Unexpected appearance by Joe Hart

Flicking through some old games that had been donated in a charity shop, I saw several copies of FIFA football from different years. 

I didn't know - or had forgotten - that 12 years ago Joe Hart had been a FIFA cover star. 

Alongside Lionel Messi, no less.

It wasn't enough to get me to buy the game, especially as it was for a console I don't have in the crate of obsolete consoles. (Although if it had been super-cheap I might have got it just for the cover.)

The joy of existing captured in Free Guy

This post contains mild spoilers

In Free Guy (newly released on Disney Plus), comedy genius heartthrob Ryan Reynolds plays Guy, resident of ‘Free City’, whose happy life is interrupted repeatedly by people punching him in the face, robbing the bank where he works, flying attack helicopters through the streets and so on. Guy just thinks this is normal and cheerily carries on with his life – saying hello to his goldfish when he wakes up every day, ordering his regular coffee with cream and two sugars, meeting his best friend who works as the security guard at the bank, and just shrugging off the mayhem around him.

Eventually Guy works out that he is actually a ‘NPC’ (non-playable character) in a video game. His life, which feels real to him, is entirely generated within the servers of a computer game company. This becomes more awkward when he falls in love with a player’s character who knows he is a NPC but also seems to be falling in love back with him. Guy has been programmed to love the character or has he? Falling in “love”, it transpires, breaks his programmed algorithms and sets him off on new courses of exploration and discovery.

That in itself is a lovely concept and one that could provide a useful metaphor for platform speakers the world over.

On the face of it Free Guy is a bit of a mash up of a few other film concepts. Cathy kept saying how much it reminded her of The Truman Show. The idea that computer game characters might have their own lives within the game was also explored in Wreck It Ralph. As someone with a lay interest in artificial intelligence, the concept of an AI algorithm reaching self-aware consciousness is fascinating to me.

But the bit that really moved me was about two thirds the way through the movie, when Guy is talking to his buddy, the security guard literally called Buddy, played incredibly well by Lil Rel Howery.  Through wearing game player spectacles, Guy has the capacity to see the world as gamers see it – picking up medpacks, ammo, and so on. Buddy doesn’t want to see the world as Guy sees it and refuses to put the spectacles on, but they remain friends.

When Guy is told that the world is about to end – because the villainous software developer who created ‘Free City’ wants to capitalise on its success by replacing it with ‘Free City 2’ – he asks Buddy why Buddy doesn’t want to know the truth about their world. Buddy’s reply perfectly encapsulated the power of living in the moment. He says something like ‘Maybe all this is just a game. But right now, I’m sitting here with my best friend who needs me. And is there anything more real than that?’

That really jolted me as a moment of truth in an otherwise fairly silly film. We have those moments when, yes, everything seems crazy and our worlds are rocked. But we still can connect. We can still hold those moments as real – the feelings we feel right then are actually the important things.

I really loved that brief scene. It elevated Free Guy from a decent way to pass the time to actually a movie with something to say.

We have the moment and in that moment, that can be enough. Because it is real.

Toniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight I'm a rock and roll star

(That song should so be on one of these games...)

Lego Rock Band for the Wii is my new addiction. It's basically Guitar Hero in another guise, but better than the most recent Guitar Hero editions as you can have more than one 'band' on there, meaning you can play your own game.

One thing I like is that every so often you get to record 'albums' and name them yourself. I have resurrected my old band name, Cadmium, and have recorded two albums so far: A Kind of Heavy Metal and Elementalists. (There's a theme there if you can spot it.)

I will shortly be recording my third album and need a name for it. I'm tempted to call it The 'difficult' third, as a reference to the common problem bands face with their third album. By then they have usually run out of material they worked on in their gestation period and have to write something new.

Their are some third albums that buck that trend - the Killers and the All American Rejects managed it. And Bon Jovi made their name off the back of their third album (Slippery When Wet).

But it is weird how the third album is problematic. Dan Piraro makes an interesting comment in his book that I'm currently reading, when he says that people's perceptions of cartoonists is usually that they are in decline from past glories rather than improving with practice. I guess the same is true of many bands.

But really the reverse should be true. Great bands should get better with time and experience. So, why don't they? It's an interesting question.

PacMan versus Space Invaders

Or possibly both, if this image of Saturn's moon Mimas is to be believed. Possibly the most interesting space story of 2010 so far.





Full story here, complete with a reference to Mimas looking like the Death Star. Science journalism is getting geekier by the second. (And no, this ain't an April Fool, this news story broke a coupla days ago.)

Guitar Zero

So Cath and I have been given Guitar Hero for Christmas (yes, yes we opened it early, I know tut tut), and I've remembered why I've never actually stuck with playing the guitar despite a couple of attempts.

I have small hands. Now they hurt.

This Basic Instructions strip about said game is one of my favourites. The third panel *is* me. (Click on it to get a bigger version - don't squint.)

Cake wrecks

Matt put me on to the Cake Wrecks blog, which is just culinary art at it's most awful. But they also showcase some amazing cakes, like these wicked cupcakes, which I think are possible the coolest cakes I've ever seen!

And at the risk of seeming like a Dalek obsessive, check out the gallery of Dalek cakes to see some cake wreckery of such awesomeness it defies adequate description. I especially like the final line referencing Empire Strikes Back: "Bad Space Snake. Bad."

New Kids on the Comeback

So after about 15 years, New Kids on the Block have released a come-back single, Summertime. It’s a bit too late to become a summertime smash, and I doubt it would have anyway. But I have to admit the song isn’t bad. It could certainly give other pop songs a run for their money in the quest for chart success.

I was expecting it to be terrible, when Cathy told me about it. She was quite excited about it, having been a massive New Kids fan in her youth. When she found the video on Virgin Music On Demand, I agreed to watch it out of loyalty to her more than anything else. But, like I said, it was okay, bordering on alright.

The video kicks off with the ‘Kids’, all very grown up now of course, in various exotic locations, like on a yacht, in a helicopter, etc. getting a phone call, then all tipping up at a beach-side club full of scantily-clad women to perform the chorus. Like you do. There’s even some boyband dancin’ at the end to show they’ve still got it. The lyrics about ‘do you remember that summer’ are purposely designed to remind their now-growed up female fanbase of life as a 13-year old when everything was a bit simpler.

Another song I’m liking at the moment is the soundtrack to an ad for a new computer game called Mercenaries 2 (watch the ad on Youtube). I googled it and discovered that the song had been especially commissioned for the advert. You could download the full-length one from the official website, but that didn’t seem to be working. However there are other places you can get it on the web. So, now I’m rocking to it.

900 000 Lego studs = VFM and fewer arguments!

I've been overly busy of late, firstly with arrangements for the Fair Do's Fashion Show, then with playing Lego Star Wars II with Cathy.

The first passed off without too many hitches, even if it was hard work. The second one is getting easier, especially since we found and purchased the 'Invincibility' extra. Easily the best 900 000 lego studs I've ever spent!

Cathy will moan about me mentioning this, but now we're invincible my excitable Wookiee co-gamer won't accidentally shoot me in the back (and to be fair Boba Fett won't blow her up with a thermal detonator), which means we argue less while playing.

Super Mario Smash Football

My brother leant me this and it seems I'm addicted. "Just one more game, and then I have to go to bed/work/the toilet..." I. Just. Can't. Seem. To. Switch. It. Off. Seriously it's ruining my life.

For the record I can kick ass at 'Novice' level, but the step up to 'Professional' is tough and fiendishly frustrating. I want to beat the machine! Curse you, Nintendo, you've gone and done it again!

Playability

Often when you talk to someone frequently the same topics come up again and again. With my little brother it's the subject of "playability" in computer games. As far as we're concerned you can forget your fancy graphics and whatnot, what really matters is whether the game is playable.

My proof, if proof were needed, is Zelda on the Super Nintendo versus Zelda on the N64. I loved Zelda on the SNES - except I can only play it with Oasis' Definitely Maybe on in the background (long story, but for me the two go together). But on the N64 it was a so-so rpg, with huge distances you had to cover to get anywhere. It didn't look as good either. Zelda on the SNES was cute. On the N64, it was humdrum. Basically the "better game" lacked playability and effectively killed off Zelda for me, although the screenshots on the Nintendo DS adverts have almost re-converted me.

Recently I've been playing PacMan on Facebook, which is further proof that graphics only get you so far and it's 'playability' that counts. PacMan has been around for almost three decades and yet it knocks many other games into a cocked hat. When I teamed up for a game of Halo with Irony Boy, I loved it, but Destroy All Humans 2 wasn't my bag. One had "playability", the other didn't. Wii Sports is the defining moment in Nintendo's triumph of "playability". Of course the graphics are something else too, but there's a reason Nintendo keep bagging awards for Wii Sports - it's simply great to play.

My favourite top thirteen most playable games

Arcade/Spectrum/other truly ancient consoles
PacMan
Batty
SNES
Super Mario World
The Legend of Zelda - a Link to the Past
Super Star Wars
Game Boy
Tetris
Super Mario World 2 - Six Golden Coins
N64
Mario '64
F-Zero X
X Box
Project Gotham Racing
PlayStation 2
Zoo Puzzle
Gamecube
Super Mario Sunshine
Nintendo Wii
Wii-Sports

So what games do you rates most playable?

An hour of my life I won't get back

I hate being late for things and today I managed the mother of all late arrivals, showing up late to my own house with invited guests standing shivering on the doorstep.

How did this all come about? Blame Asda. That's right. It's all their fault.

We were in Asda buying some pizzas to feed our guests, when we noticed a chap buying two Nintendo Wii consoles. It looked a bit odd, so I asked the girl on the computers and DVD desk how much the Wiis were. She said they were the amazingly low price of £99.97.

Cath and I conferred for all of a minute before deciding this was such a bargain we really had to get one. The only problem was they only had two left and they were both reserved for other customers. But the girl said if either of the other customers hadn't turned up in an hour she'd sell one to us.

There are only so many ways to kill an hour in Asda. I read a couple of magazines. Cath looked at the clothes. I found a copy of Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes in a special edition tin, and Cath said she'd give it to me for Christmas, to help me nearer my goal of owning every Tim Burton film on DVD. But still it was a drag until the hour was up.

The reservers hadn't turned up and I excitedly thought I was getting a baragin Wii. But then when they rang through the Wii, it came up at £179.97. I queried the price and the stupid shopgirl told me the price she'd originally said had been for a Nintendo DS, not a Wii.

I was tamping.

Not only had we waited a bloody age for a bargain that never was, we then had to queue up to buy all the other crap in our trolley and that made us late to get home to our waiting guests. And I hate being late, as I said. So imagine how much I hated being late for a get-together at my own house!

Two things I've learned today

1 - eating crisps and playing Pacman on Facebook gets your keyboard all greasy.

2 - there's still an archive of football articles I wrote about six years ago out there on the inter-web, including the classic Is Football a Religion?

Wii (or Wi-i) strain

Irony Boy has availed himself of the latest console from Nintendo, so yesterday while we were waiting for the womenfolk to turn up at his house, we played a bit of virtual golf and baseball. Today I have a slight strain in my right elbow when I straighten it. A definite case of Wii Strain.

On a different, but related note, Abz tells me that up in Geordieland people call the Wii the 'wye-eye'. How fantastic is that?

“You’ve got hippos”

Cathy’s bought Zoo Puzzle for the PS2, where basically you have to match up animals into lines of three or more to make them disappear. Think Tetris with fauna and you’ll be there. It's also blummin' addictive.





Playing it in company inevitably results in people trying to help by telling you which animals you can line up next. Hence: "You’ve got hippos!" which sounds like a particularly awkward kind of ailment.

"Sorry, I can’t come in to work today. I’ve got a bad case of the hippos."

Get happy, but don't OD

Perhaps ironically (I started back to work today), I followed the link to this game from Late Edition. You've got to play it, if only to see what happens if you have too much of a good thing.

Happy Pill

When stunts go bad

Saturday night and Irony Boy and I are flicking through the cable channels doing the three second judgment call on the dross that was on. That was until we started watching ‘When Stunts Go Bad’, car crash TV at its finest.

I think my favourite bit was when two Russian pilots in a flight display team crashed their Migs into each other. Both ejected safely, even though one plane was ripped in half and turned into a fireball before cratering the tarmac.

But then, the defining moment. One of the pilots has landed safely, his parachute billowing around him. As he lands he already has a cigarette between his lips. He steadies himself and steps out of the harness, lights up, shrugs his shoulders at the camera and saunters off as if that sort of thing happens every day.

No comment for the camera. No smile. Just a nonchalant drag of nicotine and a shrug. How cool is that cat?

After When Stunts Go Bad we teamed up for a co-op game of Halo2 and I found out that using two joysticks at the same time is as confusing as hell.

Sequal to Super Mario Rampage

With 4 awesome ways to kill koopas


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Then kit him out with a shotgun and blast those koopas!

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