Meetings...

Meetings: the time for a gathering of thought, a diplomatic exchange of ideas, and pragmatic decision-making.

Or, if you're me, a chance to doodle tits and cocks.

Upon discovery of my meeting notebook at work the other day, I found myself examining my own desperately juvenile subconscious, a slightly troubling experience if I’m honest. Peering into the sketches of a wandering mind is like having your most private and baffling dreams projected at a public screening. Sigmund Freud narrates his theories to the audience, outlining exactly why you’re a complete and total dick. In that respect, publishing these pictures may not seem the best course of action.

But hey, since when have I been the one for “the best course of action”? Plus, I’m a complete and total dick, yeah? The following is just a 1/3 sample of what I discovered. Enjoy!

Bat signal, "Hamer" logos, and a fat Chinese man. All pretty standard so far.

Helpfully labelled "tits" and "arse", a cock and a thumbs-up, which appears to be approving this madness.

So - Hitler, an offensively stereotypical "Chinese" peasant, and some tits. Erm, ok...

Freddy Kruger, Batman and Jason Voorhees. I am 33 years old.

Oh fucking hell - a giant guitar, the name of my band, and what I'm going to eat for lunch. Plus more Hamer logos...

I'm fired, aren't I?

Let Console Flamewars Rage!

Arguing that arguments are worth arguing about...

By their very nature, gamers are competitive. We may just lie back in our underwear with thumbs aloft, mouths open and eyes glazed, yet it’s sheer passion that keeps us playing. But often our biggest gaming battles take place away from our HUDs and health bars, and we wage an altogether different war on the pixelated turf of the internet.

FIIIIIGHT! Go on then, you plastic pricks.

Of course, we kid ourselves that we’re all mature these days, what with our games about child abduction, 15th century Renaissance Italy and, you know, firing fistfuls of bees, but ultimately, we’re all itching to indulge in a bit of digital dick swinging.  Childish? Yes. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. On the contrary, it’s an intrinsic and crucial part of the culture – that burning desire to champion your console to the detriment of the other ‘side’.

We should embrace these absurd clashes and enjoy them for what they are; a tongue-in-cheek bit of leg-pulling between friends. Plus the discussion, the nitpicking, can actually drive development. Take the recent storm over Skyrim’s woeful disintegration on PlayStation. Early complaints – ignored by Bethesda – were suddenly taken very seriously when the 360 camp’s enormous bellow of schadenfreude alerted the developers to the PS3’s ‘epic fail’.

Skyrim's PS3 programming blunder left fans bewildered and furious. And beardy, probably.

Incessant in-fighting amongst the community is key to the industry’s survival. Nobody wants to back a loser, so each company is forced to compete for our affection, our aggression, and our downright intolerance. “Xbox is getting a web browser and the BBC iPlayer!” wrote a friend of mine on Facebook,  “Two less reasons to own a PS3!” To which someone else instinctively retorted, “When is it getting a blu-ray player and free online community then?”

Needless kneejerking to some, progressive pedantry to others.

Nathan Drake's impossible quest: to find a copy of Uncharted on 360

The point is nevertheless clear: keep fans on side, or die by reputation. There’s a reason Sony and Microsoft bid obscene amounts for console-specific DLC or single-platform releases – bragging rights. If we can boast about our rival’s lack of envy-inducing exclusives, such as LittleBigPlanet or Uncharted, it’s a genuine boost to the PlayStation brand. If better regard means more sales, then that means more money – which in turn means more and better games.

Microsoft's alien zapper Halo is a crucial part of Xbox's marketing strategy

Of course, to many such behaviour seems downright peculiar. A console is, after all, an electrical appliance. If our parents started bitter, poorly-spelt rants aimed at those who had purchased a rival to their preferred trouser press, we would – quite rightly – think them a red light short of a meltdown. But that’s to confuse a console with gaming: gaming is so much more than ironing leg wear – it’s something that defines us as much as our music, clothes or our favourite video on YouPorn.

"Maple? Are you mental?! Satin Chrome is where it's at, motherfucker."

The occasional overheat of internet flame wars shouldn't detract from the majority of players indulging in a spot of light-hearted banter. We should be able to express ourselves without fear of the zealous, keyboard-mashing idiots that would otherwise have the run of the playground.

Football’s trouble-makers carry knives and use violence. All ours carry are a cloak of anonymity, some disappointing hyperbole and an armful of exclamation marks. Yet we’re the ones who shy away from a bit of cheeky bickering? Soccer hooliganism doesn’t dictate the terms of their level of fandom – City fans still openly mock United and vice versa. If they’re able to chant at the opposition during matches, then surely we should be free to do the same?

"That's for thinking that Gran Turismo's better than Forza. And you're next, you Sega fuck."

To flirt with the rage is to show that we’re actually mature enough to disengage the caps lock and engage with the debate. Like football teams, we’re rivals, not enemies.

With the average age of a gamer pegged in the mid-to-late thirties, the pastime becomes ever more determined to take itself seriously. As it strives for legitimacy as a serious form, its supporters strive to be seen as grown up too – hence the disdain for the excesses of the flame wars. But conflict needn’t compromise that; conversely, it can serve to support and shape the future of gaming. Wars drive technology forward, and they always have.

So get online, get disputing and help shape the future. Just be aware that calling a rival electrical appliance ‘gay’ won’t help anything.

Mass Effect 3. Gay and good. I'm sure I had a point to make with this photo, but I've since forgotten it.

Films I Done Seen

Three films seen recently for the first time, so thought I'd transcribe my worthless opinions to the desperately transient medium of the internet for all to ignore. Enjoy.

Pieces (1982)

Dir: Juan Piquer Simón

A gloriously silly slasher written by the quill of crud, Joe D’Amato. Played dead straight by the bewildered cast, its excruciating dialogue (including the infamous trio of "BASTARD!"s) and irrational plot pathways make for an immensely enjoyable watch.

Shot with vigour and admirable enthusiasm, it’s consistently entertaining and, provided you can put up with the casual misogyny and splatter, a strong contender for a film that's genuinely "so bad it’s good”. Christopher George’s cigar-chewing Detective is an oddly-reassuring presence amongst all the absurdity. Recommended to anyone with a sense of humour and a strong stomach.

Christopher George: chompy

Axe: choppy

Mad Max (1979)

Dir: George Miller

Max is surprisingly sane throughout. Swiz.

An utterly disposable but oddly compulsive movie that revels in its own simplistic adolescence. Miller’s visual flair for both location and astonishingly brutal high-speed action scenes are to be admired, far more so than the sparse script and cartoonish performances. Making the audience really work to care about the characters is a failure of the film rather than an artistic endeavour. The cynical introduction and subsequent smashing down of narrative ciphers to provide the protagonist’s motivation is pure comic book revenge fantasy. It would be more hateful if it weren’t so well executed (pun probably intended) although less appealing is the faint whiff of wish-fulfilment fascism the film emanates.

Mel Gibson’s blank-eyed husk of a performance staples some much-needed sanity to the madness of the first two thirds, comparing favourably to the zany dross offered by the rest of the cast. The soundtrack is sub-soap opera schmaltz, as ill-fitting as Max’s leather slacks. Bitching aside, you could paint your eyeballs with far worse colours than the palette on offer here, but be aware that its gloss shines dimly. A weak recommend.

 

Fatal Games (1984)

Dir: Michael Elliot

A remarkably juvenile stalk n’ slash made for less than the price of a gift in a Dollar Store and with none of the quality and craftsmanship such an item would entail. Based in some kind of Athlete's Academy, Fatal Games involves nubile Olympic hopefuls being speared to grisly demise. It's a plot that, rather fittingly for a “javelin slasher”, you don’t have to suspend your disbelief so much as hurl it into the clouds. With many scenes conducted entirely in one long shot, getting through this film is an arduous task akin to a marathon (except undertaking said event would at least carry the benefit of making you feel good about yourself afterwards).

Even at eighty eight minutes long, it’s badly-paced and loosely edited; the low budget equalled only by the aspirations of its production team. Resultantly, this is a tedious load of old tut. The cheese-coated power rock theme song espousing the virtues of athletic achievement is the best thing in it, and even that’s complete shit.

There's a rubbish pun to be made here about a spear-based horror film being pointless but hell, Fatal Games doesn't even deserve that.

Float Like a Butterfly, Dance Like a Tit

Finding the fiercest floor moves to fight my foes.



“I dance under those lights.” Muhammad Ali.

Brutality apart, fighting and dancing share commonality; a high-level of dexterity, a keen level of fitness and the fact that most of Britain ends up doing either or both after a few too many every weekend. Seeking to test this theory, I took a copy of underwhelming brawl simulator “The Fight”, gaming’s third favourite motion control system PS Move, and pop’s biggest dance crazes of the past three decades.

My nemesis: a green-hooded hooligan from planet ASBO. My plan: a pasting-by-prancing. What follows is a blow-by-glowstick real time account. Seconds out…

The Cheeky Girls – The Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum)

As Transylvania’s inane pop insult strikes up my challenger starts to encroach on my space. I launch into a 360˚ pirouette, thrusting my arms into the air as per the eponymous pair.

#We are the Cheeky Girls#

BANG! I’m pummelled by a right hook. Undeterred, I dance on, stretching both arms out one at a time.

#You are the Cheeky Boys#

Amazingly, I connect with his face. Given the lack of velocity however, I’m barely tickling his chin and he lands several blows in return. Changing tack, I opt for the bridge section instead. Big mistake.



Touch their bum. Go on, see where it gets you.



#Touch my bum#

Unsurprisingly, having to retreat your fists from battle to grab your own buttocks isn’t a tactic often observed in boxing, if ever. He takes this opportunity to pummel me senseless, and the crowd boo my sheer ineptitude. The fight is over, and I have quite literally been handed my own arse.

Los del Rio – The Macarena

Round one down, and onto the automated shuffle of joyless obedience that is the Macarena, a routine everyone in the world knows, except me. It’s often touted as “the dance for people who can’t dance” which I find a curiously self-defeating promotion; would McDonalds advertise themselves as “the restaurant chain for people who don’t like eating”? Regardless, three minutes of YouTube tutorial later and I’m ready.



Should a dance really need air flight safety-style instructions?



I sternly bring both arms out catching my enemy in the chops. A congratulatory award flashes up telling me how shit-kickingly hard I am. Result! Flipping my hands round stuns him further and I’m about to open several vending machines of carbonated Whup-Ass on his ugly mug when I realise my next move is, yet again, a surrender of arms and bum-grabbing.

He rounds on me as I continue with my insipid combat-free steps. Limply, I begin the process again, but despite a couple more light jabs, I’m defeated like a divorcee weeping into his ex-wife’s empty knicker drawer.

Village People – Y.M.C.A

If ever a song could batter a brawler then surely it’s this one? I mean, that menacing moustachioed guy in the leather – you wouldn’t want to meet him up a dark alley threatening you with a piece of piping, would you?

The Village People. Real men.

#Young man!#

I thrust my arm forwards, taking my opponent by surprise. He deflects the blow and returns several mid-rib punches of his own. I suddenly realise I only know the chorus so stand motionless, allowing my beleaguered avatar to accept the defenceless punishment being meted out to him.

I start to feel desperately sorry for the polygons that created him, as if they’re somehow screaming at me, “We could have been contenders! We could have been Kane, dammit! Or, at a push, Lynch.”

Damn. My stupid plan has made poor, powerless polygons wish they were sub-standard video games characters instead of the shirtless schmuck on screen. They need this like I need an Anne Widdecombe sextape – it’s time to fight back.

#YMCA!#

I dance with a renewed vigour, dignity not an option (dignity and I were never the best of friends, but tonight we’ve seemingly parted company for good). Impressively, the ‘M’ smacks my adversary hard on his cranium and I think he’s close to falling backwards, but sadly dodges the remaining letters and quickly dispatches my disco-jigging pugilist with ease.

Black Lace – Superman

If anyone can get me out of this dance floor disaster it’s the Man of Steel, yeah?

“Look at me, I’m Superman!” I exclaim enthusiastically to my wife. She quietly sighs and carries on wistfully browsing old boyfriends’ profiles on Facebook.

Handily, this novelty song is a list of basic instructions so getting my moves wrong isn’t an option. Turning them into a bona fide bare-knuckle beating might take a little more skill, however. We begin.

Black Lace. You guys have got my back, yeah? Guys?

#Sleep!#

Alright, not the best start.

#Wave your hands!#

I’m flaccidly waving “Coo-ee!” at my nemesis. He’s responding with punching. Lots and lots and lots of punching.

#Hitch a ride!#

I jam a thumb in his eye. Better, but each subsequent gesture is met with ever more violent responses. I’m wavering.

#Superman!#

A final surge of superhuman strength sends me sky-high. For a brief moment, I’m convinced it’s all going to be alright. A dancing dust-up wasn’t such a stupid idea; it’s going to end in a victory for boogie-based boxing and everyone will turn not to confrontation and clashes, but co-ordination and coattails. Violence won’t be…oh crap, I’ve missed.

If I’m Superman, then Kryptonite’s just kicked me in the nuts.

Bet Christopher Reeve never had to put up with this shit.

The Gap Band – Oops Upside Your Head

As I sit down I realise my Move controls are no longer in visible range. I’ve broken the game just as my opponent breaks my nose. Ouch.

Dejected and done for the day, I throw in the towel, relinquish the controllers and contemplate the findings of my somewhat foolhardy journey.

They are:

#1 The Cheeky Girls are every bit as rubbish as fighting as they are singing.

#2 The Macarena is tougher than it looks, in more ways than one.

#3 Pausing mid-fight to fondle your own bum cheeks is a really, really bad move.

Game Over

The Beautiful (Video) Game

Why I love football games, but not football itself.



Don't Love



Love

In the 1980’s everyone supported either Manchester United or Liverpool. In the English Westcountry, this was geographical and cultural nonsense, but I joined in and arbitrarily chose Liverpool, I think (whoever ran about the pitch with "Crown Paints" on their chests. Them). In truth though, I cared no more for football than I did my own E number-fuelled bum-gas. Still don’t, in fact.

LFC in the 1980's. Or is it Manchester United?

So, how come I annually, without fail, excitedly pre-order the latest iteration of a video game series based on said sport?

The blame, and thanks, must go to magazines. In the early noughties I was such a voracious consumer of gaming periodicals that I even started to devour the articles and reviews covering acclaimed football series Pro Evolution Soccer. Then on its third release, the saturating positive press made me curious enough to pick up a cheap copy of the first game as a taster.

Magazines. Their fault, the papery swines.

And what a taste it was...

I fell instantly in love. A tsunami of simplicity washed away all my prejudices about the game. I could appreciate the purity of soccer beyond tabloid punditry and meaningless tactical jargon. Eleven men vs eleven men. Put ball in net. Awesome.

Setting the game to easy and limiting myself to just a few choice manoeuvres, I ploughed through opposition teams with surprising regularity. My main tactic (hold the ball in midfield for a bit, lure in the opposition, do a couple of fake tricks, lob the ball forwards and cross from the box (yeah, "the box", I know!)  was a game-winning strategy for the most part. I advanced a little and started piddling about with formations and suchlike, but keeping it simple was the true master plan.

The original Pro Evo. Liquid football, or something.

I soon found myself hooked: I started and finished tournaments; created my own narratives; made numerous cup and league save files; tasted the sweet flavour of win and yes, spat the sour tang of defeat. I started to believe that I finally shared a smidgen of kinship with regular football fans.

Except, of course, I absolutely did not. There was, and still remains, one fundamental difference.

When I witness team support become appropriation, my brain short-circuits as my heart dies a little. I can’t understand the hubristic mentality of the fan whose club victory becomes a claim of personal success, when in reality their input has nothing to do with the outcome. They will endlessly boast about their team’s triumph. Conversely, should they lose, they will turn against the players, manager and chairman with an accusatory bitterness normally reserved for a rival team.

In the sterile world of one-man soccer, however, I know that any crushing defeat is the sole responsibility of me, my thumbs and I. When I play on the pixel pitch, controller in hand and eyeballs on screen, I am solely in charge; the theatre of football mine to direct. If my team lose a game, I don’t sulk about the board of directors, blame the referee and sink six pints or so to forget. I simply re-load the game and play again.

Don't cry! You can just re-load your game and...oh.

I’m a control freak - I don’t need the chaos and emotional uncertainty that supporting a club entails. Playing football games as manager, coach and player hands me sporting supremacy over the pitch that a hapless fan of the real thing couldn’t possibly possess.

So take your terraces, your turnstiles and your bloody transfer windows. I don’t need them. I’m a Dualshock-weilding dictator of soccer and the final whistle doesn’t blow until I say it does.

Now hit the showers.

Blogalongabond 8 & 9: Live & Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun

Vicious VHS Viscera!

Film Review: Don’t Go In The Woods (1980)

Director: James Bryan

How to make a horror film poster lesson #1: try not to make your victim appear as if she's enjoying being murdered

Sounding more like advice to someone badly needing a shit in a forest rather than a horror film title, Don’t Go In The Woods is James Bryan’s notoriously amateur slasher for which I could no longer provide excuses not to watch. Having bedded down for the night amongst the conifers and carnage, read on to find out if my sanity survived the slaughter...

Another victim to the DPP’s seemingly arbitrarily blacklist, …Woods was a condemned “video nasty” of the early 1980’s moral outrage that saw horror films rapidly disappear from VHS stores amidst prosecutions and even jail terms for those supplying said tapes. (Ever get told that the Tories are basically libertarians? Just point to the 1984 Video Recordings Act and allow yourself a hollow, grim laugh).

Having seen it for myself I now wonder if the government hadn’t been acting as kindly yet over-stern film reviewers with a draconian approach to enforcing their opinions.

Slightly better, though still leads people to erroneously
call it "Don't Go In The Woods...Alone!", which it's not.

Because it is, of course, awful.

I mean, never less than entertaining in its purest sense, yet Don’t Go in The Woods is still utterly inept filmmaking in every respect. You could write the plot summary on the back of a stamp and still have room left over for “also by the same author”. To elaborate, four hikers go camping in the woods. They are pursued by a feral madman. He also kills several other woods-dwelling visitors who have nothing to do with anything. That in itself is an unnecessarily convoluted explanation.

The photography is astonishingly amateur. Establishing shots are poorly-tracked pans of trees and scenery, the likes of which a tourist with a handycam would probably erase with shame from his travel videos prior to a family screening. The camera haphazardly wipes its lens all over the vistas like a teenage boy’s tongue on a breast. Every last bit of scenery is crammed into the film’s mercifully meagre running time when usually, a quite simple static shot would suffice.

More impartial reporting from our ever-vigilant tabloid press

The cast is a contradiction in terms. These people couldn’t have been cast. It’s simply inconceivable that the director would have held auditions in which lines were read and decisions made based on the sounds coming out of their mouths. It’s not simply bad acting; that would imply a judge-worthy level of performance. These are people being filmed whilst saying words, no more.

The most spirited, and consequently terrible, is the lead male I got to know as Pink Shirt Peter. His excruciating performance is pitched somewhere between hysteria and blind frenzy; as if an arachnophobe was forced in front of camera whilst the director dangled a giant spider just out of shot. Projecting facial expressions to a theatre full of blind and deaf kids, his ultra-caffeinated presence makes Barry Chuckle look like the master of understated nuance in comparison.

"Actor" Jack McClelland in sombre mood

And here he extends his range

Infuriatingly, the “best” characters get offed in the first reel, though admittedly naming your favourites in this film is a bit like nominating your least objectionable Nazi war criminals. There’s sleazy but endearing caravan couple Dick & Cherry (geddit?) and a female victim who’s both a roller-skating sun-kissed burst of cheer and a magnet to the lascivious affection of the blubber ball sheriff. Of whom, he’s not exactly what you’d call a reassuring presence in the face of danger thanks entirely to his excessively casual approach to personal fitness (the man would lose a race to a bronze statue).

Pistol-cocking Sheriff Fatman

The killer, a cross between Brian Blessed and a shot-putter’s armpit, is a sort of Bear-Grylls-gone-postal and at least a genuine menace to the inhabitants of the eponymous woods. His motivation for the butchery is never made clear, though his macabre corpse-laden dwellings are observed in a scene that’s more than a little influenced by the infinitesimally superior Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And if we’re to draw unfavourable comparisons even further, a wheelchair-bound character meets his grisly maker in a scene somewhat less harrowing than in the afore-mentioned masterpiece.

The score, a much-derided aspect of the film is, curiously, that which is most successful. An ugly and cochlea-kicking cacophony of Casio it may be, but its sheer relentlessness is genuinely unnerving. The powerful stab of electronica that accompanies every murderous attack lifts the often drab action to a level of near-competency. And that’s the best compliment I can possibly muster for the whole experience.

"What do you mean, 'shit'?!"

Is it shit? Hell yes. Is it watchable? Arguably. If, like me, you intentionally sit through a film because of, rather than despite its faults then yes, by all means, spend a further 82 minutes of your precious finite lifespan gawping at this primary school production of a movie. It barely has a script, yields sub-standard acting and contains gory lashings of improbably absurd violence, all set to the sonic insanity of a Bontempi being played by someone wearing boxing gloves.

Do bears shit in the woods? On the strength of this, certainly. And they don't clean up after themselves either.

3/10