dartmonkey

Deathmatch sounds interesting. Then again, there are restrictions that I wasn't fully aware of. You need to have registered a new EU 3DS between 6th August and 7th October. I think I'll just bosh the email I received in this post and whoever wants it is welcome. Here it is... As promised, here is your very special gift: a Recommendation Code to send to a friend allowing them to claim a free Download Code for Animal Crossing: New Leaf! 4P0K9hBZnWwbnp3eYSyPQPrN Here's what to do next: Send this Recommendation Code to a friend. If your friend registers a Nintendo 3DS XL system between 23:01 (UK time) on 6th August and 22:59 (UK time) on 7th October 2013, and enters the Recommendation Code before 22:59 (UK time) on 7th October 2013, he/she will be eligible to claim a free Download Code for Animal Crossing: New Leaf on Nintendo 3DS!

Hear ye, hear ye! I have a code for a copy of Animal Crossing New Leaf as part of the Recommend a Friend promotion. All my family already have the game. Ask and you shall receive! (I think it's EU only, though.)

Motorbike better than a car in zombie apocalypse? Controversial. Sexier? Without a doubt, but you can't sleep on a bike. Interesting interview, though I was distracted throughout by Sean 'Dreamy' Vanaman. How does he get his hair to do that thing it do?

F-Zero was trengthy.

I want to be able to touch my map on the bottom screen and name different parts of my town. Eg. Banana Bay runs alongside the Fruit Forest which sits above the Promenade which runs out to Tipping Point, etc. Maybe you could make public project signs for the various areas. Hell, this could already be part of the game and I just haven't unlocked it!

I don't think the brand/product distinction is important - whether it's Dew and Doritos, or Pepsi and Pringles makes little difference. Whatever brands are used, it's all empty sugar and calories. But in a cinema I don't have the option to mute the audience. Which I can on Live. I can opt out of listening to it, just as I don't have to read IGN. Browsing almost any public forum on the internet is enough to make you despair but we're not forced to, and it doesn't mean EVERY person who washes their nachos down with Dew while fragging noobs is a reprehensible human being. My own kneejerk judgement of that stereotype is to sneer but that's so easy. We don't look down on 'popcorn' moviegoers with the same disdain as we do Dewdbro 'gamers', and maybe that's unfair. Live is a horrible place to be with a headset on and MS should do something about it. Until then I'll block out the negative and concentrate on the positive, just like everything else. I wouldn't say I'm accepting the horrible shit to enjoy video games any more than I accept the horrible shit going on around the world in order to enjoy living in it.

Reading this made me ponder the dudebro Doritos gamer and why I cringe at the whole thing. 'Doritos, Dew, late nights and trash talk' is an accurate description of games to a massive portion of players, like popcorn and buckets of coke define cinema for many people. That's what they want. That's fine. It'd be nice if they were a bit quieter and less homophobic and sexist and loud, but that goes for massive swathes of the population. Let them make their controllers greasy and cheesy. I'm selling virtual fruit, fish and bugs to buy incremental extensions to my house from a raccoon. What the fuck do I know?

I dislike the predictability of it, though it's only a big problem for me if the ensuing combat or whatever isn't fun. If a battle is flagged up and I'm thinking 'jeez, more of these arseholes to grind through' then there's something wrong at a deeper level. I don't like it when I've anticipated the triggers, tried to counter them and the game doesn't allow it. Eg. every survival horror game ever. I know that the body in the corner is going to reanimate the moment I switch the light on/open the door/chest/whatever but it still does so no matter how many precautionary bullets I fill its head with. That pisses me off.

Have added several people. Holy shit teg, your town looks amazing! What's your play time? Mine's an embarrassment in comparison! I need to buckle down.

I just watched a trailer for Hohokum on PS4. It looks like Chasing Aurora with a dash of LocoRoco/Patapon. Aesthetically it was fine but it made me feel meh. No, more negative than 'meh'. It evoked the same feeling as when I hear a noodle-y little acoustic track by some skinny, whispy, Zoey Deschanel band. It's so earnestly kooky. It's so Radio 1 Live Lounge and lo-fi and graphic design-y and knowing. My point, if I have one, is that I'm feeling burnout with that lo-fi indie aesthetic. All the wantonly retro 2D hipster pixel games are wearing me down. I appreciate an in-joke as much as the next man but I feel like I can describe too many games now as a mix of X and Y with a sprinkling of Z. I'm getting tired of irony and the knowing nod and wink. One thing I like about Nintendo is that they're unashamedly colourful and positive, and they're generally looking forward, even when everyone wants them to look back. It seems everything else is grey near-future sci-fi shooters or throwback tributes. Maybe I'm just too old for this shit. No, damnit - I'm 29 for Christ's sake! Maybe I'm just underwhelmed by an innovationless E3. Maybe I should give Oculus Rift a blast. Whatever the case, make me feel better by agreeing or telling me I'm a fucking eejit who needs to smell the roses over the shit whence they rose.

Twin Beaks is brilliant. That 8 character limit has scuppered some great town names. 1375-7319-9172 Gavin Town: Bell Air Bell Air is peachy. Don't have much going on at the moment. Got a house, started building a bridge and I'm filling up the museum.

For me, your all time favourite is your desert island game. The one you'd take if you were stuck with only one game for the rest of your life. Mine would be Banjo-Kazooie. It's the pinnacle of the collectathon 3D platformer before they ballooned into chores and it's so damn infectiously upbeat! It's a colourful, musical and beautifully animated world. I've replayed nothing else as much. Majora's Mask gets a mention thanks to the final chapter with the masked children playing around the tree. It's a great and surreal Zelda, but being transported to that glade when I was expecting the final showdown was a true WTF moment. And Portal. I liked that it was short. It arrived, blew me away and left me in awe of the design. Linking a narrative to such a 'gamey' mechanic might have seemed superfluous, but describing it as a First-Person-Platform-Puzzler doesn't come close to the actual experience.

Daft Punk doing the soundtrack on this one?

Wii 64. Edit. I disagree that the pad is a flop. And cutting loose and ploughing resources into a 'more powerful' console gets them nowhere. What would all that 'power' get them? Their online setup isn't a power issue. More power doesn't get third parties onboard without an installbase. MS and Sony have shown their next-gen cards and it's pretty much 'this gen with more polys, more digital and more restrictions'. The gamepad as an integrated gameplay tool is still an interesting development and will still be unique when PS4 and Xbone have launched. The problem is they haven't shown the killer app yet, months since launch. Iwata says as much here> http://www.edge-online.com/news/iwata-nintendo-land-has-not-fulfilled-the-same-role-as-wii-sports/ And it doesn't appear to be on the horizon. Again, where is Wii U Sports?

I don't agree with the gloomy predictions concerning the Wii U. Worst case, it'll be a Gamecube, and however you spin it, that wasn't a burial. I haven't got one yet, but when it's £199 with Pikmin I'll be there. I think the poor performance is down to the following three things: 1) Standard console post-launch drought made much worse by - 2) terrible marketing/communication of what the thing actually is, and 3) no absolutely killer app to demo the Gamepad. The first one is par for the course with all new consoles. It's shit but I think it's inevitable. Secondly, I agree, the marketing has been awful. It's difficult to know if it was complacent or just ill-judged. Keeping the Wii brand was a no-brainer, but the 'U' and hiding the actual console from view confused everyone. I've got friends telling me now 'oh yeah, that's like a screen for the Wii, no?' A simple '2' would have cut through the confusion. But even now they're not demonstrating the difference. The PAX clarification leaflet (http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8532/8590299559_2313c48190.jpg) sums up their backwards approach. Wii compatibility is great but not something to lead with - everyone's still got their Wii for Wii games. Tell them about the fucking amazing stuff they can do with the NEW console, then follow through with the double whammy that they can bin the old one. But where is the fucking amazing GAMEPAD stuff? Joe Public doesn't know what a Pikmin is and it doesn't require the gamepad anyway. By all accounts Nintendo Land is fun but it's immediately complicated where Wii Sports wasn't. This might be a stupid question but, please, somebody enlighten me: where is Wii U Sports? Where is the golf with the pad on the ground? Why are we not catching baseballs with it, like we saw in the original demo videos? I don't understand why this isn't front and centre. What's the thinking behind that? Wii U Sports to attract the crowd, Nintendo Land to explain more complicated concepts and asymetric gameplay. ZombiU communicates the concept more succinctly than anything else. The closest thing to an instant crowd-pleaser is the ninja star throwing game on Nintendo Land. I makes me think 'damn, let me have a go.' Gamepad-centric games still don't seem to be forthcoming. Why is Mario 3D World not using it as an integral element? We've got the 4-player co-op already with NSMBU. I'm sure it'll be fun but, beyond off-screen play, the gamepad still has nothing that says 'Here! THIS is why you NEED this console NOW.' Nintendo fans will get it for first party games, as they did the Gamecube. Joe BestBuy knows the Wii brand and has now played a video game and enjoyed it - games have been demystified a bit. But Jesus, they need a Wii Sports and I can't work out why they don't just use Wii Sports! The launch has been and gone, but the other two points are rectifiable. If they change pace now, it needn't be a Gamecube.

Video games are the Godfather Part 2 of games.

After burning out with it, I went back to Pikmin 2 when I heard the Thumbs discussing the multiplayer (which I found to be fantastic). It made me excited for this. Also, this looks gorgeous. I'm pretty certain it's the Nintendo HD-starved part of my brain suddenly getting some juice, but damn it's pretty!

Though games haven't spawned new art movements, their aesthetics have been thoroughly cannibalised by other media and I see it everywhere, especially in advertising (where my knee-jerk reaction is to assume, perhaps unfairly, it's been calculated that X+Y will make me like service/product Z, where X and Y have been lifted wholesale from another source). Here's some stills from 3 adverts that came to mind and they each recall several games. http://i.ytimg.com/vi/qZeSVvK9z44/0.jpg British Gas http://adsoftheworld.com/files/psyop_donkey_1_0.jpg ING Direct http://files.coloribus.com/files/adsarchive/part_1204/12040355/file/orange-orange-unlimited-small-56987.jpg Orange I'm not saying games originated these aesthetics but styles proliferate everywhere until your game looks like your website looks like the ad from your gas supplier, and they're now commonly seen beside one another (blog banners run over embedded videos that pipe Dew and Doritos ads before every music video and movie trailer, all on the same devices and a swipe away from your game). Apps, games and ads are sometimes difficult to tell apart and perhaps this homogenisation and co-opting of styles across media (plus the announcements of the predictable franchise tentpoles) is making me feel that there's less originality than there really is. People are right - there's plenty out there that's different. I enjoy that retro pixel-y look. The Tarantino comparison is interesting - the process I went through with his films mirrors how I'm feeling now. First I was shocked, then wow, that's incredible! Post-Jackie Brown, his films gave diminishing returns, until now I'm faintly worried by the violence - it seemed to mean something before. That aesthetic choice has lost its relevance for me and it seems he's nodded and winked his way into a hole he can't escape from. That's not to say there's not fun to be had, but the juxtaposition of pulp and history isn't always satisfying far beyond the trailer.

Ah Animal Crossing! I'm waiting for my free download code to arrive. Is it weird I'm more psyched for this than anything at E3?

Now that's a plan! Games: the cause, and solution to, all life's problems Thinking back, Bioshock Infinite put me on a downer a couple of weeks back and E3 has stirred it up. My expectations were sky-high. It was never going to meet them, though I didn't think it would miss them by so much. Then I saw Order 1886 and It looks like Dishonored and Infinite's child. I dunno. Apologies for my rambling - it's all a bit scattershot.

It's not even that I don't like the look of Hohokum. It looks great. I have a more general feeling that the same aesthetics are cropping up too often and describing things becomes a case of 'Limbo crossed with Castlevania in space' or something similar. The new Insomniac one looks like TF2+Mirror's Edge+Jet Set Radio. Driving games are homogenising into the same thing. I feel I can describe too many games as an equation, regardless of their quality. Or I see the same look in a utility company/boutique yoghurt shop/service provider advert. It's a general malaise with several styles which I've taken out on Hohokum and indies. It's not about them, specifically. There's nothing in the upcoming console gen that looks remotely new. SgtWhistlebotom mentioned Titanfall and The Last of Us and those two got me into this funk. The Last of Us is reportedly fantastic but any gameplay vids or pics I see completely turn me off. It just looks like Uncharted that looks like Assassin's Creed that looks like Metal Gear/Halo/Destiny/Titanfall/whatever. Ooo, now Metal Gear has a desert bit! They're all beautiful and competent video games at the very least, but nothing new and I don't think an outsider could tell between them from videos. Nintendo are the only ones skirting with something different with the second screen but they've shown nothing that really uses the thing beyond off-TV play. So I look to the smaller studio games and, again, very similar styles seem to be popping up. I'm being bleak, and of course I can ignore them. And there are some interesting looking things about and I have dozens on the 'to play' list (eg. Proteus). Tengami looks nice. RunMan looks like MS Paint fun. Edit. I mean MS Paint fun genuinely. I like the style.

I'm not getting at Hohokum specifically - it looks nice enough. And I can't think of any 2D indies that are more innovative or interesting. That's kinda the point. With Nintendo it's more an issue of general positivity (which isn't really relevant to the indie burnout other than a lack of cynicism). I appreciate they're knocking out Mario Kart 8 and New Super Luigi, and Pokemon, etc, but as I said, I 'generally' think they're the most forward looking of the big 3. They're not trying to be hip, they just plough on with primary colours and ideas here and there.

Xbone is DRMed and dangerous. Titanfall looks current gen. But hey, if there's one thing we're lacking it's sci-fi/tech based shooters. Looks colourful too. Sunset Overdrive is what you'd get if TF2 and Jet Set Radio banged each other senseless while Mirror's Edge watched. Killer Instinct is the token bone thrown to 30 year olds wishing it was 1999. Apparently Halo 5 is coming to Xbox One with revolutionary cracked visor tech. Only on Xbox One. All driving games seem to be becoming one big open world shinefest with a timeshift next to the gearstick. And I'm becoming (more of) a cantankerous, sarcastic arsehole. PC gaming is calling...

Okay, so Microsoft presented some colossal pendulous balls and Sony backed up for a juicy kick. Lovely. But PS4 is region free? That's near the top of wishlists with every new console but I've always seen it as a pipedream. Surprising but welcome. It's all a bit Return of the Black Box though. It's interesting to see Sony as the underdog and actually being rooted for. PS5 will look exactly like XBOne but hey, until then, let's chuckle.

I, erm. Wow. Took a while to decode that. Thought it was some wag's spoof site. Then clicked on the privacy link. I feel sticky. Not the good kind.