James

Watching that, I was struck my how much of a part the music played in it. Good music can go a long way to making you feel a sense of closure at the end of something (There Will Be Blood has particularly well-selected credits music, I think). Recently most games are tending towards some fairly uninspired and generic movie-style scores, which, whilst not necessarily bad, don't do much to differentiate a game from everything else. Thinking of recent endings, most of the stuff I come up with is stuff that happens in gameplay running up to the actual end (which is the ending portion; I just mean I'm not talking about cinematics or whatever): the second half of Portal, the last level of Braid... Well, that's more-or-less it, really. I may have forgotten other things, I suppose. Killer 7 is worth mentioning because it has a load of false endings. I found that pretty funny.

a) I watched and enjoyed the entire run, albeit to fluctuating degrees. Before long I was almost always doing something else too, because it can be quite time-consuming and repetitive, but I've absorbed it all in some respect. I've liked the Giant Bomb guys since their days at GameSpot, but I've never been an active member of either community. Large Internet forums are generally depressing places, and throwing gaming fandom into the mix doesn't really help things. c) I don't like that I've ever used the word "fandom".

A friend of mine did the exact same thing.

Was he called John? Perhaps he was you.

You unlock all sorts of over-the-top guns for doing certain stuff in RE5. The fridge/minigun is probably the most ridiculous-looking, but the infinite rocket launcher is probably the most absurd on the damage-dealing front. Forget taking out the black slime guy at the beginning of the game in a few seconds: with the infinite rocket launcher you can take down the huge black slime amorphous blob guy on the boat near the end with a couple of shots. In fact, due to the slow reload time it's actually standard zombies that are the biggest threat, what with their multitude. After unlocking all that stuff I basically ruined the game for a friend of mine. By which I mean we replaced challenge with hilarity.

I finally decided to stop arsing about with defence missions and finish off Dawn of War 2 last night. Afterwards I was listing to a friend the other stuff I've yet to complete or play for which I have some interest in doing so, and I was mildly horrified. I knew there was a lot, but I didn't realize there was quite that much. I'm a little distressed by the number of things that I've bought and never even played. I've never had much in my favourites section, but I do find that having a couple of things in there helps me focus somewhat, even if only symbolically. I currently have Left 4 Dead (for easy access on Sundays) and Dawn of War 2 (the thing I'd decided I wanted to finish). I now need to decide what to swap that out for. Unless I go for a console game.

I used to listen to the King Crimson (original?) version of that song quite a lot for a couple of weeks in my journeys to and from school. I have basically zero experience of the song and band outside of that, though.

Yeah, that's something I really value, and a reason I haven't updated my hopelessly ancient MP3 player. I'd be very interested in that. Any rough estimate of a release date? Probably after my phone-acquiring window, I suppose. Bugger. Thanks for the info, everyone.

I find rabid hatred for the platform a little peculiar, but my PSP was certainly a tremendous waste of money. Currently all it does is allow me to watch stuff I've recorded on my PS3 in bed over Remote Play. Apparently this says something unfavourable about my character, MR VANIA, but I assure you, I'm just trying to squeeze some use out of an otherwise inactive lump of plastic. I have a friend who reckons the PSP had a really good run of games that nobody paid attention to for a while, though. Well, a run of games that he played a load, anyway. It's worth noting that although it's had a lot more use in total, I barely play my DS at all, either. I'm not particularly receptive to handheld gaming, I think.

They're a bit expensive and I don't like iTunes. If I were to go in that direction, it'd probably be an iPod Touch. How atrocious is atrocious? I have to plug in my current phone pretty much every evening as it is, so I'm kind of accustomed to that. That said, the Hero apparently has better battery life. But no keyboard. I'd quite like a keyboard. Then again, we got a non-functional display model in at work for photographic purposes, and the keyboard felt awful. But the keys on those dummy display models often feel crap, so I'm not sure how much to make of that. I'd quite like something with tactile input as an option, but it seems like one of those "pick two out of your three wanted criteria" situations.

Tangent: How are you liking it? My contract is coming to an end in November, and I'm pretty set on getting an Android phone. I really like the full array of input methods the G1 offers, but the Hero looks nicer in almost every other respect (aesthetics and tech specs). Or I could go for one of the Motorola ones on the way, I guess.

Once Upon a Time in Scunthorpe

Excellent stuff, everyone. Re: A DROP OF GOLDEN SUN A Aliens

Fuck, Toblix, look what you've done with your wanton inaction. Man, what a dick.

I'm embarrassingly novice at this sort of thing, so I'm sure this is obscenely trivial, but I was fairly pleased with it anyway. Basically, we're using some software to create templates that generate HTML. Unfortunately, some of the values we're pulling in are boolean, and we've been told there's no conditional logic possible with the templates' macros. Our design guy was wondering how to avoid simply printing the "Yes" or "No" to the page (as that's all the boolean variables served), so I suggested surrounding the possible output with a span or div, then embedding the macro into the class name, with the following CSS: .classYes { display : inline } .classNo { display : none } Or something to that effect. Not particularly ground-breaking, I know, but it did the job and was (to me, at least) an amusing work-around. Of course, it turned out that we could do conditional logic with the macros, after all, and the person who'd told us otherwise just didn't know what he was talking about. I suppose that's the price of using software whose documentation is a work-formerly-in-progress wiki.

I'm deeply offended by your attitude. Sorry I'm not on tonight, guys. I just got back from celebrating my nephew's birthday, and I'm feeling pretty tired, so I'm going to watch TV and proofread my friend's dissertation in bed. This is probably old age.

Or you could use the thing I MADE MYSELF that I posted right below it.

No, I never remember to check when people are playing, so I miss out on most stuff, sadly. Oh, I have Cold House and have been thinking of getting more Hood for ages now. I mainly know them through their collaberation with the cLOUDDEAD guys. Yeah, Highway 420 often reminds me of Twin Peaks. But when I think of Twin Peaks I generally am reminded of reading that Stars of the Lid are really into it: ETvKeB9SL0E (Actually, I think of Gasfarming, as that has a clip, but I couldn't find that on YouTube.)

I like how rubbish film franchises resort to toggling the "definite article" switch when they get worried about sequel fatigue. Fast and Furious, The Final Destination ... I'm sure there are others, but my memory is awful.

THE Final Destination IN THREE DIMENSIONS is pretty much exactly the same film as all the previous ones, but with a lead actor who has this permanent slightly blank look that suggests there's absolutely nothing going on in his head. I wanted to punch him in the face quite a lot for a significant portion of the film (that can be read many ways, all of them true). I don't know, people die and it's in 3D, so I guess it succeeds on those counts. If you like bad films, maybe, but understand that it is bad, and not endearingly so. Oh, and it repeatedly makes "knowing" self-referential nods, but without any actual substance or purpose to them other than "look how post-modern we are". For example, a 3D film is mentioned a few times in dialogue and is actually shown on-screen. Perhaps that's meant to be funny.

Very cool. It reminds me a tiny bit of Highway 420 by Do Make Say Think, although they're not all that similar. I think it's more the stalking-the-streets thing than anything else.

Even in tags? Not that I could spoil it for you. I've never even seen the show. I'm just wondering.

Should I also be cataloguing all the in-jokes I have with my friends?

I shouldn't overstate my opposition. I enjoyed the film. There were just things that bothered me about it.

I would like to point out that this is also a problem with almost all computer games.