Nevsky

Well done!

Your instinct is spot on, Olly does the artwork. He crops up everywhere nowadays.

I completely agree. This podcast is lovely. I only discovered it the other week, through a friend who designs the artwork for each episode. It's certainly more of a features-led podcast, as opposed to RPS, Thumbs, even Brainy Gamer, who are more topical and discussion-led. But, wow, it is immaculately produced, well researched, and really takes you on a journey. I'll have to check out Out of the Game.

Hey, I like Skid Row. -- Okay, that wasn't funny. Things are a bit weird over here. Lots of changes and/or anxiety-inducing situations coming to boil at once. - My girlfriend moved out this week. We're coming to the end of the tenancy anyway, and it was agreed that she'd move back home (Finland, in this case) - so we've not 'broken up', really. Nevertheless, it was/is still damn weird, as we've pretty much lived together for 3 years, with most of that being at university. And this year, we were the entirity of each other's social lives, as moving to London wasn't the social renaissance we'd hoped. So, doubly jarring, as that's a great big - not necessarily romantic - void in my life. - Apart from moving flat, which brings with it a frustrating amount of bureaucracy, sitting in council offices, and talking to ISP/gas/electricity/etc people on the phone, I'm also starting a Master's course in History of Film and Visual Media. Which is awesome on the one hand, but also quite intimidating. - Career-wise, I'm worried. I started seriously as a writer just under a year ago, from pretty much a standing start - and taking that into account, I've come a long way (scores of film/gaming articles, of all kinds), but I'm the kind of person who always wants to keep pushing, and I'm afraid I've hit a plateau. There's not much work in the paid sense on the horizon, and even the current relationships - with sites and editors and the like - I have are starting to stagnate a bit. Makes me feel like I'm not dynamic, dickish, lucky or arrogant enough for it. And most of the 'success' I've had has been more subtle or oblique, as opposed to career-advancing. I'm quite proud of some of the pieces I've written, and have been thrilled to have them published in some good places - but apart from the immediate kudos of publication, I'm not sensing much for the long game. Hey, that's all wonderfully cathartic and mostly incoherent. Maybe I'll join a gym!

Hey! Congratulations! As long as you don't have to make Big Brother, Hollyoaks or Come Dine With Me-related games down the line. Lobby for the Dead Set licence, instead. Or Brass Eye: The Game. Source

Ooh. Well the 'accepted good ones' are: Year One - Frank Miller / David Mazzucchelli The Dark Knight Returns - Frank Miller The Killing Joke - Alan Moore / Brian Bolland I'd definitely recommend Year One and The Killing Joke. The former is a re-written origin story (and is now the 'proper' origin, and the heavily-adapted basis for Batman Begins), with great art. The latter is a short, focused Batman/Joker examination, with particularly awesome art if you get the digitally coloured reprint. I like the Dark Knight Returns, but I think it is flawed and uneven; Miller's worldview, tone and art are also pretty unsubtle and juvenile. That said, it has one or two brilliant moments of Bat-awesome. You should start with those, I suppose, and see if you are taken in. I'd also recommend: Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth - Grant Morrison / Dave McKean (the closest thing to a proper, abrasive, inaccessible 'avant garde' Batman comic) The Long Halloween / Dark Victory - Jeph Loeb / Tim Sale (two follow ups to Year One, told over two successive years, slowly and artfully introducing Batman villains) Hush - Jeph Loeb / Jim Lee (a bit more action-heavy and balls-to-the-wall, but still quite engaging and entertaining, with added bulging torsos thanks to Lee) Batman, more than most other long-running comics characters, has some great stories going for him. Joker being a recent, extreme example. I'll stop now.

I was talking to my cousin yesterday, who said he was at a certain point, and I said I was just before that. This dialogue came up: Cousin: Aww, the scarecrow bits are awesome! Me: Yeah, I've only seen two, if there are more coming up. Cousin: Oh, yes. There's more. Me: Good, please don't tell me about them, I liked being totally surprised [big ramble about how these parts were apparently part of the embargo for pre-release reviews]... Cousin: Yeah, they're great. I love that bit when . Me: ...I've not done that bit. Cousin: Oh.

Oh, you didn't, don't worry! That's a semi-rant that's been bubbling away for quite a while.

Yep, for the game it seems you only need a loose knowledge of the world and some of the characters. You get plenty of info and biogs throughout, too, so you can easily get up to speed on those you might not have come across before. There's a difference between canon and continuity. This game is completely outside of continuity, but uses lots of established pieces of the canon in its storytelling - often with its own spin. Continuity can be 'confused bullshit' sometimes (most of the time, really), but it's a product of having such an ongoing series of stories in sequence, as well as various other series and products (various comics, tv series, films) coming out at the same time. It's just one way for fans and readers to make sense of their huge stacks of comics, and also for editors and writers to shepherd their publications. It's a bit weird, but it's the way mainstream American super-hero comics (have to?) operate. It's a strange system, especially considering its stubbornness and rigidity - especially considering how elemental most of the Batman canon and characters are: you have an rich orphan in a cape, some thugs either dressed in purple with a grin, green with an obsession with riddles, or with half-mutilated faces, with their own quirks and identity. Those are the tropes that connect the stories, so it's usually easy to get your bearings, even when they've been put through a blender. I know I'm there for the stories and characters, not how it all fits together. Isn't that the whole point of sagas, soap operas and serials? Not sure how Batman RIP and its aftermath are either 'confused' or 'bullshit', it's just the current story being played out across the Batman universe in the comics. Plus, it's given us Batman and Robin, which, three issues in, is shaping up to be lovely (and, bar the general premise and one or two references, can be read without knowing anything about recent Batman developments). [/Hey! Let's talk about comics]

I caved in and bought this yesterday. Sadly, I have immense amounts of work to do over the weekend, and we have my girlfriend's parents staying over - and they've just been introduced to Peggle, so I'm not sure if I'll get the chance to play it much. Although, I did manage to slip in about 90 minutes of play, and I'm loving how most of that was familiar from the demo, but there were loads of gobsmacking extra bits - like . I'm enjoying it.

I enjoyed this week! - I came first, twice! (sex.ign.com) - Thunderpeel, you are the most patient passenger I've had the pleasure to drive around. It was awesome seeing that bizarre pile-up/explosion/toblix-death, though. - I love the airport map. I liked it last week with sniper rifles, and this week with rockets was good too. I particularly like being able to open up with a car and 'go crazy' - even if that usually means doing a weird jump, landing on the car's side, then getting rocketed. I'd quite like a 'toblix-cackle' sample... But, yeah, the chat is probably just a string of expletives, guffaws and meaningless babble. (...we should make a podcast!)

For sure, but my laptop really isn't a gaming one. It might be able to struggle through Starcraft, but I don't want to be disappointed.

Man, that E4 game was annoying. I liked YHTBTR. Of course, it's nothing innovative, or greatly impressive on the level of 'game', but it's still something that I will pull out to show people. Mainly because, well, I know we're all literate intelli-fucks over here, and grapple with gaming criticism and concepts daily, but I know quite a few people who get confused when I start talking about games in relation to concepts like story, challenge, boss battles, achievement etc. So something like YHTBTR, or Achievement Unlocked, they're great launch-pads for those sorts of issues and discussions, especially for those to whom it wouldn't be clear from the start.

Completed this last night. What a short, lovely game. Easily going to play it again, and that is something I very rarely do. Especially with games that have such terrible storylines. Interestingly, picking up Awesome Pot Lard / Orson Scott Welles boycotting topic, there's an article on Gamasutra today about that very issue, written by Features Tsar Christian Nutt. (edit: it's a very good piece)

You're welcome! I'm glad it worked. I'm enjoying this game a lot so far. Definitely bringing up those Super Metroid/Symphony of the Night vibes, but with some crazy abilities and mad bits. And pretty sweet graphics. Story is terrible. I don't think I've ever had the Xbox Live 'simultaneous friends list playing a new game' thing before. But it's very interesting, seeing a few people online playing through, and getting updates on your friends leaderboard score as you progress with certain kills or whatever. I now know TheJamesM likes punching guys. A lot.

Have you tried places like Games Points Now? I've tried them a couple of times, and they just send over a scan of the back of a physical points card, and they're based in the UK. Harsh on Estonia, though.

I wasn't aware of Orson Scott Card's views, but it's obviously not a problem for the publishers, because they're using him quite visibly in their promotion for the game. So his writing reputation mustn't be too affected by his public opinions. Hitler's Aryan Race: it blitzkrieged my house! - ign.com

Enjoyed this as always. Got off to a terrible start as my batteries ran out, and I realised by charger is kaput as well. But things picked up Nice one with the goose chase, Wegten. I felt nice and accomplished after killing you, then realised we were on the wrong side of the city completely. Thanks. I liked the sniper match at the airport. I preferred it to the prison, because it had the open spaces, elevation and cover, but also had cars and jumps and other things that add humour and pace to what is a slower, more cat-and-mouse style mode. Also, yes, it creates those awesome GTA moments, where you'd be crouched, training your sights on a Nachimir (or someone) through the gaps in a fence, only to be beheaded by a flying Toblix in a luggage carrier.

Sorry to break up this chat (seriously, I think this is awesome), but the announcement has just broken. And, it's... Fable 3. Here are some tweets from one of the UK Inside Xbox guys: -- - Pete talking about the challenges of making the third in a series - Fable 3 will be 'bold with the game mechanics' and 'bold with the story' - 'What is the key foundation stone of role playing games'? Whatever it is it doesn't matter because he's THROWING IT AWAY. - Teaser vid now - in Fable 3 you will be the ruler of Albion - So choices and consequences effect not just your character but the whole kingdom - Concept art showing a rubbish Al Bundy king getting yelled at by his wife and badass queen using dude as footstool - So, your character will be the son or daughter of your character from fable 2 - so your fable 2 game will resonate in fable 3 - Albion much bigger and more industrialised - decisions change the course of the whole land, so I imagine it's possible to REALLY screw it up - Pete says go and look up the history of Oman for the last 100 years, as it's exactly what he wants to do in Fable 3 - They got actors to act out the entire story like a play, to see how it worked and what needed to be changed. - Judgments sound fun, people come in and present you with cases, like food theft. So you can go and investigate the crime yourself - Or just go 'DEATH!'. Which is way easier. - Touch is important in te game, replacing the expresions from Fable 2. Pete says no 'cupping' though... - 2010 is all he'll say for a release date. Not too early in 2010 either. And they're still working hard on Milo and Kate. -- I'm a bit disappointed, really. Simply because teasing a mysterious new announcement, just for it to be a new installment in a franchise is pretty boring. But it's early days yet.

Well, yeah, I thought so too, but the bit about Sinatra threw me completely, and thought it was time to inject some hard-nosed musical-cultural debate into this thumb. Anthrax, though \m/

Wait, a cover's stealing now? Admittedly, inter-cultural adaptations like My Way/Comme d'Habitude, If You Go Away/Ne me quitte pas, Gloomy Sunday/Szomorú vasárnap are a bit closer to 'stealing' than a cover, in terms of cultural appropriation. But there used to be a real market for translated versions of songs, especially in that period (before non-English bands started doing English versions, or just singing in English anyway). And it's not like there haven't been translations of English-language songs made famous in various other countries. The process is still the same as some radical covers, anyway. And, well, for those who actually care about who writes these songs, as opposed to who performs it, the international provenance of the song is always clearly stated.

1200 points for an hour's gaming?!?! This is the biggest rip-off since Braid. 1.5/10 Although the article does say that they managed those times by just ploughing through the game on a second or third playthrough, knowing the direct route and having a fully levelled-up character carried over from the completed save file. Which, frankly, is a pussy speedrun. [Listen to me, like I care about such things. I just like speedruns as insane spectator sports ( , and glitch-exploiting ones are my favourites). Sorry for being douchey.]

It also gives birth to a fascinating speed-run subculture, with people exploiting the sequence breaks to not only complete it in the quickest time, but with the least amount of items found and locations explored. So, as opposed to other speed-run-friendly games, where you'd have 'best time', or 'quickest 100%', you'd have this split for Super Metroid: Bonkers.

At the moment, all my creative juices are going into all the crazy writing I've been pumping out and sending to places. And most of my 'downtime', whenever that comes around, is spent being either anxious that I'm not getting anywhere, or bitter about everything else I read. I used to be much more creative - I was in a band, and did other music stuff on my laptop as well. I wrote and directed plays, too. Also had a shot at doing some short film projects. Most of that has been put on the backburner in the last couple of years, as I went to University, became a workaholic, and fell into a friendship group that felt more comfortable chugging beer and playing Halo 3 than having mutual writing sessions. That said, recently I've been writing something. And I even wrote a song or two to go along with it. I'd love to work on a comic at some point - but have never been able to draw well in the slightest - the closest to 'good' being that period where I obsessively traced Adrian Tomine over and over. It didn't rub off. Also... This is a terrifying prospect! Would be interested to see how it turns out, though.

Before listening to Idle Thumbs, I never really thought much about Starcraft. I played through Diablo, Warcraft II and III, but it didn't register on my radar at the time. I think, once I get a good computer again, I'll look into it. And there was some backwards Theme-age. This time listening to the 'cast, I was walking around London's Covent Garden, and moderately exploded. "I played this game backwards, and a voice low in the mix told me 'six point seven'."