Sunday, December 26, 2010

Ho Ho Etc

Blimey, I am being lax in updating this site. It's like I'm incredibly busy with various exciting projects like my second novel for example. Anyway, it's the Christmas season and that means next week will be my traditional week off for the holidays, and there won't be an XP or a ZP, except for a clip show filler episode I think Russ and the lads are putting together. Hope you're all having a lovely time resenting each other.

Anyway, here's all the stuff I haven't linked to yet. XPs: little touches in games and the fun of extravagant gore. ZPs: Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, Epic Mickey and Splatterhouse.

Splatterhouse I want to dwell on for a second, because I want it on record that I don't usually play 'challenge rooms' in games when I'm done with the main story. But in this case, I did. I played the Splatterhouse challenge rooms. Why? Because it unlocked extra pictures of titties. Divided into four scraps and bestowed throughout the course of the battle, and the last scrap would almost always be the one with the actual titties on, the coy sons of bitches. Kudos to Splatterhouse for figuring out my personal carrot and stick.

Now, I know full well that it's easy to find pictures of tits, in fact, on the internet it's hard to get through a day without seeing a least one lovely pair of bouncing judders. But as any sixteen-year-old sweatily bringing a Playboy up to the counter of a newsagent's expecting everyone in the room to suddenly point and start screaming like the guy from Invasion of the Body Snatchers will tell you, titties become considerably more satisfying when you have to work for them.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Throw me a frickin' phone

Last week there was an XP on why human beings like zombies so much. Here's a quote.

"Few if any of these petty hatreds are rational. They exist because humans can't function without an enemy, something to hate, and indeed to blame for the injustices we believe we suffer. Zombies are a permanent foe. To our "us" they are eternally "them." No redeeming qualities, no moral ambiguity. I guarantee you, in a zombie apocalypse scenario, relationships within the human strongholds will be considerably more courteous than they are now. We'll reserve our hate for those rotting punks outside. They want to eat us for no good reason. What dicks."

This week's XP was a selection of short Iphone (not iPhone, learn how to capitalise properly) game reviews. Here's a quote.

"
The Iphone's virtually unique one-touchscreen no-buttons nature also means that games are basically forced to innovate in their controls and design. A lot of publishers have simply tried to port old 2D games like Sonic the Hedgehog or the first Prince of Persia, but they don't translate well to the format. Innovation is what gets rewarded, because if the download charts are anything to go by, there's absolutely no style of gameplay that's guaranteed to sell well. The top 25 contains shooters, physics puzzlers, platformers and whatever the hell you'd classify that Where's Wally thing as."

This was intended to follow on from last week's Zero Punctuation, which was also about Iphone games.

"I don't have a quote for this one because ZP is a video series, you dolts. Click on these words to watch the video."

I know some of you have been a little disappointed by this coverage, and now you know how I feel when faced with most of the half-arsed triple-A releases in the games industry these days. Sue me, I wanted to fill some time while WoW: Cataclysm is making every other publisher too scared to release anything that could possibly compete with it. And I genuinely think Iphone games and other small-scale indie markets are where a lot of the really interesting, cutting-edge innovation stuff is going on, while the massively advanced graphics engines of mainstream gaming produce little but big piles of indigestible overdesigned slop.

Anyway, in other news, those of you still dubious about my debut novel Mogworld's quality may wish to know that the entire first part of the book is being serialised on ABC.net.au's technology section even as we speak. And if you find yourself enjoying that, you should be aware that most critics agree the rest of the book is even better. Have I mentioned that it would make a perfect Christmas gift?