like almost every other FPS this is another example of how not to write a story, it’s over complicated and boring, and meandering through the pretty streets of New York might be a bit more impressive if I knew why I was doing it. I may never know though because if I trade it in with five English pounds on Friday, I can have the new Tiger Woods game, and you can’t argue with sex and golf.
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
"I'm Gonna Kill Your Dick"
It was called the worst game ever, morally speaking (by people who haven’t played it), now Bulletstorm has actually been released have murder rates increased? Has there been a surge in youths kicking old
ladies into giant cacti? No, obviously.
The controversy surrounding Bulletstorm’s release was only ever going to be great publicity for it, why would anyone want to buy the most violent game ever? Maybe not a respectable lady but for fully grown boys it doesn’t get any better than the moniker “most violent game ever”. Not that we’re all sick in head, we can distinguish between murder and a pixelated animation ceasing to move.
There’s no doubt that Bulletstorm has received so much attention and hype because of its violent tendencies, yet the violence is the key to its creativity. In a world where all first person shooters look and feel the same, Bulletstorm attempts to push the boundaries and create something new. Where you would normally just shoot an enemy in a standard FPS, here you are asked to do it with style and are awarded points based on how creative you are.
While this sounds exciting and it initially is, in practice the number of ways to vanquish the pixels is quite limited, you can shoot, whip, kick, slide and shoot. A few hours into the game and it becomes a chore, the only new ways to kill arise in the surroundings, but once you’ve kicked an enemy into one thing, you’ve kicked him into everything.
This wouldn’t matter if the story was good, or even bad. Everything from the plot to the dialogue to the characters is just awful. I can’t remember the last time I played a game which didn’t have a flashback or 500 moments where my character wakes up on the ground disorientated (also known as COD shock).
I’m all for balls out punchy dialogue but somehow “I’m gonna kill your dick” just doesn’t do it for me. Its crude style is intended but where it could have been quite an amusing parody on dumb action movies (ala Duke Nukem) it’s just a bit shit and gets more irritating as you progress through the game.
Much of the dialogue or characterisation doesn’t make any sense, your character is tricked into killing innocent people so his retaliation is to kill, and kill, and kill some more, and while you enable him to do this he’ll come out with some one liners to show how much he enjoys it. Crime and punishment this ain’t. If games are to be taken seriously it’s not violence that will damage their credibility, it’s the quality of writing. Enslaved enlisted Alex Garland to write the story and maybe it’s time that other games did the same and nab an experienced writer.
It’s still a fun game with some great set pieces and bosses but maybe it’s best played with the sound turned down and cut scenes skipped. The inevitable sequel will inevitably up the ante to an inevitable cataclysm of gore and violence as all sequels do, and I’ll still be here to kill its dick.
ladies into giant cacti? No, obviously.
The controversy surrounding Bulletstorm’s release was only ever going to be great publicity for it, why would anyone want to buy the most violent game ever? Maybe not a respectable lady but for fully grown boys it doesn’t get any better than the moniker “most violent game ever”. Not that we’re all sick in head, we can distinguish between murder and a pixelated animation ceasing to move.
There’s no doubt that Bulletstorm has received so much attention and hype because of its violent tendencies, yet the violence is the key to its creativity. In a world where all first person shooters look and feel the same, Bulletstorm attempts to push the boundaries and create something new. Where you would normally just shoot an enemy in a standard FPS, here you are asked to do it with style and are awarded points based on how creative you are.
While this sounds exciting and it initially is, in practice the number of ways to vanquish the pixels is quite limited, you can shoot, whip, kick, slide and shoot. A few hours into the game and it becomes a chore, the only new ways to kill arise in the surroundings, but once you’ve kicked an enemy into one thing, you’ve kicked him into everything.
This wouldn’t matter if the story was good, or even bad. Everything from the plot to the dialogue to the characters is just awful. I can’t remember the last time I played a game which didn’t have a flashback or 500 moments where my character wakes up on the ground disorientated (also known as COD shock).
I’m all for balls out punchy dialogue but somehow “I’m gonna kill your dick” just doesn’t do it for me. Its crude style is intended but where it could have been quite an amusing parody on dumb action movies (ala Duke Nukem) it’s just a bit shit and gets more irritating as you progress through the game.
Much of the dialogue or characterisation doesn’t make any sense, your character is tricked into killing innocent people so his retaliation is to kill, and kill, and kill some more, and while you enable him to do this he’ll come out with some one liners to show how much he enjoys it. Crime and punishment this ain’t. If games are to be taken seriously it’s not violence that will damage their credibility, it’s the quality of writing. Enslaved enlisted Alex Garland to write the story and maybe it’s time that other games did the same and nab an experienced writer.
It’s still a fun game with some great set pieces and bosses but maybe it’s best played with the sound turned down and cut scenes skipped. The inevitable sequel will inevitably up the ante to an inevitable cataclysm of gore and violence as all sequels do, and I’ll still be here to kill its dick.
Saturday, 19 February 2011
Toys Don't Cry
Men, by stereotype, are tough aren’t they? Yeah, they go round shouting and fighting, they’re derogatory towards women, boast about how they fucked that broad last night and she loved it (even if it never happened). This is the stereotypical man, he loves beer, football, tits and most of all being a hard bastard.
It would be wrong to say that all men are like this because after all I’m writing, I’m not outside fighting for the honour of a football team I have needlessly affiliated myself with and therefore become so emotionally attached that match results dictate my moods and feelings, no, I am writing, which in the world of men is considered sissy and gay (unless it’s about football or tits).
Nevertheless every man gets stuck with this tag and when it comes to movies the juxtaposition of this stereotype with “tearjerkers” is apparently hilarious. A woman can watch a sad or emotionally moving film and cry and that’s not a problem because she’s a woman and that’s expected. When a man cries in a film it’s an opportunity to point and laugh at him because of the stereotypical identity that’s been given to him.
This is a stigma that as a fairly sensitive and probably quite sissy man I despise. When will a man be able to cry at a cinema and it not be made into a big deal? When will a man watch a film with his wife and not have to hold the tears back for fear of embarrassment? It’s a moving film and he’s got to let it all out for fuck’s sake! Andy and Red are reunited on the beach and through fear of humiliation we cannot fully embrace this highly emotional homoerotic moment. The Cure famously told us that boys don’t cry, but it’s only because they would get laughed at.
GIFSoup
If only men cried more we wouldn’t have wars. When we’re sad instead of letting it all come out we bottle it up because of fear, and like Yoda said fear turns to anger and eventually the dark side, and we end up with a war all because some bastard couldn’t cry. You might think well hang on you’re exaggerating this but fuck you I’m not, I just watched Toy Story 3 and I cried and I’m fucking ashamed of myself. A film that has become famous for the volume of tears produced from men, not women or children, MEN. When I’m asked if I’ve seen Toy Story 3 in the future and I say yes, I will be asked did you cry? DID YOU CRY? DID YOU CRY? I’m a terrible liar, I will have to say yes, and they will laugh at me, ha ha, ha ha, HA HA HA, because a man crying is something to be laughed at.
It’s not my fault, Toy Story 3 was supposed to make you cry. It was relatable to just about every type of person, it makes you think about the loss of your youth and innocence, of being rejected, of lost friendships and your inevitable loneliness, your own endless futility, becoming old and useless, and if you are old and useless, how your children will abandon you if they haven‘t already. Every way you look at this film it addresses a fear, and what catches a tear in your eye is it telling you that everything is going to be fine.
All of this doesn’t matter, it’s primarily a kids movie and you shouldn’t cry, and if you do you’ll get laughed at, even by men who also cried. What scares me is that Hollywood has noted how effective Toy Story 3 was, how making men cry makes a hit and we have several hundred more tear inducing films to come in which everyone laughs at us. I’d like to say that I’m comfortable crying but in truth I’m not, it’s embarrassing but there’s no way to stop it, I can’t toughen up, men have tried to and failed. They started going to football matches but they just ended up crying there.
It would be wrong to say that all men are like this because after all I’m writing, I’m not outside fighting for the honour of a football team I have needlessly affiliated myself with and therefore become so emotionally attached that match results dictate my moods and feelings, no, I am writing, which in the world of men is considered sissy and gay (unless it’s about football or tits).
Nevertheless every man gets stuck with this tag and when it comes to movies the juxtaposition of this stereotype with “tearjerkers” is apparently hilarious. A woman can watch a sad or emotionally moving film and cry and that’s not a problem because she’s a woman and that’s expected. When a man cries in a film it’s an opportunity to point and laugh at him because of the stereotypical identity that’s been given to him.
This is a stigma that as a fairly sensitive and probably quite sissy man I despise. When will a man be able to cry at a cinema and it not be made into a big deal? When will a man watch a film with his wife and not have to hold the tears back for fear of embarrassment? It’s a moving film and he’s got to let it all out for fuck’s sake! Andy and Red are reunited on the beach and through fear of humiliation we cannot fully embrace this highly emotional homoerotic moment. The Cure famously told us that boys don’t cry, but it’s only because they would get laughed at.
GIFSoup
If only men cried more we wouldn’t have wars. When we’re sad instead of letting it all come out we bottle it up because of fear, and like Yoda said fear turns to anger and eventually the dark side, and we end up with a war all because some bastard couldn’t cry. You might think well hang on you’re exaggerating this but fuck you I’m not, I just watched Toy Story 3 and I cried and I’m fucking ashamed of myself. A film that has become famous for the volume of tears produced from men, not women or children, MEN. When I’m asked if I’ve seen Toy Story 3 in the future and I say yes, I will be asked did you cry? DID YOU CRY? DID YOU CRY? I’m a terrible liar, I will have to say yes, and they will laugh at me, ha ha, ha ha, HA HA HA, because a man crying is something to be laughed at.
It’s not my fault, Toy Story 3 was supposed to make you cry. It was relatable to just about every type of person, it makes you think about the loss of your youth and innocence, of being rejected, of lost friendships and your inevitable loneliness, your own endless futility, becoming old and useless, and if you are old and useless, how your children will abandon you if they haven‘t already. Every way you look at this film it addresses a fear, and what catches a tear in your eye is it telling you that everything is going to be fine.
All of this doesn’t matter, it’s primarily a kids movie and you shouldn’t cry, and if you do you’ll get laughed at, even by men who also cried. What scares me is that Hollywood has noted how effective Toy Story 3 was, how making men cry makes a hit and we have several hundred more tear inducing films to come in which everyone laughs at us. I’d like to say that I’m comfortable crying but in truth I’m not, it’s embarrassing but there’s no way to stop it, I can’t toughen up, men have tried to and failed. They started going to football matches but they just ended up crying there.
Thursday, 17 February 2011
Dead Island
If you look at trending topics on twitter at any given moment you will be forgiven for stabbing yourself in the eye. A list of the most popular topics on twitter is actually an unholy inventory of rage inducing shittery that will make you question the very core of humanity and everything around it. Because what’s “hot” on twitter are fuckwitted inane phrases featuring the likes of Justin Bieber, the Jonas brothers and Lady Gaga. Basically if you’re on MTV 24/7 you’re on twitter 24/7. Twitter can be educational, a much quicker gateway to news and culture than any other means but millions of people aren’t interested in this, no, they just want to proclaim their love or hatred of popular Disney tweens. If you look further into these trending topics you see that most people aren’t actually talking about the topic at all, it’s a long list of morons tweeting “OMG why is Rasputin trending?” or just listing every topic so people will read their tweets and maybe just very maybe will end up following them.
To cut an infinite tangent short, there is one particular thing that is currently trending called Dead Island. I would be right to assume that it’s just another stupid topic, that Justin Bieber has been found dead washed up on an island, or Lady Gaga’s new outfit is of a dead island, but no, this is one of those rare occasions in which twitter has trended something that is worthy of your attention, the problem is that you won’t know that, you’ll assume it isn‘t.
Totally ignoring the trending, and even a few tweets from trusted sources, I eventually stumbled across the trailer for Dead Island this morning (not the show). Dead Island is a forthcoming PS3/Xbox 360 game about an island of zombies, and the trailer at least, is fudging brilliant. It’s pretty rare that a game will appear out of nowhere and get everyone excited, we usually know about them sometimes years before they are released, but like a sex offender lunging at you out of a bush, Dead Island has caught everyone by surprise.
A lot of recent games have been trying to look like movies, fancy cut scenes, big scores, bigger explosions and instead of adverts, they have classy trailers. It’s a concept that works, look at the sales of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and that looked like several movies! As the game industry is becoming ever more popular, marketing is becoming the most vital aspect of it. The popularity of the Nintendo Wii and DS is not because of the excellence of the games, it’s because of Ant and Dec, Helen Mirren and Sir Patrick fucking Stewart.
Dead Island will further change how games are marketed, it might turn out to be dreadful but publishers will have already arranged meetings to turn out a trailer that makes their game look like the dog’s bollocks and the bee’s knees. We might be given lots of pretty looking videos, but film trailers almost always fool us into thinking a film is better than it actually is. Iron Man 2 and Predators both included footage in their trailers that didn’t feature in the final film and who’s to say game trailers won’t do this? They already do.
Hardcore gamers will be dripping in their pants having seen the Dead Island trailer but if history tells us anything we should prepare for disappointment. If there’s two things I love it’s zombies and islands but we don’t know much about the game as of yet and it may prove to be Dead Rising on an island, which no one wants. Of course what we want is a great game and if the trailer could be considered as an indicator of its quality (which it can’t) then we could have something very special.
There are lots of if’s and but’s and by the time Dead Island is released we might have forgotten all about it. In true cynical fashion I am braced for an anti-climax and a barrage of over the top artsy trailers. All that matters for the publishers is that games look good, and like zombies we buy every single one.
To cut an infinite tangent short, there is one particular thing that is currently trending called Dead Island. I would be right to assume that it’s just another stupid topic, that Justin Bieber has been found dead washed up on an island, or Lady Gaga’s new outfit is of a dead island, but no, this is one of those rare occasions in which twitter has trended something that is worthy of your attention, the problem is that you won’t know that, you’ll assume it isn‘t.
Totally ignoring the trending, and even a few tweets from trusted sources, I eventually stumbled across the trailer for Dead Island this morning (not the show). Dead Island is a forthcoming PS3/Xbox 360 game about an island of zombies, and the trailer at least, is fudging brilliant. It’s pretty rare that a game will appear out of nowhere and get everyone excited, we usually know about them sometimes years before they are released, but like a sex offender lunging at you out of a bush, Dead Island has caught everyone by surprise.
A lot of recent games have been trying to look like movies, fancy cut scenes, big scores, bigger explosions and instead of adverts, they have classy trailers. It’s a concept that works, look at the sales of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and that looked like several movies! As the game industry is becoming ever more popular, marketing is becoming the most vital aspect of it. The popularity of the Nintendo Wii and DS is not because of the excellence of the games, it’s because of Ant and Dec, Helen Mirren and Sir Patrick fucking Stewart.
Dead Island will further change how games are marketed, it might turn out to be dreadful but publishers will have already arranged meetings to turn out a trailer that makes their game look like the dog’s bollocks and the bee’s knees. We might be given lots of pretty looking videos, but film trailers almost always fool us into thinking a film is better than it actually is. Iron Man 2 and Predators both included footage in their trailers that didn’t feature in the final film and who’s to say game trailers won’t do this? They already do.
Hardcore gamers will be dripping in their pants having seen the Dead Island trailer but if history tells us anything we should prepare for disappointment. If there’s two things I love it’s zombies and islands but we don’t know much about the game as of yet and it may prove to be Dead Rising on an island, which no one wants. Of course what we want is a great game and if the trailer could be considered as an indicator of its quality (which it can’t) then we could have something very special.
There are lots of if’s and but’s and by the time Dead Island is released we might have forgotten all about it. In true cynical fashion I am braced for an anti-climax and a barrage of over the top artsy trailers. All that matters for the publishers is that games look good, and like zombies we buy every single one.
Saturday, 12 February 2011
Peggle Makes You Kill!
This article was brought to the attention of many a nerd this week and is another hyperbolic rant of fearful accusation that video games are a bad influence. This debate has existed as long as video games have and mainly comes from silly little people who have never played a game in their life before.
Their argument may seem sound, in a game a player is rewarded for acts of violence, and subsequently they will be conditioned to believe that this is the same in reality, with violence becoming the primary answer to a real life conflict. It makes sense if you word it like that and it may even be true in some cases, but some is the key word here. This won’t happen to EVERY gamer and it is close minded to label every gamer has a potential psycho rapist murderer and proclaim that Peggle makes you kill.
In this article, Carole Lieberman, apparently a psychiatrist (not a real science) and an author (anyone can write a book) said that “the increase of rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of sexual scenes in video games”. Carole Lieberman whoever the fuck she is has made the most idiotic thing argument I have ever heard within the video game debate. I’ve played games for as long as I can remember and not in one game have I controlled a character who has been able to rape someone. There have been very few occasions where a player has been able to have sex, and on these occasions it is always boring, and you never see anything. For example in GTA, you could take a prostitute into your car and the car would shake. Furthermore it was not vital to the progression of the game, nor did it reward you. Likewise in Fable (in which the screen blacks out) if you didn’t use a condom you would end up with an STD or a baby, which you would agree is far from a reward. Sex in video games has always been tedious, it will never be vital to the plot and this is why it has and always will appear so little in them, it’s not like Mario has been boning Princess Peach is it?
I’ve been a gamer all my life, I’ve not raped or murdered anyone, I’ve not been cruel to animals, I’ve never been in a fight in my life, I hate any kind of conflict, so can you really say that they have been a bad influence on me? I’m not the only one, I’m guessing that the majority of gamers are by modern standards, normal. The recent popularity of the industry proves this, otherwise the world would be overrun by vagrants raping and murdering each other, which it isn’t.
At a very young age I was constantly surrounded by “bad” influences, I played Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, I watched Schwarzenegger (wow, spelt that right first time) films all the time, I watched wrestling, there were naughty kids at school and out of school, and it was the same in my adolescence, I listened to Eminem, I watched Tarantino films, watched porn, politicians did bad things, footballers did bad things, everyone and thing around me was the epitome of immorality, and I have never stolen, raped or murdered. It is not always monkey see monkey do, in my experience bad influences are a deterrent. When I play something like GTA, and I’m shooting everyone who comes on screen, the police will come after me, and then SWAT teams, and the FBI, and the army, and eventually they will shoot and kill me, just as in real life games have consequences.
You could even argue that games are actually a good influence. Scientific research has shown that they can actually improve cognitive processing while in my experience playing the likes of Civilisation and Medieval: Total War has greatly improved my knowledge of history and geography. No longer is staying in your room all day anti-social, online gaming is a great way of socialising if used in the correct way, and playing games are one of the best ways to bond and cement a friendship. They are supposed to be fun and if the line between game and reality blurs, then you’re probably mental if you play games or not.
Their argument may seem sound, in a game a player is rewarded for acts of violence, and subsequently they will be conditioned to believe that this is the same in reality, with violence becoming the primary answer to a real life conflict. It makes sense if you word it like that and it may even be true in some cases, but some is the key word here. This won’t happen to EVERY gamer and it is close minded to label every gamer has a potential psycho rapist murderer and proclaim that Peggle makes you kill.
In this article, Carole Lieberman, apparently a psychiatrist (not a real science) and an author (anyone can write a book) said that “the increase of rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of sexual scenes in video games”. Carole Lieberman whoever the fuck she is has made the most idiotic thing argument I have ever heard within the video game debate. I’ve played games for as long as I can remember and not in one game have I controlled a character who has been able to rape someone. There have been very few occasions where a player has been able to have sex, and on these occasions it is always boring, and you never see anything. For example in GTA, you could take a prostitute into your car and the car would shake. Furthermore it was not vital to the progression of the game, nor did it reward you. Likewise in Fable (in which the screen blacks out) if you didn’t use a condom you would end up with an STD or a baby, which you would agree is far from a reward. Sex in video games has always been tedious, it will never be vital to the plot and this is why it has and always will appear so little in them, it’s not like Mario has been boning Princess Peach is it?
I’ve been a gamer all my life, I’ve not raped or murdered anyone, I’ve not been cruel to animals, I’ve never been in a fight in my life, I hate any kind of conflict, so can you really say that they have been a bad influence on me? I’m not the only one, I’m guessing that the majority of gamers are by modern standards, normal. The recent popularity of the industry proves this, otherwise the world would be overrun by vagrants raping and murdering each other, which it isn’t.
At a very young age I was constantly surrounded by “bad” influences, I played Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, I watched Schwarzenegger (wow, spelt that right first time) films all the time, I watched wrestling, there were naughty kids at school and out of school, and it was the same in my adolescence, I listened to Eminem, I watched Tarantino films, watched porn, politicians did bad things, footballers did bad things, everyone and thing around me was the epitome of immorality, and I have never stolen, raped or murdered. It is not always monkey see monkey do, in my experience bad influences are a deterrent. When I play something like GTA, and I’m shooting everyone who comes on screen, the police will come after me, and then SWAT teams, and the FBI, and the army, and eventually they will shoot and kill me, just as in real life games have consequences.
You could even argue that games are actually a good influence. Scientific research has shown that they can actually improve cognitive processing while in my experience playing the likes of Civilisation and Medieval: Total War has greatly improved my knowledge of history and geography. No longer is staying in your room all day anti-social, online gaming is a great way of socialising if used in the correct way, and playing games are one of the best ways to bond and cement a friendship. They are supposed to be fun and if the line between game and reality blurs, then you’re probably mental if you play games or not.
Thursday, 10 February 2011
Beautiful Gypsies are Better Than You!
Gypsies have a hard time don’t they? If you ever see one on TV they’re usually putting a curse on someone and it’s this type of stereotyping that Big Fat Gypsy Weddings is trying to rid the world of. Because of course they don’t go round putting curses on vampires and such, you would be a dickhead to think that, in fact according to Big Fat Gypsy Weddings they’re just like you and me, but better.
BFGW has the honour of being the most watched Channel 4 programme since Big Brother back in 2008. A sentence that should read “8 million watch Peep Show again” actually reads “BFGW is the most watched programme since Big Brother”. I never understood Big Brother, what should have been an opportunity to judge those horrible desperate people became a platform to put them on a pedestal and praise their every breath and bowel movements. It remained partly popular not by judgers but by people who wanted to be just like them, they wanted to sit in a house and talk, and then not have to work for the rest of their lives. BFGW should be a stage for judgement, but instead it’s a stage for love, appreciation and envy, gosh they have a nice life, swoon!
The modern English preconception of a gypsy (or pikey) is of a horrible person who doesn’t pay taxes and leaves shit everywhere. While it would obviously be wrong to tarnish a whole community with the same shitty brush it is equally wrong to so fervently paint an eloquent picture of an idyllic wanderlust paradise, and that’s what Channel 4 have done. You would expect a documentary such as this to be judgemental, to point at the gypsies and go “ergh look at them! They smell, look at that boy riding a horse, what a prick, they make me sick”.
Instead it’s actually quite biased towards the gypsies, turning a blind eye towards things that a “normal” person would be judged for. Take the gypsy art of grabbing for example, where a man will “grab” a woman and do what they like. Not even the dictionary has a nice definition of the word grab, but the producers of BFGW cared not for what was probably just slang for rape and moved quickly on, ignoring a helpless girl in a car park.
With a tweaked narration the show could be very different, with all the grabbing and fighting and suspiciously expensive cars there should be at the very least a mention that the sun doesn’t shine out of all their arseholes. Why not ask them where they really get all their money from? One man hired a fucking helicopter! It’s as if the producers were afraid to make them look bad, perhaps they’ve seen Snatch and would rather not be shot.
Every girl and woman is portrayed as strong and beautiful, and every man is strong and masculine. There must be some scummy gypsies out there, the show may be highlighting that they’re good people, but if you take a random handful of people, at least one of them will be a cunt, (as it’s known in mathematics, the cunt coefficient). BFGW doesn’t know the meaning of the word and would have you believe that despite all the bad things we can clearly see them doing, they’re courteous, affable, honest, civilised people, and you’d be lucky to be half as good as they are.
The title, Big Fat Gypsy Weddings is misleading as the whole wedding thing takes a backseat and is a mere footnote, a more fitting title would be Beautiful Gypsies are Better Than You! Though that would be a lie because when you are presented with a wedding it just looks like Jordan’s, only slightly less/more tacky. It’s not just the bride who looks like Jordan though, it’s every woman, girl and even baby, and here is where the judging/admiring takes place depending on where you stand on morality, “Oh they’re beautiful!”, “They look like Jordan”.
If you’re an idiot and didn’t quite understand what was going on with all the moving pictures and narration, there’s some scouse woman to tell you everything about gypsies every five minutes, how do we know what she’s saying is true? She could be making this all up, “every Tuesday a gypsy eats a squirrel”. Her presence is bewildering and it makes you want to see a documentary called Big Fat Scouse Wedding Planners in which gypsies tell us all about her, “I wanted a traditional church wedding and she made me look like fucking Jordan!”
Perhaps I’ve misinterpreted the show, perhaps I’ve become too pessimistic of mankind and nothing can escape my ghastly cynicism, you could have a documentary about charity workers and I’d probably call them all cunts. Perhaps as a nation we have become a society where we need to judge others to feel good about ourselves. Am I naïve to think that this show could have been anything other than a device for judging? Are the majority of the viewers still judging gypsies despite the show’s spin? And has our opinion of gypsies changed in the slightest? Answers on a postcard.
BFGW has the honour of being the most watched Channel 4 programme since Big Brother back in 2008. A sentence that should read “8 million watch Peep Show again” actually reads “BFGW is the most watched programme since Big Brother”. I never understood Big Brother, what should have been an opportunity to judge those horrible desperate people became a platform to put them on a pedestal and praise their every breath and bowel movements. It remained partly popular not by judgers but by people who wanted to be just like them, they wanted to sit in a house and talk, and then not have to work for the rest of their lives. BFGW should be a stage for judgement, but instead it’s a stage for love, appreciation and envy, gosh they have a nice life, swoon!
The modern English preconception of a gypsy (or pikey) is of a horrible person who doesn’t pay taxes and leaves shit everywhere. While it would obviously be wrong to tarnish a whole community with the same shitty brush it is equally wrong to so fervently paint an eloquent picture of an idyllic wanderlust paradise, and that’s what Channel 4 have done. You would expect a documentary such as this to be judgemental, to point at the gypsies and go “ergh look at them! They smell, look at that boy riding a horse, what a prick, they make me sick”.
Instead it’s actually quite biased towards the gypsies, turning a blind eye towards things that a “normal” person would be judged for. Take the gypsy art of grabbing for example, where a man will “grab” a woman and do what they like. Not even the dictionary has a nice definition of the word grab, but the producers of BFGW cared not for what was probably just slang for rape and moved quickly on, ignoring a helpless girl in a car park.
With a tweaked narration the show could be very different, with all the grabbing and fighting and suspiciously expensive cars there should be at the very least a mention that the sun doesn’t shine out of all their arseholes. Why not ask them where they really get all their money from? One man hired a fucking helicopter! It’s as if the producers were afraid to make them look bad, perhaps they’ve seen Snatch and would rather not be shot.
Every girl and woman is portrayed as strong and beautiful, and every man is strong and masculine. There must be some scummy gypsies out there, the show may be highlighting that they’re good people, but if you take a random handful of people, at least one of them will be a cunt, (as it’s known in mathematics, the cunt coefficient). BFGW doesn’t know the meaning of the word and would have you believe that despite all the bad things we can clearly see them doing, they’re courteous, affable, honest, civilised people, and you’d be lucky to be half as good as they are.
The title, Big Fat Gypsy Weddings is misleading as the whole wedding thing takes a backseat and is a mere footnote, a more fitting title would be Beautiful Gypsies are Better Than You! Though that would be a lie because when you are presented with a wedding it just looks like Jordan’s, only slightly less/more tacky. It’s not just the bride who looks like Jordan though, it’s every woman, girl and even baby, and here is where the judging/admiring takes place depending on where you stand on morality, “Oh they’re beautiful!”, “They look like Jordan”.
If you’re an idiot and didn’t quite understand what was going on with all the moving pictures and narration, there’s some scouse woman to tell you everything about gypsies every five minutes, how do we know what she’s saying is true? She could be making this all up, “every Tuesday a gypsy eats a squirrel”. Her presence is bewildering and it makes you want to see a documentary called Big Fat Scouse Wedding Planners in which gypsies tell us all about her, “I wanted a traditional church wedding and she made me look like fucking Jordan!”
Perhaps I’ve misinterpreted the show, perhaps I’ve become too pessimistic of mankind and nothing can escape my ghastly cynicism, you could have a documentary about charity workers and I’d probably call them all cunts. Perhaps as a nation we have become a society where we need to judge others to feel good about ourselves. Am I naïve to think that this show could have been anything other than a device for judging? Are the majority of the viewers still judging gypsies despite the show’s spin? And has our opinion of gypsies changed in the slightest? Answers on a postcard.
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
Man of British Steel
There’s been an absolute clusterfuck of shit happening in the world of comic book movies, at least if you’re a geek, nerd or fanboy. To the “normal” person it’s awards season, all dresses, Colin Firth and shit, but for the geeks it’s jizz in your own mouth season. Aside from the slew of screenshots for the likes of Spider-Man, Captain America and the X-People (thanks Andy Gray) the big news for the socially awkward virgins is that Henry Cavill is Superman.
Holy jiminy fuck nuggets Batman! That guy from The Tudors (no, the other one) will be the first British Superman, who let us not forget is everything a symbol for America as Abraham Lincoln, Elvis Presley and obesity. How the Americans will take this news I don’t know but for us Brits we can relax in the knowledge that at the very least there will be one good performance in the film.
It’s something of a continuing trend to cast a Brit as a superhero and why not? We’re fucking Great remember. Robert Pattinson aside we have some great young actors while the US only really have Jesse Eisenberg and Michael Cera, both are hardly super hero types. With the likes of Cage, Pitt, Damon, Depp and DiCaprio heading ever further away from their youth there aren’t any big stars for the action roles. Chris Evans and Ryan Reynolds have both had multiple super hero roles already, they can’t share all the roles so Hollywood has looked towards good ol’ Britain to fill the roles.
Back in the 90’s even Robin Hood was American, but everything has changed. With Christian Bale, James McAvoy, Aaron Johnson, Andrew Garfield (he counts), Tom Hardy, Idris Elba, Anthony Hopkins, Patrick Stewart, Michael Caine, Helen Mirren, Mark Strong and even Nicholas Hoult appearing in comic book movies (let’s not forget Andrew Lincoln in The Walking Dead) is it any surprise that Cavill has been cast as Superman?
So he might not be the biggest actor out there but neither were Christopher Reeve and Brandon Routh and they did better than alright. As long as he can awkwardly fumble as Clark Kent, walk with his pants on the outside and pretend to lift things he’ll be a success. The casting of Superman should be the least of the producers concern, with numerous interpretations of the hero already out there it will be incredibly difficult to make a film that is both exciting and original all while keeping to the traditional canon.
If rumours of the casting of Lois Lane are true and any of Kristen Stewart, Glee’s Diana Agron, Rachel McAdams and Jessica Biel are cast then we can all go home now and never speak of this fucking awful monstrosity ever again, but if Olivia Wilde turns out to be Lois Lane we can all jump and high five each other, though it would be in her contract to have at least one lesbian scene…More high fives!
There’s no doubt that Lex Luthor will be the villain because Superman hasn’t got many classic enemies, it’s not like Gus Gorman will be making a comeback (on skis!) so there will be much speculation to who will be perfect for Lex Luthor, though I’m sure there are forums awash with ideas (and demands) already.
If the trend of British actors wasn’t enough we’ve found ourselves getting excited and writing about films that won’t be released for well over a year, be it about the Avengers or Batman we have a live news feed of the smallest of details and the sad thing is I’m here as always typing away about all of it - get a life you loser. The announcement of Henry Cavill may seem premature but at least it will stop thousands of fanboys ejaculating cries of “NATHAN FILLION!” to the question of who should play Superman.
Holy jiminy fuck nuggets Batman! That guy from The Tudors (no, the other one) will be the first British Superman, who let us not forget is everything a symbol for America as Abraham Lincoln, Elvis Presley and obesity. How the Americans will take this news I don’t know but for us Brits we can relax in the knowledge that at the very least there will be one good performance in the film.
It’s something of a continuing trend to cast a Brit as a superhero and why not? We’re fucking Great remember. Robert Pattinson aside we have some great young actors while the US only really have Jesse Eisenberg and Michael Cera, both are hardly super hero types. With the likes of Cage, Pitt, Damon, Depp and DiCaprio heading ever further away from their youth there aren’t any big stars for the action roles. Chris Evans and Ryan Reynolds have both had multiple super hero roles already, they can’t share all the roles so Hollywood has looked towards good ol’ Britain to fill the roles.
Back in the 90’s even Robin Hood was American, but everything has changed. With Christian Bale, James McAvoy, Aaron Johnson, Andrew Garfield (he counts), Tom Hardy, Idris Elba, Anthony Hopkins, Patrick Stewart, Michael Caine, Helen Mirren, Mark Strong and even Nicholas Hoult appearing in comic book movies (let’s not forget Andrew Lincoln in The Walking Dead) is it any surprise that Cavill has been cast as Superman?
So he might not be the biggest actor out there but neither were Christopher Reeve and Brandon Routh and they did better than alright. As long as he can awkwardly fumble as Clark Kent, walk with his pants on the outside and pretend to lift things he’ll be a success. The casting of Superman should be the least of the producers concern, with numerous interpretations of the hero already out there it will be incredibly difficult to make a film that is both exciting and original all while keeping to the traditional canon.
If rumours of the casting of Lois Lane are true and any of Kristen Stewart, Glee’s Diana Agron, Rachel McAdams and Jessica Biel are cast then we can all go home now and never speak of this fucking awful monstrosity ever again, but if Olivia Wilde turns out to be Lois Lane we can all jump and high five each other, though it would be in her contract to have at least one lesbian scene…More high fives!
There’s no doubt that Lex Luthor will be the villain because Superman hasn’t got many classic enemies, it’s not like Gus Gorman will be making a comeback (on skis!) so there will be much speculation to who will be perfect for Lex Luthor, though I’m sure there are forums awash with ideas (and demands) already.
If the trend of British actors wasn’t enough we’ve found ourselves getting excited and writing about films that won’t be released for well over a year, be it about the Avengers or Batman we have a live news feed of the smallest of details and the sad thing is I’m here as always typing away about all of it - get a life you loser. The announcement of Henry Cavill may seem premature but at least it will stop thousands of fanboys ejaculating cries of “NATHAN FILLION!” to the question of who should play Superman.
Saturday, 15 January 2011
King Firth
My last post didn’t take long to write at all, after all it’s much easier to write about something you feel disdain for than something you genuinely like. This blog is redolent with negativity, it thrives on it like a pig in shit. So it’s somewhat difficult and perhaps uninteresting to say that The King’s Speech is actually very good.
Of course you probably already know that, there’s a horde of positive reviews and it’s expected that Colin Firth will take home just about every award there is this year, even Slovenian footballer of the year. Despite knowing all this prior to seeing the film I predicted I wouldn’t enjoy it a great deal, I tend to resent these kind of films, how can they possibly live up to their pretentious reviews? They can’t be that good I think to myself and usually they’re not, but The King’s Speech somehow lived up to its grandiose reviews.
I often find critics get carried away with hyperbole when describing a performance as “powerful” or “mesmerising” or “like finding a pound - will make your day”. Much to the dismay of my cynicism Colin Firth’s performance in The King’s Speech is powerful, and it is mesmerising, it’s full of heart and soul, of fear and bravery, it’s like finding a five pound note. Yet Firth isn’t the only one to stand out, Geoffrey Rush is as equally impressive and in his short screen time Michael Gambon nearly manages to steal the whole darn show. Never have I ever sat at the cinema and thought to myself “wow this is good acting”, I’m not the sort of wanker who does that I ended up saying to myself (in my head - I‘m not mental) “gee whiz this is great acting”. What have I become?
It’s been embarrassing watching the English portrayed in film and television recently. Anyone who has seen The Tudors will understand what I mean, not only was it not interesting it was historically inaccurate as well. I understand that Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character but he is such a quintessential staple of our culture that it’s offensive if you besmirch us with something like Guy Richie’s adaptation. The King’s Speech is unequivocally English however and it makes up for these embarrassments by being a true depiction of our nation and our culture and it’s somewhat bewildering that it was written by an American.
To call it a historical drama doesn’t do it justice, foreign audiences (and even English) may feel alienated from the subject matter but they will relate its deeply personal content and this is what makes it special. Most historical films are very rigid and offer little in terms of true emotion and sentiment but you can relate to The King’s Speech, it is about overcoming fear above anything else and this is what sets it apart from the rest of the crowd. Of course nothing says overcoming fear like facing giant robots, so I will wait for Transformers 3 before I declare this the film of the year.
Of course you probably already know that, there’s a horde of positive reviews and it’s expected that Colin Firth will take home just about every award there is this year, even Slovenian footballer of the year. Despite knowing all this prior to seeing the film I predicted I wouldn’t enjoy it a great deal, I tend to resent these kind of films, how can they possibly live up to their pretentious reviews? They can’t be that good I think to myself and usually they’re not, but The King’s Speech somehow lived up to its grandiose reviews.
I often find critics get carried away with hyperbole when describing a performance as “powerful” or “mesmerising” or “like finding a pound - will make your day”. Much to the dismay of my cynicism Colin Firth’s performance in The King’s Speech is powerful, and it is mesmerising, it’s full of heart and soul, of fear and bravery, it’s like finding a five pound note. Yet Firth isn’t the only one to stand out, Geoffrey Rush is as equally impressive and in his short screen time Michael Gambon nearly manages to steal the whole darn show. Never have I ever sat at the cinema and thought to myself “wow this is good acting”, I’m not the sort of wanker who does that I ended up saying to myself (in my head - I‘m not mental) “gee whiz this is great acting”. What have I become?
It’s been embarrassing watching the English portrayed in film and television recently. Anyone who has seen The Tudors will understand what I mean, not only was it not interesting it was historically inaccurate as well. I understand that Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character but he is such a quintessential staple of our culture that it’s offensive if you besmirch us with something like Guy Richie’s adaptation. The King’s Speech is unequivocally English however and it makes up for these embarrassments by being a true depiction of our nation and our culture and it’s somewhat bewildering that it was written by an American.
To call it a historical drama doesn’t do it justice, foreign audiences (and even English) may feel alienated from the subject matter but they will relate its deeply personal content and this is what makes it special. Most historical films are very rigid and offer little in terms of true emotion and sentiment but you can relate to The King’s Speech, it is about overcoming fear above anything else and this is what sets it apart from the rest of the crowd. Of course nothing says overcoming fear like facing giant robots, so I will wait for Transformers 3 before I declare this the film of the year.
Wednesday, 12 January 2011
BOND IS BACK!
BOND IS BACK! Or he will be back, sometime next year, schedule permitting. I’m going to throw it out into the wide open, I don’t like James Bond, and you may think you like James Bond but let me tell you that you don’t, you don’t you hear me! James Bond is for people who read Haynes manuals and do crosswords, Alan Partridge loves James Bond, I wouldn’t be surprised if every hardcore Bond fan owned a Castrol GTX jacket.
My problem with Bond doesn’t stem from the average quality of the films, it’s with the character himself. James Bond should be the epitome of coolness, that’s what they want you to think, it’s what they’re aiming for, they may have succeeded back in the 60’s when womanising was cool but in this modern age, he’s a massive prick. If my job involved having a licence to kill and I used it, I wouldn’t be so chirpy all the time I’d be a fucking wreck, I certainly wouldn’t make quips about it! “How was work darling?” “I did another murder! I can’t go on!” Not that I’d have a wife is I was James Bond, because I’d be too fucking sexy for one woman, no I’d saunter around the world fucking everything I see with the worst chat up lines in the world inexplicably working every time, and not only that I’d wear a tuxedo 24/7! ARGH!
So Bond is a murdering womanising unfunny prick in a tux, not only that he wears expensive watches which he MUST point out to you and drives expensive cars and smashes them up, tax payers probably paid for that Aston Martin as well as all your tuxes James, if that’s your real name!
The films aren’t much better, they are not bad but for a franchise with such a high reputation there is not one film that is amazing, and there’s 22 of them! Furthermore there are some pretty dog shit ones as well, take Die Another Day for example. A North Korean man turns into an English man via a DNA transplant or some crazy shit, he creates some kind of artificial sun which he uses to chase Bond off a cliff, who somehow survives and kills the North Korean/English man, and to make matters worse Madonna is in it. If it wasn’t a Bond movie you’d spit your beverage in my face, but because it’s Bond they get away with it, people see it and they like it. If something is a classic you condition yourself to like it, to be receptive of it and that’s what we do with Bond, we think it’s great because we’re told it’s great, by middle aged men who still think womanising is the bees knees.
With the news of a 23rd film many have come in their pants but I’ve not got so much as a semi, I hope I’m wrong and “Live and Let Quantum Diamonds Kill Forever in Russia Another Day Pussy Royale” is a great film.
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