Roderick

It was a little more nuanced than that. Of course I am absolutely against glorifying war, pushing your enemy into simplistic, abstract notions of Evil, etc. For a government this is of course a viable solution to the situation, because they gain nothing by humanizing their opponent, but everything with making them into figureheads or animals. But my reaction to this review was brought about by the evidence of how much normal citizens were spreading this crap. Citizens not directly caught up in a conflict have nothing to gain by doing what the government does with propaganda (because that leads to hate and strife) and everything with the opposite (because it leads to understanding and support, and a nicer world to live in). To then hear the jerk in that video enthusiastically, and casually, throwing around terms like 'hate'; as if it were the most normal thing in the world to hate something, to hate your enemy, is extremely appalling.

HAHAHAHAHA! These people have no idea what they're talking about, have they?

Another detestable Gametrailers.com review, this time of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and for an entirely different reason. I switched it off after in the first minute or so, they began uttering things like 'unless you're a crazy whackjob, you hate terrorists' and 'the antagonists are easy to hate'. This may speak for the overtly facile world view and generic shallowness of both Gametrailers.com and CoD4. Ha, I'm not wasting my good braincells on that pap!

As I said months ago, this is a very tricky issue. Having seen that reel now (after a few minutes I lost interest in seeing the rest; it's probably all the same), it's pretty obvious that it's trash, plain and simple. It's just an ultraviolent power-fantasy; an indulgence in sadism. The big question is, should it be censored? My liberal ideal informs me that everyone can do whatever the hell they want as long as nobody gets hurt; that something like this can easily be art (bad art, obviously) and that as long as there's regulation and protection of the impressionable youth, there's little wrong with unleashing cynical trash like this on the public. But on the other hand, there is a keen sense that you are what you eat. How can you expect a culture and the people in it to become beautiful when they are fed garbage like this? Liberal principles are well and all, but the greater good might be restricting this stuff. The thing is, I just have no idea which side of the argument is the better one. Discreet censorship might not be a bad thing, as long as the balance tilts heavily in the favour of liberal ideas. And as ever, it's the conflict within this that keeps a society dynamic and healthy. [ADDED] You know what? I think I'm actually completely OK with Manhunt being censored. The only reason I wouldn't be is out of principle. But I'll reserve my ammo for a game or expression that deserves fighting for. Principles are tedious anyway and they hinder this stuation in that they try to create a simple model out of life where none is possible. The solution is much simpler: Manhunt 2 I don't give a hoot about and I think it's a horrid game, so I don't care it being censored -or I even applaud it. As soon as something that I do care about is threatened, I'll jump on the barricades again. Censorship is not a bad thing if it filters out the meaningless ugliness in the world.

I wouldn't know. I have no interest in a movie about Transformers whose makers didn't want to hire the original voice of Megatron for whatever reason. Idiots.

Almost non-related: Next tuesday I have the opportunity to purchase an Xbox 360 Premium with two free games (Viva Pinata and Forza 2, both of them worthless to me save for trade) for 300 Euro's. On the one hand, I feel like I owe it to the cosmos to buy it. After all, I have been ranting about buying one for nearly a year now. It's only fair, see? But on the other hand... I'm suddenly doubtful. For the coming month at least, I'll have little time to play. There's also rumour of a general price cut to the same level in a while. And most of all, I'm still afraid of the machine being of such poor manufacture that it dies on me. I've seen it happen no less than 4 (!) times to a neighbour, and once to a friend. I just really have no appetite for all the hassle it would entail. It's also an uncertainty if the 65-NM chips are already in there. So, what should I do? There are a fair few games I want to play; such as Orange Box. But at the same time, I'd also just be content with buying Metroid Corruption instead, and then Umbrella Chronicles at the end of the month. All the gaming I need, right?

Just came back from Stardust. Very nice movie. At one point a standard fairytale, but at the same time made with so much zest and knowledge of the material. What's also apparent is that everyone loved playing in it; palpable enthusiasm. It also confirmed that I have to get one of those Victorian coats soon. They're awesome, and snazzy.

Alex; and in that you are completely right =) Length is not an absolute value but depends heavily on both the game and the player. Ideally, that dynamic quality should be reflected in any judgement. I also forgot to mention that I really liked seeing something so passionately written again on the Thumb

I think it's more the natural oscillation in quality that every artist has. Now you're a genius, then you can't write or draw for shit =)

Ah, this one was excellent. Cry mich ein river!

In response to Ben's little bit at the end, I actually do have some songs that I would have wanted to be longer, and I am of the opinion that they would not have suffered from it. I enjoy a good song more if it is longer indeed. This has everything to do with one's own preferences and tastes. In the same vein, I do not agree [completely] with the article. It generalizes too much and actually, ironically, makes the same mistake as the reviewers it laments: objectively stating that a game's length is not a criterium to judge it by. But this is exactly as flawed as objectively stating that it is a criterium. It is rather silly to postulate that all game journalists are idiots who don't know what they're doing. Are they, now? If all of them come to some conclusion, say, they found Portal too short and would have liked to see more, could it be that this is actually what they felt at the end of it? And that it is not some virus meme that has infected them? Shocking! The music analogy is good, but consider the film analogy. I see so many films that last too long. So many films where I think they should have cut out at least half an hour. In fact, this is exactly what Alex says in the article; he would have liked to see Halo be shorter and more concise. Length is just as much a value that you can use to judge entertainment by as other qualities such as image and sound. Personally, I do agree that shorter games tend to be better paced and more enjoyable because there's less filler. In that I agree, but it's a different discussion. It's faulty to say length should be of no consequence. That's like saying money is of no consequence when buying a PS3, with all the tedious restaurant metaphors it engenders.

After an absence of two months, we're back and running according to old familiar schedule. If everything goes right, we're running smoothly again from now on. Just thought I'd mention it for the few Augustians around here

Year Three of that excellent webcomic Captain August has ended! It has been a year of literary pretensions and high caliber drama (and just an ounce of August idiotry)! Read the year from the very beginning here !

Congrats!

How many cents do they get per click? Is it really going to make such a difference? Is it not already enough that I contribute with intelligent thoughts and prose to a homely community?

Are you telling me it's my moral imperative to watch ads? Not watching ads is like piracy; you steal money from the poor sites who need them for revenue? This world is getting wackier by the minute!

Speaking of conversions... I finally did it. Today, I swore off Internet Explorer forever and am now the happy user of Firefox. The last thing that held me off until now was the lack of cheery icons in the bookmarks, that I always use to navigate them very swiftly. I discovered they are there, you just have to revisit every site you've imported from IE once. It may seem inconsequential, but it is exactly the little touches that withheld me from using Firefox. Conversely, what pulled me over was the handful of glitches in IE that, for instance, wouldn't let me save images as anything else than bitmaps So goodbyeeeee Explorer, hellooooo firefox. (Also, the Adblock plug-in is bliss)

Yesterday evening I saw The Prestige. Wow... that really lodges itself in your brain, doesn't it? Masterful build-up of suspense and an intricately woven plot. I thought the movie didn't end as well as it could have, cinematographically spoken (scene-wise, not plotwise), but apart from that, truly excellent. And to think this was a bit of an 'aside' for in between the two Batman movies =D

Oh wow, Japanmanship's up again. I'll read through the new posts first. I'me xcited, but I don't know if it's a good move or not. Suffice to say I was pretty upset when it stopped, because I really liked reading it. As long as the quality remains the same... it might all work out. As for my twice-weekly rant on Captain August that I've been doing for over 3 years now, it goes through ups and downs. Sometimes it's shitty and just some personal ramblings; at other times I really put effort into making little theses about religion, cyborgs, art or media.

The only thing I've got running so far is a Dutch thing called Hyves, and it is absolutely abysmal and I hate it. I despise it because it is so very shallow and there's no room for depth. That's not the point, I know, but it bothers me nonetheless. I've registered for Facebook and the exquisite Captain August fanclub, however

I venture to think your brain has recently melted, dear.

Well don't get me wrong, as I've stated abundantly before, I'd love to see something like a Psychonauts cartoon show. The setting, theme and concept lend itself perfectly for it. Something that is made by another, external studio, with writing assistance by DF. That would rock my world. But the chances of Double Fine themselves making something new with Psychonauts are nil. Of course, the window of opportunity for an external Pnauts-product has already kind of closed because the game is a bit too old already. If they wanted to do this, it should've been done like Viva Piñata with a cartoon show developed alongside the game.

It's pretty obvious that the Whispering Rock photograph was made long after Brütal Legend was in the works. Maybe Black was a fan before being contacted, but no one knows.

I actually completely don't understand why any of you are getting your hopes up that there will be another Psychonauts, or anything vaguely Psychonauts related. Surely you know better than this? Tim doesn't do sequels (and history has shown that a wise decision, otherwise we'd be at Day of the Tentacle 4 and maybe Full Throttle 3, and would have never had Grim Fandango, Psychonauts or Brütal Legend), and Psychonauts is most assuredly a thing of the past. If they make something non-gamelike, it's infinitely more reasonable to think it'd be BL-related. You know, because that's still relevant, as much as we all love Psychonauts.