Zombie zombie zombie

::steve("Steve"):: has found found a great badgerbadgerbadger "tribute".

Ban this sick filth now!

Rockstar love controversy. The GTA series was in existence for years before anyone noticed, and the only reason people started to take notice was because the media got all in a frenzy when GTA3 was released on PS2. Carmageddon had similar good fortune on the PC years ago, yet subsequent sequels didn't sell terribly well because the media had a new crusade that week.

The latest of Rockstar's games to come under the media spotlight is Bully. The BBC are running a news story about "Leicester MP Keith Vaz" (and I am, frankly, sick of hearing from the publicity seeking clown) saying that Bully should either be banned, or submitted to the BBFC for classification. Thanks Keith, you really did your home work there didn't you?

Two things: One - in the UK it's been a crime to sell games that are rated "mature" to minors for some time. Games have been granted certificates for some time too. It's illegal to sell an 18 rated dvd or video to anyone under that age, just as it's illegal to sell an 18 rated game. Rockstar have always submitted their games to the BBFC for approval, and so far they've all been 18 rated (with the exception of Midnight Club). Children shouldn't be playing them, and the parents should make sure the children aren't playing them. Full stop. The vast majority of parents won't (or shouldn't) allow their children to watch 18 rated spatter films, or porn, so why let them play games? The problem is this: Games have this "cutesy" image, and certain parents are so ignorant that they don't care what little Jimmy is doing, as long as he's not bothering them:

• "The children are quiet today dear, did you get them a new game?"
• "yes honey, they're playing that new Sim Serial Killer game that's just come out"
• "Ooh, that sounds fun, what's it about?"
• "Do you know, I have no idea. I think it involves arranging coloured squares or something"
• "How lovely - bless them…"

Everquest too?

The Psychotic Monkey has posted of his love for games, specifically Everquest 2.

I played Everquest for quite a while, getting several characters to (around) level 20, and one character up to the lofty heights of level 28. For those that don't know, the higher the level, the more experience your character has. With higher levels, comes more powerful skills and abilities, and the potential to use more powerful (and ideally cooler) equipment.

My higher level character in Everquest was a short, stocky Dwarven fellow called Belvin. Belvin was an agreeable sort for his first few levels of existence, and even managed to be reasonably personable up until level 20, at which point he could buy himself a new, shiny suit of armor. Soon after, Belvin got bitter.

Belvin, you see, was a healer. He was gifted with the ability to soothe the ills of his companions, restoring lost hit points, and making sure everyone spent more time on their feet than off them. Being a healer meant that Belvin got virtually no new cool abilities, no cooler weapons to use, and very little cool armor once he climbed into his tin-can at level 20. "Exciting" new abilities comprised mainly of improved heals, that meant that a greater amount of health was restored with each use.

As a player's level increases, so too does the challenge they face. This means the healer spends more time healing, and less time doing anything else. The "new and cool" healing abilities rapidly become lacking in usefulness, and the healers companions take more and more damage. As a result, Belvin's life became very, very dull. What began as a happy, jovial sort of adventurer soon turned into a grouchy, unpleasant little creature with poor personal hygiene and no desire for further adventure.

I've cancelled my Everquest account now. Releasing an expansion pack that catered solely for a player level that I felt I could never (reasonably) reach given the amount of time I can play, and that I had no desire to achieve, meant that a distinct lack of "new and cool" drove me away. For me, computer RPG's (since the old days of gold box D&D adventures, and The Bard's Tale) have always been about acquiring exciting new abilities or equipment, and Everquest really didn't satisfy that expectation.

Goowy

Seeing as I've already posted about Writey today, I might as well get a link to Goowy posted too. Goowy is an online personal information manager, that's definitely inspired by the cult of Apple. It's full of shiny AJAX goodness, and is well worth having a look at. I'm not sure that I'm going to make the jump across from Gmail just yet (or Google Mail, for us UK types), but it is an impressive app, all the same.

Blessed

Blessed is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most excruciatingly unfunny sitcom I have ever had the misfortune to see. Twice.

It's quite an achievement to strip Ardal O'Hanlon of his capacity to be funny, but Ben Elton has done just that. It's bad enough that O'Hanlon's character spouts large chunks of Elton's stand-up routine, but so do all the other characters. Having Mel Giedroyc read Elton's script turns her, uncannily, into a female version of Chris Barry's Gordon Brittas character. Dressing her character in a milk stained nightie (two large damp patches around her breasts) isn't even funny once, let alone funny for two whole episodes.

The whole thing tries to pass off the most cliched, abysmal baby jokes as being hugely comic, and sports the "clever" device of having the characters play a game of "most appropriate song" at random moments (in which Ben Elton demonstrates how clever he is, that he knows all these songs AND the person that wrote them).

Perhaps I'm too close to the subject matter, but how anyone could find this amusing is beyond me. The BBC really need to find some new comedy writers. Pretty much every recent BBC SitCom has been utterly abysmal ("The Green, Green Grass", and "According to Bex" to name but two, even if the later did have Jessica Stevenson in it).

Maybe it's time to write a zombie SitCom and pitch it to the BBC? People liked Shaun of the Dead…

Video iPod - Bought one

So, after all my recent negativity about the Video iPod (sorry, "iPod with video") I've now gone and bought one. Or, more specifically, I asked my parents to bring me one back from New York while they were in the good old "yoo ess of aye". See, they're cheaper that way, and having sold my trusty 4th gen version (which has served me well over the last 18 months, but is slightly lacking in capacity) it's cost me about £40 for an extra 20gig of space, 8 hours of battery, and a colour screen. Oh, and video.

Setting the thing up wasn't easy though. The iPod would sync a few hundred songs, then unmount itself. After a couple of attempts, I rebuilt my PC but the problem continued. I'd get a "write failure" on the iPod drive, or a delayed write failure. I couldn't be sure whether this was a problem with the new iPod or my PC, as I always used Firewire on my 4th gen device. Apple have robbed me of that luxury with the Nano, and now the 5th gen (with video).

Thinking it might be the iPod itself, I took it into work. Mark (who should blog, but doesn't, so no link here I'm afraid) tested it with the extensive collection of audiobooks in his iTunes library. It worked without a hitch.

I decided it must be a driver, so rebuilt my machine again, and didn't install any drivers. Before sync'ing again, I ran the iPod software update to clear off the audiobooks. The updater started, and immediately crashed with a "write failure". The iPod, for all intents and purposes, was dead. It was an ex-iPod, etc.

After going through the inevitable "oh great, an expensive paperweight" panic, I decided to try to reapply the firmware update on my iBook. Presto, hey, the update worked and the iPod came back to life. Does that make it a zombie iPod? I don't know…

So, my next step was to unplug EVERYTHING that used USB, and try to sync the iPod again. Sure enough, several hours, 50 gigs, and 9000-odd songs later, the iPod is properly sync'd.

The moral of this story? The new iPod is a power hungry little beast when used with USB (which is the only option these days) and won't warn you if it doesn't have enough power.